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Where in England was Dame Judi Dench born?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. The Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers much of the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic; and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight.\n\nThe area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. \n\nEngland's terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north (for example, the mountainous Lake District, Pennines, and Yorkshire Dales) and in the south west (for example, Dartmoor and the Cotswolds). The capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union.According to the European Statistical Agency, London is the largest Larger Urban Zone in the EU, a measure of metropolitan area which comprises a city's urban core as well as its surrounding commuting zone. London's municipal population is also the largest in the EU. England's population of over 53 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century.[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_270487.pdf 2011 Census – Population and household estimates for England and Wales, March 2011]. Accessed 31 May 2013.\n\nThe Kingdom of England—which after 1535 included Wales—ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nToponymy\n\nThe name \"England\" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means \"land of the Angles\". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as \"Engla londe\", is in the late ninth century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was then used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning \"the land inhabited by the English\", and it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was then part of the English kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years later the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went \"out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland\", thus using it in the more ancient sense. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. \n\nThe earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used. The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe that was less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England (Sasunn); similarly, the Welsh name for the English language is \"Saesneg\".\n\nAn alternative name for England is Albion. The name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo: \"Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth. In it are two very large islands called Britannia; these are Albion and Ierne\". But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written later in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion (Ἀλβίων) or insula Albionum has two possible origins. It either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover, the only part of Britain visible from the European Continent, or from the phrase the \"island of the Albiones\" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, that is attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former presumably served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend.\n\nHistory\n\nPrehistory and antiquity\n\nThe earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago. Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years. \nAfter the last ice age only large mammals such as mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros remained. Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. The sea level was lower than now and Britain was connected by land bridge to Ireland and Eurasia. \nAs the seas rose, it was separated from Ireland 10,000 years ago and from Eurasia two millennia later.\n\nThe Beaker culture arrived around 2,500 BC, introducing drinking and food vessels constructed from clay, as well as vessels used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores. It was during this time that major Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury were constructed. By heating together tin and copper, which were in abundance in the area, the Beaker culture people made bronze, and later iron from iron ores. The development of iron smelting allowed the construction of better ploughs, advancing agriculture (for instance, with Celtic fields), as well as the production of more effective weapons. \n\nDuring the Iron Age, Celtic culture, deriving from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, arrived from Central Europe. Brythonic was the spoken language during this time. Society was tribal; according to Ptolemy's Geographia there were around 20 tribes in the area. Earlier divisions are unknown because the Britons were not literate. Like other regions on the edge of the Empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans. Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic attempted to invade twice in 55 BC; although largely unsuccessful, he managed to set up a client king from the Trinovantes.\n\nThe Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD during the reign of Emperor Claudius, subsequently conquering much of Britain, and the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as Britannia province. The best-known of the native tribes who attempted to resist were the Catuvellauni led by Caratacus. Later, an uprising led by Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, ended with Boudica's suicide following her defeat at the Battle of Watling Street. This era saw a Greco-Roman culture prevail with the introduction of Roman law, Roman architecture, aqueducts, sewers, many agricultural items and silk. In the 3rd century, Emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (now York), where Constantine was subsequently proclaimed emperor. \n\nThere is debate about when Christianity was first introduced; it was no later than the 4th century, probably much earlier. According to Bede, missionaries were sent from Rome by Eleutherius at the request of the chieftain Lucius of Britain in 180 AD, to settle differences as to Eastern and Western ceremonials, which were disturbing the church. There are traditions linked to Glastonbury claiming an introduction through Joseph of Arimathea, while others claim through Lucius of Britain. By 410, during the Decline of the Roman Empire, Britain was left exposed by the end of Roman rule in Britain and the withdrawal of Roman army units, to defend the frontiers in continental Europe and partake in civil wars. Celtic Christian monastic and missionary movements flourished: Patrick (5th-century Ireland) and in the 6th century Brendan (Clonfert), Comgall (Bangor), David (Wales), Aiden (Lindisfarne) and Columba (Iona). This period of Christianity was influenced by ancient Celtic culture in its sensibilities, polity, practices and theology. Local \"congregations\" were centred in the monastic community and monastic leaders were more like chieftains, as peers, rather than in the more hierarchical system of the Roman-dominated church. \n\nMiddle Ages\n\nRoman military withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province and began to settle, initially in the eastern part of the country. Their advance was contained for some decades after the Britons' victory at the Battle of Mount Badon, but subsequently resumed, over-running the fertile lowlands of Britain and reducing the area under Brythonic control to a series of separate enclaves in the more rugged country to the west by the end of the 6th century. Contemporary texts describing this period are extremely scarce, giving rise to its description as a Dark Age. The nature and progression of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is consequently subject to considerable disagreement. Roman-dominated Christianity had in general disappeared from the conquered territories, but was reintroduced by missionaries from Rome led by Augustine from 597 onwards. Disputes between the Roman- and Celtic-dominated forms of Christianity ended in victory for the Roman tradition at the Council of Whitby (664), which was ostensibly about haircuts and the date of Easter, but more significantly, about the differences in Roman and Celtic forms of authority, theology, and practice (Lehane).\n\nDuring the settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex. Over the following centuries this process of political consolidation continued. The 7th century saw a struggle for hegemony between Northumbria and Mercia, which in the 8th century gave way to Mercian preeminence. In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the Danes culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under Alfred the Great was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the Danelaw. This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under Æthelstan in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by Eadred in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with the conquest of this united kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and again by his son Cnut in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived North Sea Empire that also included Denmark and Norway. However the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042.\n\nA dispute over the succession to Edward led to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, accomplished by an army led by Duke William of Normandy. The Normans themselves originated from Scandinavia and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new French-speaking aristocracy, whose speech had a profound and permanent effect on the English language. \n\nSubsequently the House of Plantagenet from Anjou inherited the English throne under Henry II, adding England to the budding Angevin Empire of fiefs the family had inherited in France including Aquitaine. They reigned for three centuries, some noted monarchs being Richard I, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V. The period saw changes in trade and legislation, including the signing of the Magna Carta, an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and protect the privileges of freemen. Catholic monasticism flourished, providing philosophers, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded with royal patronage. The Principality of Wales became a Plantagenet fief during the 13th century and the Lordship of Ireland was given to the English monarchy by the Pope.\n\nDuring the 14th century, the Plantagenets and the House of Valois both claimed to be legitimate claimants to the House of Capet and with it France; the two powers clashed in the Hundred Years' War. The Black Death epidemic hit England; starting in 1348, it eventually killed up to half of England's inhabitants. From 1453 to 1487 civil war occurred between two branches of the royal family—the Yorkists and Lancastrians—known as the Wars of the Roses. Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family the Tudors, a branch of the Lancastrians headed by Henry Tudor who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field where the Yorkist king Richard III was killed. \n\nEarly Modern\n\nDuring the Tudor period, the Renaissance reached England through Italian courtiers, who reintroduced artistic, educational and scholarly debate from classical antiquity. England began to develop naval skills, and exploration to the West intensified. \n\nHenry VIII broke from communion with the Catholic Church, over issues relating to his divorce, under the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England. In contrast with much of European Protestantism, the roots of the split were more political than theological. He also legally incorporated his ancestral land Wales into the Kingdom of England with the 1535–1542 acts. There were internal religious conflicts during the reigns of Henry's daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The former took the country back to Catholicism while the latter broke from it again, forcefully asserting the supremacy of Anglicanism.\n\nCompeting with Spain, the first English colony in the Americas was founded in 1585 by explorer Walter Raleigh in Virginia and named Roanoke. The Roanoke colony failed and is known as the lost colony, after it was found abandoned on the return of the late-arriving supply ship. With the East India Company, England also competed with the Dutch and French in the East. In 1588, during the Elizabethan period, an English fleet under Francis Drake defeated an invading Spanish Armada. The political structure of the island changed in 1603, when the King of Scots, James VI, a kingdom which was a longtime rival to English interests, inherited the throne of England as James I — creating a personal union. He styled himself King of Great Britain, although this had no basis in English law. Under the auspices of King James VI and I the Authorised King James Version of the Holy Bible was published in 1611. It has not only been ranked with Shakespeare's works as the greatest masterpiece of literature in the English language but also was the standard version of the Bible read by most Protestant Christians for four hundred years, until modern revisions were produced in the 20th century.\n\nBased on conflicting political, religious and social positions, the English Civil War was fought between the supporters of Parliament and those of King Charles I, known colloquially as Roundheads and Cavaliers respectively. This was an interwoven part of the wider multifaceted Wars of the Three Kingdoms, involving Scotland and Ireland. The Parliamentarians were victorious, Charles I was executed and the kingdom replaced by the Commonwealth. Leader of the Parliament forces, Oliver Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector in 1653; a period of personal rule followed. After Cromwell's death and the resignation of his son Richard as Lord Protector, Charles II was invited to return as monarch in 1660, in a move called the Restoration. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was constitutionally established that King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, also that the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without the prior approval of Parliament. Also since that time, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is sitting, which is annually commemorated at the State Opening of Parliament by the British monarch when the doors of the House of Commons are slammed in the face of the monarch's messenger, symbolising the rights of Parliament and its independence from the monarch. With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, science was greatly encouraged.\n\nIn 1666 the Great Fire of London gutted the City of London but it was rebuilt shortly afterwards with many significant buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren. In Parliament two factions had emerged — the Tories and Whigs. Though the Tories initially supported Catholic king James II, some of them, along with the Whigs, deposed him in the Revolution of 1688 and invited Dutch prince William of Orange to become William III. Some English people, especially in the north, were Jacobites and continued to support James and his sons. After the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed, the two countries joined in political union, to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. To accommodate the union, institutions such as the law and national churches of each remained separate. \n\nLate Modern and contemporary\n\nUnder the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire. Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development. The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in the canal age in Britain. In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway—the Stockton and Darlington Railway—opened to the public.\n\nDuring the Industrial Revolution, many workers moved from England's countryside to new and expanding urban industrial areas to work in factories, for instance at Manchester and Birmingham, dubbed \"Warehouse City\" and \"Workshop of the World\" respectively. England maintained relative stability throughout the French Revolution; William Pitt the Younger was British Prime Minister for the reign of George III. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon planned to invade from the south-east. However this failed to manifest and the Napoleonic forces were defeated by the British at sea by Lord Nelson and on land by the Duke of Wellington. The Napoleonic Wars fostered a concept of Britishness and a united national British people, shared with the Scots and Welsh. \n\nLondon became the largest and most populous metropolitan area in the world during the Victorian era, and trade within the British Empire—as well as the standing of the British military and navy—was prestigious. Political agitation at home from radicals such as the Chartists and the suffragettes enabled legislative reform and universal suffrage. Power shifts in east-central Europe led to World War I; hundreds of thousands of English soldiers died fighting for the United Kingdom as part of the Allies. Two decades later, in World War II, the United Kingdom was again one of the Allies. At the end of the Phoney War, Winston Churchill became the wartime Prime Minister. Developments in warfare technology saw many cities damaged by air-raids during the Blitz. Following the war, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation, and there was a speeding up of technological innovations; automobiles became the primary means of transport and Frank Whittle's development of the jet engine led to wider air travel. Residential patterns were altered in England by private motoring, and by the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. The UK's NHS provided publicly funded health care to all UK permanent residents free at the point of need, being paid for from general taxation. Combined, these changes prompted the reform of local government in England in the mid-20th century. \n\nSince the 20th century there has been significant population movement to England, mostly from other parts of the British Isles, but also from the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian subcontinent. Since the 1970s there has been a large move away from manufacturing and an increasing emphasis on the service industry. As part of the United Kingdom, the area joined a common market initiative called the European Economic Community which became the European Union. Since the late 20th century the administration of the United Kingdom has moved towards devolved governance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales continues to exist as a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. Devolution has stimulated a greater emphasis on a more English-specific identity and patriotism. There is no devolved English government, but an attempt to create a similar system on a sub-regional basis was rejected by referendum.\n\nGovernance\n\nPolitics\n\nAs part of the United Kingdom, the basic political system in England is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system. There has not been a government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union, joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England. Today England is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, although other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments. In the House of Commons which is the lower house of the British Parliament based at the Palace of Westminster, there are 532 Members of Parliament (MPs) for constituencies in England, out of the 650 total. \n\nIn the United Kingdom general election, 2015, the Conservative Party won an absolute majority in the 650 contested seats with 10 seats more than all other parties combined (the Speaker of the House not being counted as a Conservative). The Conservative party, headed by the prime minister David Cameron, won 98 more seats than the Labour Party, whose leader Ed Miliband subsequently stood down. The Scottish National Party (Scotland only) won 56 out of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons replacing the Liberal Democrats as the third largest party overall in the UK. \n\nAs the United Kingdom is a member of the European Union, there are elections held regionally in England to decide who is sent as Members of the European Parliament. The 2014 European Parliament election saw the regions of England elect the following MEPs: 22 UK Independence Party (UKIP), 17 Conservatives, 17 Labour, 3 Greens, and one Liberal Democrat.\n\nSince devolution, in which other countries of the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—each have their own devolved parliament or assemblies for local issues, there has been debate about how to counterbalance this in England. Originally it was planned that various regions of England would be devolved, but following the proposal's rejection by the North East in a referendum, this has not been carried out.\n\nOne major issue is the West Lothian question, in which MPs from Scotland and Wales are able to vote on legislation affecting only England, while English MPs have no equivalent right to legislate on devolved matters. This when placed in the context of England being the only country of the United Kingdom not to have free cancer treatment, prescriptions, residential care for the elderly and free top-up university fees, has led to a steady rise in English nationalism. Some have suggested the creation of a devolved English parliament, while others have proposed simply limiting voting on legislation which only affects England to English MPs. \n\nLaw\n\nThe English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States (except Louisiana). Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of the Courts of England and Wales continued, under the Treaty of Union, as a separate legal system from the one used in Scotland. The general essence of English law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent—stare decisis—to the facts before them. \n\nThe court system is headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice for civil cases, and the Crown Court for criminal cases. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest court for criminal and civil cases in England and Wales. It was created in 2009 after constitutional changes, taking over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. A decision of the Supreme Court is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, which must follow its directions. \n\nCrime increased between 1981 and 1995, but fell by 42% in the period 1995–2006. The prison population doubled over the same period, giving it the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000. Her Majesty's Prison Service, reporting to the Ministry of Justice, manages most prisons, housing over 85,000 convicts. \n\nRegions, counties, and districts\n\nThe subdivisions of England consist of up to four levels of subnational division controlled through a variety of types of administrative entities created for the purposes of local government. The highest tier of local government were the nine regions of England: North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, South East, South West, and London. These were created in 1994 as Government Offices, used by the UK government to deliver a wide range of policies and programmes regionally, but there are no elected bodies at this level, except in London, and in 2011 the regional government offices were abolished. The same boundaries remain in use for electing Members of the European Parliament on a regional basis.\n\nAfter devolution began to take place in other parts of the United Kingdom it was planned that referendums for the regions of England would take place for their own elected regional assemblies as a counterweight. London accepted in 1998: the London Assembly was created two years later. However, when the proposal was rejected by the northern England devolution referendums, 2004 in the North East, further referendums were cancelled. The regional assemblies outside London were abolished in 2010, and their functions transferred to respective Regional Development Agencies and a new system of local authority leaders' boards. \n\nBelow the regional level, all of England is divided into 48 ceremonial counties. These are used primarily as a geographical frame of reference and have developed gradually since the Middle Ages, with some established as recently as 1974. Each has a Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff; these posts are used to represent the British monarch locally. Outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly, England is also divided into 83 metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties; these correspond to areas used for the purposes of local government and may consist of a single district or be divided into several.\n\nThere are six metropolitan counties based on the most heavily urbanised areas, which do not have county councils. In these areas the principal authorities are the councils of the subdivisions, the metropolitan boroughs. Elsewhere, 27 non-metropolitan \"shire\" counties have a county council and are divided into districts, each with a district council. They are typically, though not always, found in more rural areas. The remaining non-metropolitan counties are of a single district and usually correspond to large towns or sparsely populated counties; they are known as unitary authorities. Greater London has a different system for local government, with 32 London boroughs, plus the City of London covering a small area at the core governed by the City of London Corporation. At the most localised level, much of England is divided into civil parishes with councils; they do not exist in Greater London. \n\nGeography\n\nLandscape and rivers\n\nGeographically England includes the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus such offshore islands as the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly. It is bordered by two other countries of the United Kingdom—to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. England is closer to the European continent than any other part of mainland Britain. It is separated from France by a 21 mi sea gap, though the two countries are connected by the Channel Tunnel near Folkestone. England also has shores on the Irish Sea, North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.\n\nThe ports of London, Liverpool, and Newcastle lie on the tidal rivers Thames, Mersey and Tyne respectively. At 220 mi, the Severn is the longest river flowing through England. It empties into the Bristol Channel and is notable for its Severn Bore tidal waves, which can reach 2 m in height. However, the longest river entirely in England is the Thames, which is 215 mi in length. There are many lakes in England; the largest is Windermere, within the aptly named Lake District. \n\nIn geological terms, the Pennines, known as the \"backbone of England\", are the oldest range of mountains in the country, originating from the end of the Paleozoic Era around 300 million years ago. Their geological composition includes, among others, sandstone and limestone, and also coal. There are karst landscapes in calcite areas such as parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. The Pennine landscape is high moorland in upland areas, indented by fertile valleys of the region's rivers. They contain three national parks, the Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland, and the Peak District. The highest point in England, at 978 m, is Scafell Pike in Cumbria. Straddling the border between England and Scotland are the Cheviot Hills.\n\nThe English Lowlands are to the south of the Pennines, consisting of green rolling hills, including the Cotswold Hills, Chiltern Hills, North and South Downs—where they meet the sea they form white rock exposures such as the cliffs of Dover. The granite Southwest Peninsula in the West Country includes upland moorland, such as Dartmoor and Exmoor, and enjoys a mild climate; both are national parks. \n\nClimate\n\nEngland has a temperate maritime climate: it is mild with temperatures not much lower than 0 °C in winter and not much higher than 32 °C in summer. The weather is damp relatively frequently and is changeable. The coldest months are January and February, the latter particularly on the English coast, while July is normally the warmest month. Months with mild to warm weather are May, June, September and October. Rainfall is spread fairly evenly throughout the year.\n\nImportant influences on the climate of England are its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, its northern latitude and the warming of the sea by the Gulf Stream. Rainfall is higher in the west, and parts of the Lake District receive more rain than anywhere else in the country. Since weather records began, the highest temperature recorded was on 10 August 2003 at Brogdale in Kent, while the lowest was on 10 January 1982 in Edgmond, Shropshire. \n\nMajor conurbations\n\nThe Greater London Urban Area is by far the largest urban area in England and one of the busiest cities in the world. It is considered a global city and has a population larger than other countries in the United Kingdom besides England itself. Other urban areas of considerable size and influence tend to be in northern England or the English Midlands. There are fifty settlements which have been designated city status in England, while the wider United Kingdom has sixty-six.\n\nWhile many cities in England are quite large in size, such as Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Bradford, Nottingham and others, a large population is not necessarily a prerequisite for a settlement to be afforded city status. Traditionally the status was afforded to towns with diocesan cathedrals and so there are smaller cities like Wells, Ely, Ripon, Truro and Chichester. According to the Office for National Statistics the ten largest, continuous built-up urban areas are:\n\nEconomy\n\nEngland's economy is one of the largest in the world, with an average GDP per capita of £22,907. Usually regarded as a mixed market economy, it has adopted many free market principles, yet maintains an advanced social welfare infrastructure. The official currency in England is the pound sterling, whose ISO 4217 code is GBP. Taxation in England is quite competitive when compared to much of the rest of Europe – the basic rate of personal tax is 20% on taxable income up to £31,865 above the personal tax-free allowance (normally £10,000), and 40% on any additional earnings above that amount. \n\nThe economy of England is the largest part of the UK's economy, which has the 18th highest GDP PPP per capita in the world. England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry, and the manufacturing side of the software industry. London, home to the London Stock Exchange, the United Kingdom's main stock exchange and the largest in Europe, is England's financial centre—100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations are based in London. London is the largest financial centre in Europe, and is the second largest in the world. \n\nThe Bank of England, founded in 1694 by Scottish banker William Paterson, is the United Kingdom's central bank. Originally established as private banker to the government of England, since 1946 it has been a state-owned institution. The bank has a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, although not in other parts of the United Kingdom. The government has devolved responsibility to the bank's Monetary Policy Committee for managing the monetary policy of the country and setting interest rates. \n\nEngland is highly industrialised, but since the 1970s there has been a decline in traditional heavy and manufacturing industries, and an increasing emphasis on a more service industry oriented economy. Tourism has become a significant industry, attracting millions of visitors to England each year. The export part of the economy is dominated by pharmaceuticals, cars (although many English marques are now foreign-owned, such as Land Rover, Lotus, Jaguar and Bentley), crude oil and petroleum from the English parts of North Sea oil along with Wytch Farm, aircraft engines and alcoholic beverages. \n\nMost of the UK's £25 billion aerospace industry is primarily based in England. The wings for the Airbus A380 and the Airbus A350 XWB are designed and manufactured at Airbus UK's world-leading facility in Broughton. GKN Aerospace – an expert in metallic and composite aerostructures is involved in almost every civil and military fixed and rotary wing aircraft in production is based in Redditch. \n\nBAE Systems makes large sections of the Typhoon Eurofighter at its sub-assembly plant in Salmesbury and assembles the aircraft for the RAF at its Warton plant, near Preston. It is also a principal subcontractor on the F35 Joint Strike Fighter – the world's largest single defence project – for which it designs and manufactures a range of components including the aft fuselage, vertical and horizontal tail and wing tips and fuel system. As well as this it manufactures the Hawk, the world's most successful jet training aircraft.\n\nRolls-Royce PLC is the world's second-largest aero-engine manufacturer. Its engines power more than 30 types of commercial aircraft, and it has more 30,000 engines currently in service across both the civil and defence sectors. With a workforce of over 12,000 people, Derby has the largest concentration of Rolls-Royce employees in the UK. Rolls-Royce also produces low-emission power systems for ships; makes critical equipment and safety systems for the nuclear industry and powers offshore platforms and major pipelines for the oil and gas industry. \n\nMuch of the UK's space industry is centred on EADS Astrium, based in Stevenage and Portsmouth. The company builds the buses – the underlying structure onto which the payload and propulsion systems are built – for most of the European Space Agency's spacecraft, as well as commercial satellites. The world leader in compact satellite systems, Surrey Satellites, is also part of Astrium. Reaction Engines Limited, the company planning to build Skylon, a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane using their SABRE rocket engine, a combined-cycle, air-breathing rocket propulsion system is based Culham.\n\nAgriculture is intensive and highly mechanised, producing 60% of food needs with only 2% of the labour force. Two thirds of production is devoted to livestock, the other to arable crops. \n\nScience and technology\n\nProminent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Dirac, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a metric system was invented by John Wilkins, the first secretary of the Royal Society, in 1668. \n\nAs the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering. Thomas Newcomen's steam engine helped spawn the Industrial Revolution. The Father of Railways, George Stephenson, built the first public inter-city railway line in the world, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. With his role in the marketing and manufacturing of the steam engine, and invention of modern coinage, Matthew Boulton (business partner of James Watt) is regarded as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in history. The physician Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine is said to have \"saved more lives ... than were lost in all the wars of mankind since the beginning of recorded history.\" \n\nInventions and discoveries of the English include: the jet engine, the first industrial spinning machine, the first computer and the first modern computer, the World Wide Web along with HTML, the first successful human blood transfusion, the motorised vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, the seat belt, the hovercraft, the electric motor, steam engines, and theories such as the Darwinian theory of evolution and atomic theory. Newton developed the ideas of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics, and calculus, and Robert Hooke his eponymously named law of elasticity. Other inventions include the iron plate railway, the thermosiphon, tarmac, the rubber band, the mousetrap, \"cat's eye\" road marker, joint development of the light bulb, steam locomotives, the modern seed drill and many modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering. \n\nTransport\n\nThe Department for Transport is the government body responsible for overseeing transport in England. There are many motorways in England, and many other trunk roads, such as the A1 Great North Road, which runs through eastern England from London to Newcastle (much of this section is motorway) and onward to the Scottish border. The longest motorway in England is the M6, from Rugby through the North West up to the Anglo-Scottish border, a distance of 232 mi. Other major routes include: the M1 from London to Leeds, the M25 which encircles London, the M60 which encircles Manchester, the M4 from London to South Wales, the M62 from Liverpool via Manchester to East Yorkshire, and the M5 from Birmingham to Bristol and the South West.\n\nBus transport across the country is widespread; major companies include National Express, Arriva and Go-Ahead Group. The red double-decker buses in London have become a symbol of England. There is a rapid rail network in two English cities: the London Underground; and the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland. There are several tram networks, such as the Blackpool tramway, Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram and Midland Metro, and the Tramlink system centred on Croydon in South London.\n\nRail transport in England is the oldest in the world: passenger railways originated in England in 1825. Much of Britain's 10000 mi of rail network lies in England, covering the country fairly extensively, although a high proportion of railway lines were closed in the second half of the 20th century. There are plans to reopen lines such as the Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge. These lines are mostly standard gauge (single, double or quadruple track) though there are also a few narrow gauge lines. There is rail transport access to France and Belgium through an undersea rail link, the Channel Tunnel, which was completed in 1994.\n\nEngland has extensive domestic and international aviation links. The largest airport is London Heathrow, which is the world's busiest airport measured by number of international passengers. Other large airports include Manchester Airport, London Stansted Airport, Luton Airport and Birmingham Airport. By sea there is ferry transport, both local and international, including to Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium. There are around 4400 mi of navigable waterways in England, half of which is owned by the Canal and River Trust, however water transport is very limited. The Thames is the major waterway in England, with imports and exports focused at the Port of Tilbury in the Thames Estuary, one of the United Kingdom's three major ports.\n\nHealthcare\n\nThe National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England responsible for providing the majority of healthcare in the country. The NHS began on 5 July 1948, putting into effect the provisions of the National Health Service Act 1946. It was based on the findings of the Beveridge Report, prepared by economist and social reformer William Beveridge. The NHS is largely funded from general taxation including National Insurance payments, and it provides most of its services free at the point of use, although there are charges for some people for eye tests, dental care, prescriptions and aspects of personal care. \n\nThe government department responsible for the NHS is the Department of Health, headed by the Secretary of State for Health, who sits in the British Cabinet. Most of the expenditure of the Department of Health is spent on the NHS—£98.6 billion was spent in 2008–2009. In recent years the private sector has been increasingly used to provide more NHS services despite opposition by doctors and trade unions. The average life expectancy of people in England is 77.5 years for males and 81.7 years for females, the highest of the four countries of the United Kingdom.\n\nDemography\n\nPopulation\n\nWith over 53 million inhabitants, England is by far the most populous country of the United Kingdom, accounting for 84% of the combined total. England taken as a unit and measured against international states has the fourth largest population in the European Union and would be the 25th largest country by population in the world. With a density of 407 people per square kilometre, it would be the second most densely populated country in the European Union after Malta. \n\nThe English people are a British people. Some genetic evidence suggests that 75–95% descend in the paternal line from prehistoric settlers who originally came from the Iberian Peninsula, as well as a 5% contribution from Angles and Saxons, and a significant Scandinavian (Viking) element. However, other geneticists place the Germanic estimate up to half. Over time, various cultures have been influential: Prehistoric, Brythonic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking (North Germanic), Gaelic cultures, as well as a large influence from Normans. There is an English diaspora in former parts of the British Empire; especially the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Since the late 1990s, many English people have migrated to Spain. \n\nIn 1086, when the Domesday Book was compiled, England had a population of two million. About ten per cent lived in urban areas. By 1801 the population had grown to 8.3 million, and by 1901 had grown to 30.5 million. Due in particular to the economic prosperity of South East England, it has received many economic migrants from the other parts of the United Kingdom. There has been significant Irish migration. The proportion of ethnically European residents totals at 87.50%, including Germans and Poles.\n\nOther people from much further afield in the former British colonies have arrived since the 1950s: in particular, 6% of people living in England have family origins in the Indian subcontinent, mostly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 2.90% of the population are black, from both the Caribbean and countries in Africa itself, especially former British colonies. There is a significant number of Chinese and British Chinese. In 2007, 22% of primary school children in England were from ethnic minority families, and in 2011 that figure was 26.5%. About half of the population increase between 1991 and 2001 was due to immigration. Debate over immigration is politically prominent; according to a 2009 Home Office poll, 80% of people want to cap it. The ONS has projected that the population will grow by six million between 2004 and 2029. \n\nLanguage\n\nAs its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue spoken by 98% of the population.[http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/QS205EW/view/2092957699?cols\nmeasures QS205EW – Proficiency in English], ONS 2011 census. Out of the 51,005,610 residents of England over the age of three, 50,161,765 (98%) can speak English \"well\" or \"very well\". Retrieved 20 July 2015. It is an Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family. After the Norman conquest, the Old English language was displaced and confined to the lower social classes as Norman French and Latin were used by the aristocracy.\n\nBy the 15th century, English was back in fashion among all classes, though much changed; the Middle English form showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the English Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins. Modern English has extended this custom of flexibility, when it comes to incorporating words from different languages. Thanks in large part to the British Empire, the English language is the world's unofficial lingua franca. \n\nEnglish language learning and teaching is an important economic activity, and includes language schooling, tourism spending, and publishing. There is no legislation mandating an official language for England, but English is the only language used for official business. Despite the country's relatively small size, there are many distinct regional accents, and individuals with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood everywhere in the country.\n\nAs well as English, England has two other indigenous languages, Cornish and Welsh. Cornish died out as a community language in the 18th century but is being revived, and is now protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It is spoken by 0.1% of people in Cornwall, and is taught to some degree in several primary and secondary schools. \n\nWhen the modern border between Wales and England was established by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, many Welsh-speaking communities found themselves on the English side of the border. Welsh was spoken in Archenfield in Herefordshire into the nineteenth century. Welsh was spoken by natives of parts of western Shropshire until the middle of the twentieth century if not later. \n\nState schools teach students a second language, usually French, German or Spanish. Due to immigration, it was reported in 2007 that around 800,000 school students spoke a foreign language at home, the most common being Punjabi and Urdu. However, following the 2011 census data released by the Office for National Statistics, figures now show that Polish is the main language spoken in England after English. \n\nReligion\n\nAccording to the 2011 census, 59.4% of the population is Christian, 24.7% non-religious, 5% is Muslim while 3.7% of the population belongs to other religions and 7.2 did not give an answer. Christianity is the most widely practised religion in England, as it has been since the Early Middle Ages, although it was first introduced much earlier in Gaelic and Roman times. This Celtic Church was gradually joined to the Catholic hierarchy following the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by St Augustine. The established church of England is Church of England, which left communion with Rome in the 1530s when Henry VIII was unable to annul his divorce to the aunt of the king of Spain. The religion regards itself as both Catholic and Reformed.\n\nThere are High Church and Low Church traditions, and some Anglicans regard themselves as Anglo-Catholics, following the Tractarian movement. The monarch of the United Kingdom is the Supreme Governor of the church, which has around 26 million baptised members (of whom the vast majority are not regular churchgoers). It forms part of the Anglican Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury acting as its symbolic worldwide head. Many cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance, such as Westminster Abbey, York Minster, Durham Cathedral, and Salisbury Cathedral.\n\nThe 2nd-largest Christian practice is the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. Since its reintroduction after the Catholic Emancipation, the Church has organised ecclesiastically on an England and Wales basis where there are 4.5 million members (most of whom are English). There has been one Pope from England to date, Adrian IV; while saints Bede and Anselm are regarded as Doctors of the Church.\n\nA form of Protestantism known as Methodism is the third largest Christian practice and grew out of Anglicanism through John Wesley. It gained popularity in the mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and amongst tin miners in Cornwall. There are other non-conformist minorities, such as Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Unitarians and The Salvation Army. \n\nThe patron saint of England is Saint George; his symbolic cross is included in the flag of England, as well as in the Union Flag as part of a combination. There are many other English and associated saints; some of the best-known are: Cuthbert, Edmund, Alban, Wilfrid, Aidan, Edward the Confessor, John Fisher, Thomas More, Petroc, Piran, Margaret Clitherow and Thomas Becket. There are non-Christian religions practised. Jews have a history of a small minority on the island since 1070. They were expelled from England in 1290 following the Edict of Expulsion, only to be allowed back in 1656.\n\nEspecially since the 1950s, religions from the former British colonies have grown in numbers, due to immigration. Islam is the most common of these, now accounting for around 5% of the population in England. Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism are next in number, adding up to 2.8% combined, introduced from India and South East Asia.\n\nA small minority of the population practice ancient Pagan religions. Neopaganism in the United Kingdom is primarily represented by Wicca and Witchcraft religions, Druidry, and Heathenry. According to the 2011 UK Census, there are roughly 53,172 people who identify as Pagan in England, and 3,448 in Wales, including 11,026 Wiccans in England and 740 in Wales.\n\nEducation\n\nThe Department for Education is the government department responsible for issues affecting people in England up to the age of 19, including education. State-run and state-funded schools are attended by approximately 93% of English schoolchildren. Of these, a minority are faith schools (primarily Church of England or Roman Catholic schools). Children who are between the ages of 3 and 5 attend nursery or an Early Years Foundation Stage reception unit within a primary school. Children between the ages of 5 and 11 attend primary school, and secondary school is attended by those aged between 11 and 16. After finishing compulsory education, students take GCSE examinations. Students may then opt to continue into further education for two years. Further education colleges (particularly sixth form colleges) often form part of a secondary school site. A-level examinations are sat by a large number of further education students, and often form the basis of an application to university.\n\nAlthough most English secondary schools are comprehensive, in some areas there are selective intake grammar schools, to which entrance is subject to passing the Eleven-Plus exam. Around 7.2% of English schoolchildren attend private schools, which are funded by private sources. Standards in state schools are monitored by the Office for Standards in Education, and in private schools by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. \n\nHigher education students normally attend university from age 18 onwards, where they study for an academic degree. There are over 90 universities in England, all but one of which are public institutions. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is the government department responsible for higher education in England. Students are generally entitled to student loans to cover the cost of tuition fees and living costs. The first degree offered to undergraduates is the Bachelor's degree, which usually takes three years to complete. Students are then able to work towards a postgraduate degree, which usually takes one year, or towards a doctorate, which takes three or more years.\n\nEngland's universities include some of the highest-ranked universities in the world; Cambridge University, Imperial College London, Oxford University, University College London and King's College London are all ranked in the global top 20 in the 2014–2015 QS World University Rankings. The London School of Economics has been described as the world's leading social science institution for both teaching and research. The London Business School is considered one of the world's leading business schools and in 2010 its MBA programme was ranked best in the world by the Financial Times. Academic degrees in England are usually split into classes: first class (1st), upper second class (2:1), lower second class (2:2), third (3rd), and unclassified.\n\nThe King's School, Canterbury and King's School, Rochester are the oldest schools in the English-speaking world. Many of England's most well-known schools, such as Winchester College, Eton, St Paul's School, Harrow School and Rugby School are fee-paying institutions. \n\nCulture\n\nArchitecture\n\nMany ancient standing stone monuments were erected during the prehistoric period, amongst the best-known are Stonehenge, Devil's Arrows, Rudston Monolith and Castlerigg. With the introduction of Ancient Roman architecture there was a development of basilicas, baths, amphitheaters, triumphal arches, villas, Roman temples, Roman roads, Roman forts, stockades and aqueducts. It was the Romans who founded the first cities and towns such as London, Bath, York, Chester and St Albans. Perhaps the best-known example is Hadrian's Wall stretching right across northern England. Another well-preserved example is the Roman Baths at Bath, Somerset.\n\nEarly Medieval architecture's secular buildings were simple constructions mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Ecclesiastical architecture ranged from a synthesis of Hiberno—Saxon monasticism, to Early Christian basilica and architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings. After the Norman conquest in 1066 various Castles in England were created so law lords could uphold their authority and in the north to protect from invasion. Some of the best-known medieval castles are the Tower of London, Warwick Castle, Durham Castle and Windsor Castle.\n\nThroughout the Plantagenet era an English Gothic architecture flourished—the medieval cathedrals such as Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and York Minster are prime examples. Expanding on the Norman base there was also castles, palaces, great houses, universities and parish churches. Medieval architecture was completed with the 16th-century Tudor style; the four-centred arch, now known as the Tudor arch, was a defining feature as were wattle and daub houses domestically. In the aftermath of the Renaissance a form of architecture echoing classical antiquity, synthesised with Christianity appeared—the English Baroque style, architect Christopher Wren was particularly championed. \n\nGeorgian architecture followed in a more refined style, evoking a simple Palladian form; the Royal Crescent at Bath is one of the best examples of this. With the emergence of romanticism during Victorian period, a Gothic Revival was launched—in addition to this around the same time the Industrial Revolution paved the way for buildings such as The Crystal Palace. Since the 1930s various modernist forms have appeared whose reception is often controversial, though traditionalist resistance movements continue with support in influential places.\n\nFolklore\n\nEnglish folklore developed over many centuries. Some of the characters and stories are present across England, but most belong to specific regions. Common folkloric beings include pixies, giants, elves, bogeymen, trolls, goblins and dwarves. While many legends and folk-customs are thought to be ancient, for instance the tales featuring Offa of Angel and Wayland the Smith, others date from after the Norman invasion; Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood and their battles with the Sheriff of Nottingham being, perhaps, the best known. \n\nDuring the High Middle Ages tales originating from Brythonic traditions entered English folklore—the Arthurian myth. These were derived from Anglo-Norman, Welsh and French sources, featuring King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table such as Lancelot. These stories are most centrally brought together within Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Another early figure from British tradition, King Cole, may have been based on a real figure from Sub-Roman Britain. Many of the tales and pseudo-histories make up part of the wider Matter of Britain, a collection of shared British folklore.\n\nSome folk figures are based on semi or actual historical people whose story has been passed down centuries; Lady Godiva for instance was said to have ridden naked on horseback through Coventry, Hereward the Wake was a heroic English figure resisting the Norman invasion, Herne the Hunter is an equestrian ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park and Mother Shipton is the archetypal witch. On 5 November people make bonfires, set off fireworks and eat toffee apples in commemoration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot centred on Guy Fawkes. The chivalrous bandit, such as Dick Turpin, is a recurring character, while Blackbeard is the archetypal pirate. There are various national and regional folk activities, participated in to this day, such as Morris dancing, Maypole dancing, Rapper sword in the North East, Long Sword dance in Yorkshire, Mummers Plays, bottle-kicking in Leicestershire, and cheese-rolling at Cooper's Hill. There is no official national costume, but a few are well established such as the Pearly Kings and Queens associated with cockneys, the Royal Guard, the Morris costume and Beefeaters. \n\nCuisine\n\nSince the early modern period the food of England has historically been characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. During the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance period, English cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation, though a decline began during the Industrial Revolution with the move away from the land and increasing urbanisation of the populace. The cuisine of England has, however, recently undergone a revival, which has been recognised by the food critics with some good ratings in Restaurants best restaurant in the world charts. An early book of English recipes is the Forme of Cury from the royal court of Richard II. \n\nTraditional examples of English food include the Sunday roast, featuring a roasted joint (usually beef, lamb, chicken or pork) served with assorted vegetables, Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. Other prominent meals include fish and chips and the full English breakfast (generally consisting of bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes, fried bread, black pudding, baked beans, mushrooms, and eggs). Various meat pies are consumed such as steak and kidney pie, steak and ale pie, cottage pie, pork pie (the latter usually eaten cold) and the Cornish Pasty.\n\nSausages are commonly eaten, either as bangers and mash or toad in the hole. Lancashire hotpot is a well known stew in the northwest. Some of the more popular cheeses are Cheddar, Red Leicester and Wensleydale together with Blue Stilton. Many Anglo-Indian hybrid dishes, curries, have been created such as chicken tikka masala and balti. Traditional English dessert dishes include apple pie or other fruit pies; spotted dick – all generally served with custard; and, more recently, sticky toffee pudding. Sweet pastries include scones (either plain or containing dried fruit) served with jam and/or cream, dried fruit loaves, Eccles cakes and mince pies as well as a wide range of sweet or spiced biscuits. Common drinks include tea, whose popularity was increased by Catherine of Braganza, whilst frequently consumed alcoholic drinks include wines, ciders and English beers, such as bitter, mild, stout, and brown ale. \n\nVisual arts\n\nThe earliest known examples are the prehistoric rock and cave art pieces, most prominent in North Yorkshire, Northumberland and Cumbria, but also feature further south, for example at Creswell Crags. With the arrival of Roman culture in the 1st century, various forms of art utilising statues, busts, glasswork and mosaics were the norm. There are numerous surviving artefacts, such as those at Lullingstone and Aldborough. During the Early Middle Ages the style favoured sculpted crosses and ivories, manuscript painting, gold and enamel jewellery, demonstrating a love of intricate, interwoven designs such as in the Staffordshire Hoard discovered in 2009. Some of these blended Gaelic and Anglian styles, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and Vespasian Psalter. Later Gothic art was popular at Winchester and Canterbury, examples survive such as Benedictional of St. Æthelwold and Luttrell Psalter.\n\nThe Tudor era saw prominent artists as part of their court, portrait painting which would remain an enduring part of English art, was boosted by German Hans Holbein, natives such as Nicholas Hilliard built on this. Under the Stuarts, Continental artists were influential especially the Flemish, examples from the period include—Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller and William Dobson. The 18th century was a time of significance with the founding of the Royal Academy, a classicism based on the High Renaissance prevailed—Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds became two of England's most treasured artists.\n\nThe Norwich School continued the landscape tradition, while the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with their vivid and detailed style revived the Early Renaissance style—Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais were leaders. Prominent amongst 20th-century artists was Henry Moore, regarded as the voice of British sculpture, and of British modernism in general. Contemporary painters include Lucian Freud, whose work Benefits Supervisor Sleeping in 2008 set a world record for sale value of a painting by a living artist. \n\nLiterature, poetry and philosophy\n\nEarly authors such as Bede and Alcuin wrote in Latin. The period of Old English literature provided the epic poem Beowulf and the secular prose of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with Christian writings such as Judith, Cædmon's Hymn and hagiographies. Following the Norman conquest Latin continued amongst the educated classes, as well as an Anglo-Norman literature.\n\nMiddle English literature emerged with Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, along with Gower, the Pearl Poet and Langland. William of Ockham and Roger Bacon, who were Franciscans, were major philosophers of the Middle Ages. Julian of Norwich, who wrote Revelations of Divine Love, was a prominent Christian mystic. With the English Renaissance literature in the Early Modern English style appeared. William Shakespeare, whose works include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, remains one of the most championed authors in English literature. \n\nChristopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, and Ben Jonson are other established authors of the Elizabethan age. Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes wrote on empiricism and materialism, including scientific method and social contract. Filmer wrote on the Divine Right of Kings. Marvell was the best-known poet of the Commonwealth, while John Milton authored Paradise Lost during the Restoration.\n\nSome of the most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment were John Locke, Thomas Paine, Samuel Johnson and Jeremy Bentham. More radical elements were later countered by Edmund Burke who is regarded as the founder of conservatism. The poet Alexander Pope with his satirical verse became well regarded. The English played a significant role in romanticism: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake and William Wordsworth were major figures. \n\nIn response to the Industrial Revolution, agrarian writers sought a way between liberty and tradition; William Cobbett, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were main exponents, while the founder of guild socialism, Arthur Penty, and cooperative movement advocate G. D. H. Cole are somewhat related. Empiricism continued through John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, while Bernard Williams was involved in analytics. Authors from around the Victorian era include Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells and Lewis Carroll. Since then England has continued to produce novelists such as George Orwell, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, C. S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, Aldous Huxley, Agatha Christie, Terry Pratchett, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling. \n\nPerforming arts\n\nThe traditional folk music of England is centuries old and has contributed to several genres prominently; mostly sea shanties, jigs, hornpipes and dance music. It has its own distinct variations and regional peculiarities. Wynkyn de Worde printed ballads of Robin Hood from the 16th century are an important artefact, as are John Playford's The Dancing Master and Robert Harley's Roxburghe Ballads collections. Some of the best-known songs are Greensleeves, Pastime with Good Company, Maggie May and Spanish Ladies amongst others. Many nursery rhymes are of English origin such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Roses are red, Jack and Jill, London Bridge Is Falling Down, The Grand Old Duke of York, Hey Diddle Diddle and Humpty Dumpty. Traditional English Christmas carols include \"We Wish You a Merry Christmas\", \"The First Noel\" and \"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen\". \n\nEarly English composers in classical music include Renaissance artists Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, followed up by Henry Purcell from the Baroque period. German-born George Frideric Handel became a British subject and spent most of his composing life in London, creating some of the most well-known works of classical music, The Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. One of his four Coronation Anthems, Zadok the Priest, composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing. There was a revival in the profile of composers from England in the 20th century led by Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and others. Present-day composers from England include Michael Nyman, best known for The Piano, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have achieved enormous success in the West End and worldwide. \n\nIn the field of popular music, many English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, Rod Stewart and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling recording artists in the world. Many musical genres have origins in (or strong associations with) England, such as British invasion, progressive rock, hard rock, Mod, glam rock, heavy metal, Britpop, indie rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, garage, trip hop, drum and bass and dubstep. \n\nLarge outdoor music festivals in the summer and autumn are popular, such as Glastonbury, V Festival, and the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The most prominent opera house in England is the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The Proms – a season of orchestral classical concerts held at the Royal Albert Hall in London – is a major cultural event in the English calendar, and takes place yearly. The Royal Ballet is one of the world's foremost classical ballet companies, its reputation built on two prominent figures of 20th-century dance, prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn and choreographer Frederick Ashton.\n\nCinema\n\nEngland (and the UK as a whole) has had a considerable influence on the history of the cinema, producing some of the greatest actors, directors and motion pictures of all time, including Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David Lean, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and Daniel Day-Lewis. Hitchcock and Lean are among the most critically acclaimed of all-time. Hitchcock's first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926), helped shape the thriller genre in film, while his 1929 film, Blackmail, is often regarded as the first British sound feature film. \n\nMajor film studios in England include Pinewood, Elstree and Shepperton. Some of the most commercially successful films of all time have been produced in England, including two of the highest-grossing film franchises (Harry Potter and James Bond). Ealing Studios in London has a claim to being the oldest continuously working film studio in the world. Famous for recording many motion picture film scores, the London Symphony Orchestra first performed film music in 1935. \n\nThe BFI Top 100 British films includes Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), a film regularly voted the funniest of all time by the UK public. English producers are also active in international co-productions and English actors, directors and crew feature regularly in American films. The UK film council ranked David Yates, Christopher Nolan, Mike Newell, Ridley Scott and Paul Greengrass the five most commercially successful English directors since 2001. Other contemporary English directors include Sam Mendes, Guy Ritchie and Steve McQueen. Current actors include Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig, Benedict Cumberbatch and Emma Watson. Acclaimed for his motion capture work, Andy Serkis opened The Imaginarium Studios in London in 2011. The visual effects company Framestore in London has produced some of the most critically acclaimed special effects in modern film. Many successful Hollywood films have been based on English people, stories or events. The 'English Cycle' of Disney animated films include Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh. \n\nMuseums, libraries, and galleries\n\nEnglish Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing the historic sites, artefacts and environments of England. It is currently sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The charity National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty holds a contrasting role. 17 of the 25 United Kingdom UNESCO World Heritage Sites fall within England. Some of the best-known of these are: Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites, Tower of London, Jurassic Coast, Saltaire, Ironbridge Gorge, Studley Royal Park and various others. \n\nThere are many museums in England, but perhaps the most notable is London's British Museum. Its collection of more than seven million objects is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, sourced from every continent, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. The British Library in London is the national library and is one of the world's largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; including around 25 million books. The most senior art gallery is the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, which houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The Tate galleries house the national collections of British and international modern art; they also host the famously controversial Turner Prize. \n\nSports\n\nEngland has a strong sporting heritage, and during the 19th century codified many sports that are now played around the world. Sports originating in England include association football, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, tennis, boxing, badminton, squash, rounders, hockey, snooker, billiards, darts, table tennis, bowls, netball, thoroughbred horseracing, greyhound racing and fox hunting. It has helped the development of golf, sailing and Formula One.\n\nFootball is the most popular of these sports. The England national football team, whose home venue is Wembley Stadium, played Scotland in the first ever international football match in 1872. Referred to as the \"home of football\" by FIFA, England hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup, and won the tournament by defeating West Germany 4–2 in the final, with Geoff Hurst scoring a hat-trick. With a British television audience peak of 32.30 million viewers, the final is the most watched television event ever in the UK. \n\nAt club level England is recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, due to Sheffield F.C. founded in 1857 being the world's oldest club. The Football Association is the oldest governing body in the sport, with the rules of football first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley. The FA Cup and The Football League were the first cup and league competitions respectively. In the modern day the Premier League is the world's most-watched football league, most lucrative, and amongst the elite. \n\nAs is the case throughout the UK, football in England is renowned for the intense rivalries between clubs and the passion of the supporters, which includes a tradition of football chants, such as, \"You're Not Singing Any More\" (or its variant \"We Can See You Sneaking Out!\"), sung by jubilant fans towards the opposition fans who have gone silent (or left early). The European Cup (now UEFA Champions League) has been won by Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Chelsea, while Arsenal, and Leeds United have reached the final. Other English clubs have enjoyed success, Tottenham Hotspur, Ipswich Town, Chelsea, and Liverpool have won the UEFA Cup, renamed UEFA Europa League.\n\nCricket is generally thought to have been developed in the early medieval period among the farming and metalworking communities of the Weald. The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales team. One of the game's top rivalries is The Ashes series between England and Australia, contested since 1882. The climax of the 2005 Ashes was viewed by 7.4 million as it was available on terrestrial television. England has hosted four Cricket World Cups (1975, 1979, 1983, 1999) and will host the 2019 edition, but never won the tournament, reaching the final 3 times. However they have hosted the ICC World Twenty20 in 2009, winning this format in 2010 beating rivals Australia in the final. In the domestic competition, the County Championship, Yorkshire are by far the most successful club having won the competition 31 times. Lord's Cricket Ground situated in London is sometimes referred to as the \"Mecca of Cricket\". \n\nWilliam Penny Brookes was prominent in organising the format for the modern Olympic Games. In 1994, then President of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, laid a wreath on Brooke's grave, and said, \"I came to pay homage and tribute to Dr Brookes, who really was the founder of the modern Olympic Games\". London has hosted the Summer Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948, and 2012. England competes in the Commonwealth Games, held every four years. Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.\n\nRugby union originated in Rugby School, Warwickshire in the early 19th century. The England rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the country was one of the host nations of the competition in the 1991 Rugby World Cup and is set to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The top level of club participation is the English Premiership. Leicester Tigers, London Wasps, Bath Rugby and Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.\n\nRugby league was born in Huddersfield in 1895. Since 2008, the England national rugby league team has been a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, which won three World Cups but is now retired. Club sides play in Super League, the present-day embodiment of the Rugby Football League Championship. Rugby League is most popular among towns in the northern English counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria. All eleven English clubs in Super League are based in the north of England. Some of the most successful clubs include Wigan Warriors, St Helens, Leeds Rhinos and Huddersfield Giants; the former three have all won the World Club Challenge previously.\n\nGolf has been prominent in England; due in part to its cultural and geographical ties to Scotland, the home of Golf. There are both professional tours for men and women, in two main tours: the PGA and the European Tour. England has produced grand slam winners: Cyril Walker, Tony Jacklin, Nick Faldo, and Justin Rose in the men's and Laura Davies, Alison Nicholas, and Karen Stupples in the women's. The world's oldest golf tournament, and golf's first major, is The Open Championship, played both in England and Scotland. The biennial golf competition, the Ryder Cup, is named after English businessman Samuel Ryder who sponsored the event and donated the trophy. Nick Faldo is the most successful Ryder Cup player ever, having won the most points (25) of any player on either the European or U.S. teams. \n\nTennis was created in Birmingham, England in the late 19th century, and the Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious. Fred Perry was the last Englishman to win Wimbledon in 1936. He was the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and helped lead the Great Britain team to victory over France in the Davis Cup in 1933. English women who have won Wimbledon include: Ann Haydon Jones won in 1969 and Virginia Wade in 1977.\n\nIn boxing, under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, England has produced many world champions across the weight divisions internationally recognised by the governing bodies. World champions include Bob Fitzsimmons, Ted \"Kid\" Lewis, Randolph Turpin, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis, Ricky Hatton, Naseem Hamed, Amir Khan, Carl Froch, and David Haye. In women's boxing, Nicola Adams became the world's first woman to win an Olympic boxing Gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics.\n\nThe 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone was the first race in the newly created Formula One World Championship. Since then, England has produced some of the greatest drivers in the sport, including; John Surtees, Stirling Moss, Graham Hill (only driver to have won the Triple Crown), Nigel Mansell (only man to hold F1 and IndyCar titles at the same time), Damon Hill, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. It has manufactured some of the most technically advanced racing cars, and many of today's racing companies choose England as their base of operations for its engineering knowledge and organisation. McLaren Automotive, Williams F1, Team Lotus, Honda, Brawn GP, Benetton, Renault, and Red Bull Racing are all, or have been, located in the south of England. England also has a rich heritage in Grand Prix motorcycle racing, the premier championship of motorcycle road racing, and produced several World Champions across all the various class of motorcycle: Mike Hailwood, John Surtees, Phil Read, Geoff Duke, and Barry Sheene.\n\nDarts is a widely popular sport in England; a professional competitive sport, darts is a traditional pub game. The sport is governed by the World Darts Federation, one of its member organisations is the BDO, which annually stages the Lakeside World Professional Championship, the other being the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), which runs its own world championship at Alexandra Palace in London. Phil Taylor is widely regarded as the best darts player of all time, having won 187 professional tournaments, and a record 16 World Championships. Trina Gulliver is the ten-time Women's World Professional Darts Champion of the British Darts Organisation. Another popular sport commonly associated with pub games is Snooker, and England has produced several world champions, including Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan.\n\nThe English are keen sailors and enjoy competitive sailing; founding and winning some of the worlds most famous and respected international competitive tournaments across the various race formats, including the match race, a regatta, and the America's Cup. England has produced some of the world's greatest sailors, including, Francis Chichester, Herbert Hasler, John Ridgway, Robin Knox-Johnston, Ellen MacArthur, Mike Golding, Paul Goodison, and the most successful Olympic sailor ever Ben Ainslie. \n\nNational symbols\n\nThe St George's Cross has been the national flag of England since the 13th century. Originally the flag was used by the maritime Republic of Genoa. The English monarch paid a tribute to the Doge of Genoa from 1190 onwards, so that English ships could fly the flag as a means of protection when entering the Mediterranean.\nA red cross was a symbol for many Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. It became associated with Saint George, along with countries and cities, which claimed him as their patron saint and used his cross as a banner. Since 1606 the St George's Cross has formed part of the design of the Union Flag, a Pan-British flag designed by King James I.\n\nThere are numerous other symbols and symbolic artefacts, both official and unofficial, including the Tudor rose, the nation's floral emblem, and the Three Lions featured on the Royal Arms of England. The Tudor rose was adopted as a national emblem of England around the time of the Wars of the Roses as a symbol of peace. It is a syncretic symbol in that it merged the white rose of the Yorkists and the red rose of the Lancastrians—cadet branches of the Plantagenets who went to war over control of the nation. It is also known as the Rose of England. The oak tree is a symbol of England, representing strength and endurance. The Royal Oak symbol and Oak Apple Day commemorate the escape of King Charles II from the grasp of the parliamentarians after his father's execution: he hid in an oak tree to avoid detection before safely reaching exile.\n\nThe Royal Arms of England, a national coat of arms featuring three lions, originated with its adoption by Richard the Lionheart in 1198. It is blazoned as gules, three lions passant guardant or and it provides one of the most prominent symbols of England; it is similar to the traditional arms of Normandy. England does not have an official designated national anthem, as the United Kingdom as a whole has God Save the Queen. However, the following are often considered unofficial English national anthems:\nJerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory (used for England during the 2002 Commonwealth Games), and I Vow to Thee, My Country. England's National Day is 23 April which is St George's Day: St George is the patron saint of England.",
"Dame Judith Olivia \"Judi\" Dench, (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress and author. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work, and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968.\n\nOver the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She achieved success in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984, and in 1992 with a starring role in the romantic comedy series As Time Goes By. Her film appearances were infrequent and included supporting roles in major films such as A Room with a View (1986) supporting Maggie Smith, before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre (2015). She received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown (1997) and the following year won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Shakespeare in Love. A seven-time Oscar nominee, she has also received nominations for her roles in Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), and Philomena (2013).\n\nDench has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship (2001) and the Special Olivier Award (2004). In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). Dench is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).\n\nEarly life\n\nDench was born in Heworth, North Riding of Yorkshire. Her mother, Eleanora Olive (née Jones), was born in Dublin. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset, and later moved to Dublin, where he was raised. He met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. \n\nDench attended The Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker. Her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Tyldesley, Lancashire. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a Roman historian and professor previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University. \n\nCareer\n\nIn Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, primarily through her work in theatre, which has been her forte throughout her career. She has more than once been named number one in polls for Britain's best actor.\n\nEarly years\n\nThrough her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. In 1957, in one of the last productions in which she appeared during this period, she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. She applied and was accepted, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave, graduating with a first class degree in drama and four acting prizes, one being the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.\n\nIn September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. A recent history of Britain in the years 1957-1962, one volume in a series, cites a contemporaneous review of her performance: \"has talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it.\" Dench then made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York debut), and as directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli.tr During this period, she toured the United States and Canada, and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961 playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London, and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963 (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council), and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret.\n\nProminence\n\nThe 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was made to Dench for her performance in Four in the Morning and this was followed in 1968 by a BAFTA Television Best Actress Award for her role in John Hopkins' 1966 BBC drama Talking to a Stranger.\n\nIn 1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret. As Sheridan Morley later reported: \"At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a permanent cold. So frightened was she of singing in public that she auditioned from the wings, leaving the pianists alone on stage\". But when it opened at the Palace Theatre in February 1968, Frank Marcus, reviewing for Plays and Players, commented that: \"She sings well. The title song in particular is projected with great feeling.\"\n\nAfter a long run in Cabaret, she rejoined the RSC making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London for nearly twenty years, winning several \"best actress\" awards. Among her roles with the RSC, she was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. In the Stratford 1976 season, and then at the Aldwych in 1977, she gave two comedy performances, first in Trevor Nunn's musical staging of The Comedy of Errors as Adriana, then partnered with Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedick in John Barton's \"British Raj\" revival of Much Ado About Nothing. As Bernard Levin wrote in The Sunday Times: \"...demonstrating once more that she is a comic actress of consummate skill, perhaps the very best we have.\" One of her most notable achievements with the RSC was her performance as Lady Macbeth in 1976. Nunn's acclaimed production of Macbeth was first staged with a minimalist design at The Other Place theatre in Stratford. Its small round stage focused attention on the psychological dynamics of the characters, and both Ian McKellen in the title role, and Dench, received exceptionally favourable notices. \"If this is not great acting I don't know what is\", wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian. \"It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation\", commented J C Trewin in The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, and was adapted for television, later released on VHS and DVD. Dench won the SWET Best Actress Award in 1977.\n\nDench was nominated for a BAFTA for her role as Hazel Wiles in the 1979 BBC drama On Giant's Shoulders. In 1989, she was cast as Pru Forrest, the long-time silent wife of Tom Forrest, in the BBC soap opera The Archers on its 10,000th edition. She had a romantic role in the BBC television film Langrishe, Go Down (1978), with Jeremy Irons and a screenplay by Harold Pinter from the Aidan Higgins novel, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside. Dench made her debut as a director in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice. She has made numerous appearances in the West End including the role of Miss Trant in the 1974 musical version of The Good Companions at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1981, Dench was due to play Grizabella in the original production of Cats, but was forced to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon, leaving Elaine Paige to play the role. She has acted with the National Theatre in London where, she played an unforgettable Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1987). In September 1995, she played Desiree Armfeldt in a major revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, for which she won an Olivier Award.\n\nPopular success\n\nAfter the long period between James Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), the producers brought in Dench to take over as the role of M, James Bond's boss. The character was reportedly modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996,; Dench became the first woman to portray M, succeeding Robert Brown. The seventeenth spy film in the series and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer, GoldenEye marked the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided the plot's back story. The film earned a worldwide gross of US$350.7 million, with critics viewing the film as a modernisation of the series. \n\nIn 1997, Dench appeared in her first starring film role as Queen Victoria in John Madden's teleplay Mrs Brown which depicts Victoria's relationship with her personal servant and favourite John Brown, played by Billy Connolly. Filmed with the intention of being shown on BBC One and on WGBH's Masterpiece Theatre, it was eventually acquired by Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein, who felt the drama film should receive a theatrical release after seeing it and took it from the BBC to US cinemas. Released to generally positive reviews and unexpected commercial success, going on to earn more than $13 million worldwide, the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. For her performance, Dench garnered universal acclaim by critics and was awarded her fourth BAFTA and first Best Actress nomination at the 70th Academy Awards. In 2011, while accepting a British Film Institute Award in London, Dench commented that the project launched her Hollywood career and joked that \"it was thanks to Harvey, whose name I have had tattooed on my bum ever since.\"\n\nDench's other film of 1997 was Roger Spottiswoode's Tomorrow Never Dies, her second film in the James Bond series. The spy film follows Bond, played by Brosnan, as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering world events and starting World War III. Shot in France, Thailand, Germany, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and the South China Sea, it performed well at the box office and earned a Golden Globe nomination despite mixed reviews. The same year, Dench reteamed with director John Madden to film Shakespeare in Love (1998), a romantic comedy-drama that depicts a love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, while he was writing the play Romeo and Juliet. On her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, The New York Times commented that \"Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats.\" The following year, she was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, winning both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. On her Oscar win, Dench joked on-stage, \"I feel for eight minutes on the screen I should only get a little bit of him.\" \n\nAlso in 1999, Dench won the Tony Award for her 1999 Broadway performance in the role of Esme Allen in Sir David Hare's Amy's View. The same year, she co-starred along with Cher, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, and Lily Tomlin in Franco Zeffirelli's semi-autobiographical period drama Tea with Mussolini which tells the story of young Italian boy Luca's upbringing by a circle of British and American women, before and during World War II. 1999 also saw the release of Pierce Brosnan's third Bond film, The World is Not Enough. This film portrayed M in a larger role with the main villain, Renard, coming back to haunt her when he engineers the murder of her old friend Sir Robert King and seemingly attempts to kill his daughter Electra.\n\n2001–2005\n\nIn January 2001, Dench's husband Michael Williams died from lung cancer. Dench went to Nova Scotia, Canada, almost immediately after Williams's funeral to begin production on Lasse Hallström's drama film The Shipping News, a therapy she later credited as her rescue: \"People, friends, kept saying, 'You are not facing up to it; you need to face up to it,' and maybe they were right, but I felt I was – in the acting. Grief supplies you with an enormous amount of energy. I needed to use that up.\" In between, Dench finished work on Richard Eyre's film Iris (2001), in which she portrayed novelist Iris Murdoch. Dench shared her role with Kate Winslet, both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life. Each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Dench her fourth nomination within five years. In addition, she was awarded both an ALFS Award and the Best Leading Actress Award at the 55th British Academy Film Awards.\n\nFollowing Iris, Dench immediately returned to Canada to finish The Shipping News alongside Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by E. Annie Proulx, the drama revolves around a quiet and introspective typesetter (Spacey) who, after the death of his daughter's mother, moves to Newfoundland along with his daughter and his aunt, played by Dench, in hopes of starting his life anew in the small town where she grew up. The film earned mixed reviews from critics, and was financially unsuccessful, taking in just US$24 million worldwide with a budget of US$35 million. Dench however, received BAFTA and SAG Award nominations for her performance.\n\nIn 2002, Dench was cast opposite Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon in Oliver Parker's The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy about mistaken identity set in English high society during the Victorian Era. Based on Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners of the same name, she portrayed Lady Bracknell, a role she had repeatedly played before, including a stint at the Royal National Theatre in 1982. The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics – who called it \"breezy entertainment, helped by an impressive cast\", but felt that it also suffered \"from some peculiar directorial choices\" – and earned just US$17.3 million during its limited release. Dench's other film of 2002 was Die Another Day, the twentieth installment in the James Bond series. The Lee Tamahori–directed spy film marked her fourth appearance as MI6 head M and the franchise's last performance by Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Die Another Day received generally mixed reviews by critics who praised Tamahori's work on the film, but claimed the plot was damaged by excessive use of CGI. Regardless, it became the highest-grossing James Bond film up to that time. \n\nIn 2004, Dench appeared as Aereon, an ambassador of the Elemental race who helps uncover the mysterious past of Richard B. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, in David Twohy's science fiction sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick. Selected by Diesel, who prompted writers to re-create the character to fit a female persona because he wanted to work with the actress, she called filming \"tremendous fun\", although she \"had absolutely no idea what was going on in the plot.\" The film was a critical and box office failure. In his review of the film, James Berardinelli from ReelViews remarked that he felt that Dench's character served no more \"useful purpose than to give [her] an opportunity to appear in a science fiction movie.\" \n\nShe followed Riddick with a more traditional role in Charles Dance's English drama Ladies in Lavender, also starring friend Maggie Smith. In the film, Dench plays one half of a sister duo and takes it upon herself to nurse a washed up stranger to health, eventually finding herself falling for a man many decades younger than she. The specialty release garnered positive reviews from critics, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it \"perfectly sweet and civilized [and] a pleasure to watch Smith and Dench together; their acting is so natural it could be breathing.\" Also in 2004, Dench provided her voice for several smaller projects. In Walt Disney's Home on the Range, she, along with Roseanne Barr and Jennifer Tilly, voiced a mismatched trio of dairy cows who must capture an infamous cattle rustler, for his bounty, in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. The film was mildly successful for Disney. \n\nA major hit for Dench came with Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, a 2005 adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen, starring Keira Knightley and Donald Sutherland. Wright persuaded Dench to join the cast as Lady Catherine de Bourgh by writing her a letter that read \"I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me.\" Dench had only one week available to shoot her scenes, forcing Wright to make them his first days of filming. With both a worldwide gross of over US$121 million and several Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, the film became a critical and commercial success. \n\n2006–2010\n\nDench, in her role as \"M\", was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond. It earned over US$594 million worldwide, ranking it among the highest-grossing James Bond films ever released.\n\nIn April 2006, Dench returned to the West End stage in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles, Belinda Lang and Kim Medcalf. She finished off 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor.\n\nDench appeared opposite Cate Blanchett as a London teacher with a dedicated fondness for vulnerable women in Richard Eyre's 2006 drama film Notes on a Scandal, an adaption from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoë Heller. A fan of Heller's book, Dench \"was thrilled to be asked to ... play that woman, to try to find a humanity in that dreadful person.\" The specialty film opened to generally positive reviews and commercial success, grossing US$50 million worldwide, exceeding its £15 million budget. In his review for Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert declared the main actresses \"perhaps the most impressive acting duo in any film of 2006. Dench and Blanchett are magnificent.\" The following year, Dench earned her sixth Academy nomination and went on to win a BIFA Award and an Evening Standard Award.\n\nDench, as Miss Matty Jenkyns, co-starred with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The first season of the series began transmission in November 2007.\n\nDench became the voice for the narration for the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth in February 2008. The same month, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. Her only film of 2008 was Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second Eon-produced James Bond film, in which she reprised her role as M along with Daniel Craig. A direct sequel to the 2006 film Casino Royale, Forster felt Dench was underused in the previous films, and wanted to make her part bigger, having her interact with Bond more. The project gathered generally mixed reviews by critics, who mainly felt that Quantum of Solace was not as impressive as the predecessor Casino Royale, but became another hit for the franchise with a worldwide gross of US$591 million. For her performance, Dench was nominated for a Saturn Award the following year. \n\nDench returned to the West End in mid-2009, playing Madame de Montreuil in Yukio Mishima's play Madame de Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre. The same year, she appeared in Sally Potter's experimental film Rage, a project that featured 14 actors playing fictional figures in and around the fashion world, giving monologues before a plain backdrop. Attracted to the fact that it was unlike anything she had done before, Dench welcomed the opportunity to work with Potter. \"I like to do something that's not expected, or predictable. I had to learn to smoke a joint, and I set my trousers alight,\" she said about filming. Her next film was Rob Marshall's musical film Nine, based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½. Also starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Sophia Loren, she played Lilli La Fleur, an eccentric but motherly French costume designer, who performs the song \"Folies Bergères\" in the film. Despite mixed to negative reviews, Nine was nominated for four Academy Awards, and awarded both the Satellite Award for Best Film and Best Cast.\n\nAlso in 2009, Dench reprised the role of Matilda Jenkyns in Return to Cranford, the two-part second season of a Simon Curtis television series. Critically acclaimed, Dench was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Satellite Award. In 2010, she renewed her collaboration with Peter Hall at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which opened in February 2010; she played Titania as Queen Elizabeth I in her later years – almost 50 years after she first played the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In July 2010, Dench performed \"Send in the Clowns\" at a special celebratory promenade concert from the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms season, in honour of composer Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday. \n\n2011–present\n\nIn 2011, Dench starred in Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn and J. Edgar. In Cary Joji Fukunaga's period drama Jane Eyre, based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, she played the role of Alice Fairfax, housekeeper to Rochester, the aloof and brooding master of Thornfield Hall, where main character Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska, gets employed as a governess. Dench reportedly signed to the project after she had received a humorous personal note from Fukunaga, in which he \"promised her that she'd be the sexiest woman on set if she did the film.\" Acclaimed among critics, it was a mediocre arthouse success at the box office, grossing US$30.5 million worldwide. \n\nIn Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn, which depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier, Dench played actress Sybil Thorndike. The film garnered largely positive reviews, and earned Dench a Best Actress in a Supporting Role nomination at the 65th BAFTA Awards. \n\nDench's last film of 2011 was Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, a biographical drama film about the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as a closeted homosexual. Hand-picked by Eastwood to play Anna Marie Hoover, Hoover's mother, Dench initially thought a friend was setting her up upon receiving Eastwood's phone call request. \"I didn't take it seriously to start with. And then I realised it was really him and that was a tricky conversation,\" she stated. Released to mixed reception, both with critics and commercially, the film went on to gross US$79 million worldwide. The same year, Dench reunited with Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp for a cameo appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, playing a noblewoman who is robbed by Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Depp. She made a second cameo that year in Ray Cooney's Run for Your Wife. \n\nIn 2011, Dench reunited with director John Madden on the set of the comedy-drama The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), starring an ensemble cast also consisting of Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton, as a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India, run by the young and eager Sonny (Dev Patel). Released to positive reviews by critics, who declared the film a \"sweet story about the senior set featuring a top-notch cast of veteran actors,\" it became a surprise box-office hit following its international release, eventually grossing $US134 million worldwide, mostly from its domestic run. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was ranked among the highest-grossing specialty releases of the year, and Dench, who Peter Travers from Rolling Stone called \"resilient marvel\", garnered a Best Actress nod at both the British Independent Film Awards and Golden Globe Awards. \n\nAlso in 2012, Friend Request Pending, an indie short film which Dench had filmed in 2011, received a wide release as part of the feature films Stars in Shorts and The Joy of Six. In the 12-minute comedy, directed by My Week with Marilyn assistant director Chris Foggin on a budget of just £5,000, she portrays a pensioner grappling with a crush on her church choirmaster and the art of cyber-flirting via social networking. Dench made her seventh and final appearance as M in the twenty-third James Bond film, Skyfall (2012), directed by Sam Mendes. In the film, Bond investigates an attack on MI6; it transpires that it is part of an attack on M by former MI6 operative, Raoul Silva (played by Javier Bardem) to humiliate, discredit and kill M as revenge against her for betraying him. Dench's position as M was subsequently filled by Ralph Fiennes' character. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, Skyfall was positively received by critics and at the box office, grossing over $1 billion worldwide, and became the highest-grossing film of all-time in the UK and the highest-grossing film in the James Bond series. Critics called Dench's Saturn Awards-nominated performance \"compellingly luminous\". \n\nIn 2013, Dench starred as the title character in the Stephen Frears directed film, Philomena, a filmed inspired by true events of a woman looking for the son which the Catholic Church took from her a half-century before. The film was screened in the main competition section at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, where it was very favorably received by critics. On Dench's performance, The Times commented that \"this is Dench's triumph. At 78, she has a golden career behind her, often as queens and other frosty matriarchs. So the warmth under pressure she radiates here is nearly a surprise [...] Dench gives a performance of grace, nuance and cinematic heroism.\" She was subsequently nominated for many major acting awards, including a seventh Academy Award nomination. \n\nIn January 2014, principal photography began in Jaipur on The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with Dench reprising the role of Evelyn. The film was released in March 2015. In October 2014 she began filming as Cecily, Duchess of York to Benedict Cumberbatch's Richard III in the second series of The Hollow Crown. From 24 April 2015 to 7 May 2015; Dench played a mother, with her real-life daughter Finty Williams playing her character's daughter, in The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse. The final performance was broadcast live on More4 at 8:25 pm; the time when the events in the play take place. The appearance marked her first performance at the theatre since 1976. On 20 September 2015 she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs for the third time, in which she revealed that her first acting performance was as a snail. She reprised her role as M in the 2015 James Bond film, Spectre, in the form of a recording that was delivered to Bond. \n\nPersonal life\n\nOn 5 February 1971, Dench married British actor Michael Williams. They had their only child, Tara Cressida Frances Williams, an actress known professionally as Finty Williams, on 24 September 1972. Dench and her husband starred together in several stage productions and on the Bob Larbey British television sitcom, A Fine Romance (1981–84). Michael Williams died from lung cancer in 2001, aged 65. They have one grandchild, Finty's son Sam Williams (born in 1997). \n\nDench has been in a relationship with conservationist David Mills since 2010. During a 2014 interview with The Times magazine, she discussed how she never expected to find love again after her husband's death, \"I wasn't even prepared to be ready for it. It was very, very gradual and grown up ... It's just wonderful.\" \n\nIn early 2012, Dench discussed her macular degeneration, with one eye \"dry\" and the other \"wet\", for which she has been treated with injections into the eye. She said that she needs someone to read scripts to her. She also underwent knee surgery in 2013, but stated that she recovered from the procedure well and \"It's not an issue for me.\" \n\nDench has been critical of prejudice in the movie industry against older actresses. She stated in 2014, \"I'm tired of being told I'm too old to try something. I should be able to decide for myself if I can't do things and not have someone tell me I'll forget my lines or I'll trip and fall on the set\"; and \"Age is a number. It's something imposed on you ... It drives me absolutely spare when people say, 'Are you going to retire? Isn't it time you put your feet up?' Or tell me [my] age.\" \n\nIn 2013, she spoke about her personal religious faith. Dench, a Quaker, said \"I think it informs everything I do ... I couldn't be without it\". \n\nHonours and charity\n\nDench was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988. She was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005. In June 2011, she became a fellow of the British Film Institute (BFI).\n\nDench is a patron of the Leaveners, Friends School Saffron Walden, [http://www.archwaytheatre.co.uk The Archway Theatre], Horley, Surrey and OnePlusOne Marriage and Partnership Research, London. She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006, taking over from Sir John Mills, and is president of Questors Theatre, Ealing. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010, and Vice President of The Little Foundation.\n\nDench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 1996, she was awarded a DUniv degree from Surrey University and in 2000–2001 she received an honorary DLitt degree from Durham University. In July 2000, she was awarded a DLitt degree by Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, whose Drama School at the Gateway Theatre on Elm Row she has actively supported.\n\nOn 24 June 2008, she was honoured by the University of St Andrews, receiving an honorary DLitt degree at the university's graduation ceremony. On 26 June 2013, she was honoured by the University of Stirling, receiving an honorary doctorate at the university's graduation ceremony in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the Arts, particularly to film. In March 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by The Guardian. \n\nPolitical and social interests and involvement\n\nDench has worked with the non-governmental indigenous organisation, Survival International, campaigning in the defence of the tribal people, the San of Botswana and the Arhuaco of Colombia. She made a small supporting video saying the San are victims of tyranny, greed and racism. Dench is also a patron of the Karuna Trust, a charity that supports work amongst some of India's poorest and most oppressed people, mainly though not exclusively Dalits. \n\nOn 22 July 2010, Dench was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Nottingham Trent University. The Dr. Hadwen Trust announced on 15 January 2011 that Dench had become a patron of the trust, joining, among others, Joanna Lumley and David Shepherd. On 19 March 2012 it was announced that Dench was to become honorary patron of the charity Everton in the Community, the official charity of Everton F.C. and it was revealed that Dench is an Everton supporter. \n\nDench is an advisor to the American Shakespeare Center. She is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. She is patron of East Park Riding for the Disabled, a riding school for disabled children at Newchapel, Surrey. Dench is also a Vice-President of national charity [http://www.revitalise.org.uk Revitalise], that provides accessible holidays for those with disabilities. In 2011, along with musician Sting and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, she publicly urged policy makers to adopt more progressive drug policies by decriminalizing drug use. \n\nDench was one of 200 celebrities to sign an open letter to the people of Scotland asking them to vote No to independence, published in August 2014, a few weeks before the Scottish referendum. \n\nFilmography\n\nDiscography\n\n* Pericles (1968) Shakespeare Recording Society, Caedmon Records\n* Cabaret (1968), Original London cast album CBS (1973)\n* The Good Companions (1974), Original London cast recording (1974)\n* A Midsummer Night's Dream (1995); from Felix Mendelssohn as Recitant. Conducted by Seiji Ozawa\n* A Little Night Music (1995) by Stephen Sondheim, Royal National Theatre Cast\n* Nine (2009) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack\n*\"Spaceship Earth (Epcot)\" narrator of the current version of the attraction . (2008)\n\nAwards and nominations"
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From which country did Angola achieve independence in 1975?
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"A nation state is a type of state that conjoins the political entity of a state to the cultural entity of a nation, from which it aims to derive its political legitimacy to rule and potentially its status as a sovereign state if one accepts the declarative theory of statehood as opposed to the constitutive theory.Such a definition is a working one: \"All attempts to develop terminological consensus around \"nation\" resulted in failure\", concludes . Walker Connor, in [] discusses the impressions surrounding the characters of \"nation\", \"(sovereign) state\", \"nation state\", and \"nationalism\". Connor, who gave the term \"ethnonationalism\" wide currency, also discusses the tendency to confuse nation and state and the treatment of all states as if nation states. In Globalization and Belonging, Sheila L. Crouche discusses \"The Definitional Dilemma\" (pp. 85ff). \nA state is specifically a political and geopolitical entity, whilst a nation is a cultural and ethnic one. The term \"nation state\" implies that the two coincide, in that a state has chosen to adopt and endorse a specific cultural group as associated with it. \"Nation state\" formation can take place at different times in different parts of the world.\n\nThe concept of a nation state can be compared and contrasted with that of the multinational state, city state, empire, confederation, and other state formations with which it may overlap. The key distinction is the identification of a people with a polity in the \"nation state.\"\n\nHistory and origins \n\nThe origins and early history of nation states are disputed. A major theoretical question is: \"Which came first, the nation or the nation state?\" Scholars such as Steven Weber, David Woodward, and Jeremy Black have advanced the hypothesis that the nation state didn't arise out of political ingenuity or an unknown undetermined source, nor was it an accident of history or political invention; but is an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century intellectual discoveries in political economy, capitalism, mercantilism, political geography, and geography combined together with cartography and advances in map-making technologies. It was with these intellectual discoveries and technological advances that the nation state arose. For others, the nation existed first, then nationalist movements arose for sovereignty, and the nation state was created to meet that demand. Some \"modernization theories\" of nationalism see it as a product of government policies to unify and modernize an already existing state. Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as state-mandated education, mass literacy and mass media. However, historians also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state and identity in Portugal and the Dutch Republic.\n\nIn France, Eric Hobsbawm argues, the French state preceded the formation of the French people. Hobsbawm considers that the state made the French nation, not French nationalism, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, the time of the Dreyfus Affair. At the time of the 1789 French Revolution, only half of the French people spoke some French, and 12-13% spoke it \"fairly\", according to Hobsbawm.\n\nDuring the Italian unification, the number of people speaking the Italian language was even lower. The French state promoted the unification of various dialects and languages into the French language. The introduction of conscription and the Third Republic's 1880s laws on public instruction, facilitated the creation of a national identity, under this theory.\n\nSome nation states, such as Germany or Italy, came into existence at least partly as a result of political campaigns by nationalists, during the 19th century. In both cases, the territory was previously divided among other states, some of them very small. The sense of common identity was at first a cultural movement, such as in the Völkisch movement in German-speaking states, which rapidly acquired a political significance. In these cases, the nationalist sentiment and the nationalist movement clearly precede the unification of the German and Italian nation states.\n\nHistorians Hans Kohn, Liah Greenfeld, Philip White and others have classified nations such as Germany or Italy, where cultural unification preceded state unification, as ethnic nations or ethnic nationalities. However, 'state-driven' national unifications, such as in France, England or China, are more likely to flourish in multiethnic societies, producing a traditional national heritage of civic nations, or territory-based nationalities. Some authors deconstruct the distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism because of the ambiguity of the concepts. They argue that the paradigmatic case of Ernest Renan is an idealisation and it should be interpreted within the German tradition and not in opposition to it. For example, they argue that the arguments used by Renan at the conference What is a nation? are not consistent with his thinking. This alleged civic conception of the nation would be determined only by the case of the loss gives Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. \n\nThe idea of a nation state was and is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, often called the \"Westphalian system\" in reference to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The balance of power, which characterized that system, depended on its effectiveness upon clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent entities, whether empires or nation states, which recognize each other's sovereignty and territory. The Westphalian system did not create the nation state, but the nation state meets the criteria for its component states (by assuming that there is no disputed territory).\n\nThe nation state received a philosophical underpinning in the era of Romanticism, at first as the 'natural' expression of the individual peoples (romantic nationalism: see Johann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of the Volk, later opposed by Ernest Renan). The increasing emphasis during the 19th century on the ethnic and racial origins of the nation, led to a redefinition of the nation state in these terms. Racism, which in Boulainvilliers's theories was inherently antipatriotic and antinationalist, joined itself with colonialist imperialism and \"continental imperialism\", most notably in pan-Germanic and pan-Slavic movements. \n\nThe relation between racism and ethnic nationalism reached its height in the 20th century fascism and Nazism. The specific combination of 'nation' ('people') and 'state' expressed in such terms as the Völkische Staat and implemented in laws such as the 1935 Nuremberg laws made fascist states such as early Nazi Germany qualitatively different from non-fascist nation states. Minorities were not considered part of the people (Volk), and were consequently denied to have an authentic or legitimate role in such a state. In Germany, neither Jews nor the Roma were considered part of the people, and were specifically targeted for persecution. German nationality law defined 'German' on the basis of German ancestry, excluding all non-Germans from the people.\n\nIn recent years, a nation state's claim to absolute sovereignty within its borders has been much criticized. A global political system based on international agreements and supra-national blocs characterized the post-war era. Non-state actors, such as international corporations and non-governmental organizations, are widely seen as eroding the economic and political power of nation states, potentially leading to their eventual disappearance.\n\nBefore the nation state \n\nIn Europe, during the 18th century, the classic non-national states were the multiethnic empires, the Austrian Empire, Kingdom of France, Kingdom of Hungary, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and smaller nations at what would now be called sub-state level. The multi-ethnic empire was a monarchy ruled by a king, emperor or sultan. The population belonged to many ethnic groups, and they spoke many languages. The empire was dominated by one ethnic group, and their language was usually the language of public administration. The ruling dynasty was usually, but not always, from that group.\n\nThis type of state is not specifically European: such empires existed on all continents, except Australasia and Antarctica. Some of the smaller European states were not so ethnically diverse, but were also dynastic states, ruled by a royal house. Their territory could expand by royal intermarriage or merge with another state when the dynasty merged. In some parts of Europe, notably Germany, very small territorial units existed. They were recognised by their neighbours as independent, and had their own government and laws. Some were ruled by princes or other hereditary rulers, some were governed by bishops or abbots. Because they were so small, however, they had no separate language or culture: the inhabitants shared the language of the surrounding region.\n\nIn some cases these states were simply overthrown by nationalist uprisings in the 19th century. Liberal ideas of free trade played a role in German unification, which was preceded by a customs union, the Zollverein. However, the Austro-Prussian War, and the German alliances in the Franco-Prussian War, were decisive in the unification. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire broke up after the First World War, and the Russian Empire became the Soviet Union after the Russian Civil War.\n\nA few of the smaller states survived: the independent principalities of Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, and the republic of San Marino. (Vatican City is a special case. All of the larger Papal State save the Vatican itself was occupied and absorbed by Italy by 1870. The resulting Roman Question, was resolved with the rise of the modern state under the 1929 Lateran treaties between Italy and the Holy See.)\n\nCharacteristics \n\n \n\"Legitimate states that govern effectively and dynamic industrial economies are widely regarded today as the defining characteristics of a modern nation-state.\" \n\nNation states have their own characteristics, differing from those of the pre-national states. For a start, they have a different attitude to their territory when compared with dynastic monarchies: it is semisacred and nontransferable. No nation would swap territory with other states simply, for example, because the king's daughter married. They have a different type of border, in principle defined only by the area of settlement of the national group, although many nation states also sought natural borders (rivers, mountain ranges). They are constantly changing in population size and power because of the limited restrictions of their borders.\n\nThe most noticeable characteristic is the degree to which nation states use the state as an instrument of national unity, in economic, social and cultural life.\n\nThe nation state promoted economic unity, by abolishing internal customs and tolls. In Germany, that process, the creation of the Zollverein, preceded formal national unity. Nation states typically have a policy to create and maintain a national transportation infrastructure, facilitating trade and travel. In 19th-century Europe, the expansion of the rail transport networks was at first largely a matter for private railway companies, but gradually came under control of the national governments. The French rail network, with its main lines radiating from Paris to all corners of France, is often seen as a reflection of the centralised French nation state, which directed its construction. Nation states continue to build, for instance, specifically national motorway networks. Specifically transnational infrastructure programmes, such as the Trans-European Networks, are a recent innovation.\n\nThe nation states typically had a more centralised and uniform public administration than its imperial predecessors: they were smaller, and the population less diverse. (The internal diversity of the Ottoman Empire, for instance, was very great.) After the 19th-century triumph of the nation state in Europe, regional identity was subordinate to national identity, in regions such as Alsace-Lorraine, Catalonia, Brittany and Corsica. In many cases, the regional administration was also subordinated to central (national) government. This process was partially reversed from the 1970s onward, with the introduction of various forms of regional autonomy, in formerly centralised states such as France.\n\nThe most obvious impact of the nation state, as compared to its non-national predecessors, is the creation of a uniform national culture, through state policy. The model of the nation state implies that its population constitutes a nation, united by a common descent, a common language and many forms of shared culture. When the implied unity was absent, the nation state often tried to create it. It promoted a uniform national language, through language policy. The creation of national systems of compulsory primary education and a relatively uniform curriculum in secondary schools, was the most effective instrument in the spread of the national languages. The schools also taught the national history, often in a propagandistic and mythologised version, and (especially during conflicts) some nation states still teach this kind of history. \n\nLanguage and cultural policy was sometimes negative, aimed at the suppression of non-national elements. Language prohibitions were sometimes used to accelerate the adoption of national languages and the decline of minority languages (see examples: Anglicisation, Czechization, Francisation, Italianization, Germanisation, Magyarisation, Polonisation, Russification, Serbization, Slovakisation).\n\nIn some cases, these policies triggered bitter conflicts and further ethnic separatism. But where it worked, the cultural uniformity and homogeneity of the population increased. Conversely, the cultural divergence at the border became sharper: in theory, a uniform French identity extends from the Atlantic coast to the Rhine, and on the other bank of the Rhine, a uniform German identity begins. To enforce that model, both sides have divergent language policy and educational systems, although the linguistic boundary is in fact well inside France, and the Alsace region changed hands four times between 1870 and 1945.\n\nIn practice \n\nIn some cases, the geographic boundaries of an ethnic population and a political state largely coincide. In these cases, there is little immigration or emigration, few members of ethnic minorities, and few members of the \"home\" ethnicity living in other countries.\n\nExamples of nation states where ethnic groups make up more than 95% of the population include the following:\n* Albania: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Albanian at about 98.6% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.\n* Armenia: The vast majority of Armenia's population consists of ethnic Armenians at about 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.\n* Bangladesh: The vast majority ethnic group of Bangladesh are the Bengali people, comprising 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of mostly Bihari migrants and indigenous tribal groups. Therefore, Bangladeshi society is to a great extent linguistically and culturally homogeneous, with very small populations of foreign expatriates and workers, although there is a substantial number of Bengali workers living abroad.\n* Egypt: The vast majority of Egypt's population consists of ethnic Egyptians at about 99% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities, as well as refugees or asylum seekers. Modern Egyptian identity is closely tied to the geography of Egypt and its long history; its development over the centuries saw overlapping or conflicting ideologies. Though today an Arabic-speaking people, that aspect constitutes for Egyptians a cultural dimension of their identity, not a necessary attribute of or prop for their national political being. Today most Egyptians see themselves, their history, culture and language (the Egyptian variant of Arabic) as specifically Egyptian and at the same time as part of the Arab world.\n* Estonia: Defined as a nation state in its 1920 constitution, up until the period of Soviet colonialisation, Estonia was historically a very homogenous state with 88.2% of residents being Estonians, 8.2% Russians, 1.5% Germans and 0.4% Jews according to the 1934 census. As a result of Soviet policies the demographic situation significantly changed with the arrival of Russian speaking settlers. Today Estonians form 69%, Russians 25.4%, Ukrainians 2.04% and Belarusians 1.1% of the population(2012). A significant proportion of the inhabitants (84.1%) are citizens of Estonia, around 7.3% are citizens of Russia and 7.0% as yet undefined citizenship (2010).\n* Hungary: The Hungarians (or Magyar) people consist of about 95% of the population, with a small Roma and German minority: see Demographics of Hungary.\n* Iceland: Although the inhabitants are ethnically related to other Scandinavian groups, the national culture and language are found only in Iceland. There are no cross-border minorities as the nearest land is too far away: see Demographics of Iceland\n\n* Japan: Japan is also traditionally seen as an example of a nation state and also the largest of the nation states, with population in excess of 120 million. It should be noted that Japan has a small number of minorities such as Ryūkyū peoples, Koreans and Chinese, and on the northern island of Hokkaidō, the indigenous Ainu minority. However, they are either numerically insignificant (Ainu), their difference is not as pronounced (though Ryukyuan culture is closely related to Japanese culture, it is nonetheless distinctive in that it historically received much more influence from China and has separate political and nonpolitical and religious traditions) or well assimilated (Zainichi population is collapsing due to assimilation/naturalisation).\n* Lebanon: The Arabic-speaking Lebanese consist at about 95% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities, as well as refugees or asylum seekers. Modern Lebanese identity is closely tied to the geography of Lebanon and its history. Although they are now an Arabic-speaking people and ethnically homogeneous, its identity oversees overlapping or conflicting ideologies between its Phoenician heritage and Arab heritage. While many Lebanese regard themselves as Arab, other Lebanese regard themselves, their history, and their culture as Phoenician and not Arab, while still other Lebanese regard themselves as both.\n* Lesotho: Lesotho's ethno-linguistic structure consists almost entirely of the Basotho (singular Mosotho), a Bantu-speaking people; about 99.7% of the population are Basotho.\n* Maldives: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Dhivehi at about 98% of the population, with the remainder consisting of foreign workers; there are no indigenous ethnic minorities.\n* Malta: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Maltese at about 95.3% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.\n* Mongolia: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Mongol at about 95.0% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few ethnic minorities included in Kazakhs.\n* North and South Korea are among the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous in the world. Particularly in reclusive North Korea, there are very few ethnic minority groups and expatriate foreigners.\n* Poland: After World War II, with the genocide of the Jews by the invading German Nazis during the Holocaust, the expulsion of Germans after World War II and the loss of eastern territories (Kresy), 96.7% of the people of Poland claim Polish nationality, while 97.8% declare that they speak Polish at home (Census 2002).\n* Several Polynesian countries such as Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, etc.\n* Portugal: Although surrounded by other lands and people, the Portuguese nation has occupied the same territory since the romanization or latinization of the native population during the Roman era. The modern Portuguese nation is a very old amalgam of formerly distinct historical populations that passed through and settled in the territory of modern Portugal: native Iberian peoples, Celts, ancient Mediterraneans (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Jews), invading Germanic peoples like the Suebi and the Visigoths, and Muslim Arabs and Berbers. Most Berber/Arab people and the Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and the repopulation by Christians.\n* San Marino: The Sammarinese make up about 97% of the population and all speak Italian and are ethnically and linguisticially identical to Italians. San Marino is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. The state has a population of approximately 30,000, including 1,000 foreigners, most of whom are Italians.\n* Swaziland: The vast majority of the population is ethnically Swazi at about 98.6% of the population, with the remainder consisting of a few small ethnic minorities.\n\nThe notion of a unifying \"national identity\" also extends to countries that host multiple ethnic or language groups, such as India and China. For example, Switzerland is constitutionally a confederation of cantons, and has four official languages, but it has also a 'Swiss' national identity, a national history and a classic national hero, Wilhelm Tell. \n\nInnumerable conflicts have arisen where political boundaries did not correspond with ethnic or cultural boundaries.\n\nAfter World War II in the Josip Broz Tito era, nationalism was appealed to for uniting South Slav peoples. Later in the 20th century, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, leaders appealed to ancient ethnic feuds or tensions that ignited conflict between the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, as well Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians, eventually breaking up the long collaboration of peoples and ethnic cleansing was carried out in the Balkans, resulting in the destruction of the formerly socialist republic and produced the civil wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–95, resulted in mass population displacements and segregation that radically altered what was once a highly diverse and intermixed ethnic makeup of the region. These conflicts were largely about creating a new political framework of states, each of which would be ethnically and politically homogeneous. Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians insisted they were ethnically distinct although many communities had a long history of intermarriage. Presently Slovenia (89% Slovene), Croatia (90,4% Croat) and Serbia (83% Serb) could be classified as nation states per se, whereas Macedonia (66% Macedonian), Montenegro (42% Montenegrin) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (47% Bosniak) are multinational states.\n\nBelgium is a classic example of a state that is not a nation state. The state was formed by secession from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, whose neutrality and integrity was protected by the Treaty of London 1839; thus it served as a buffer state after the Napoleonitic Wars between the European powers France, Prussia (after 1871 the German Empire) and the United Kingdom until World War I, when its neutrality was breached by the Germans. Currently, Belgium is divided between the Flemings in the north and the French-speaking or the German-speaking population in the south. The Flemish population in the north speaks Dutch, the Walloon population in the south speaks French and/or German. The Brussels population speaks French and/or Dutch.\n\nThe Flemish identity is also cultural, and there is a strong separatist movement espoused by the political parties, the right-wing Vlaams Belang and the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie. The Francophone Walloon identity of Belgium is linguistically distinct and regionalist. There is also unitary Belgian nationalism, several versions of a Greater Netherlands ideal, and a German-speaking community of Belgium annexed from Germany in 1920, and re-annexed by Germany in 1940–1944. However these ideologies are all very marginal and politically insignificant during elections.\n\nChina covers a large geographic area and uses the concept of \"Zhonghua minzu\" or Chinese nationality, in the sense of ethnic groups, but it also officially recognizes the majority Han ethnic group which accounts for over 90% of the population, and no fewer than 55 ethnic national minorities.\n\nAccording to Philip G. Roeder, Moldova is an example of a Soviet era \"segment-state\" (Moldavian SSR), where the \"nation-state project of the segment-state trumped the nation-state project of prior statehood. In Moldova, despite strong agitation from university faculty and students for reunification with Romania, the nation-state project forged within the Moldavian SSR trumped the project for a return to the interwar nation-state project of Greater Romania.\" See Controversy over linguistic and ethnic identity in Moldova for further details.\n\nExceptional cases \n\nUnited Kingdom \n\nThe United Kingdom is an unusual example of a nation state, due to its claimed \"countries within a country\" status. The United Kingdom, which is formed by the union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is a unitary state formed initially by the merger of two independent kingdoms, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, but the Treaty of Union (1707) that set out the agreed terms has ensured the continuation of distinct features of each state, including separate legal systems and separate national churches.\n\nIn 2003, the British Government described the United Kingdom as \"countries within a country\". While the Office for National Statistics and others describe the United Kingdom as a \"nation state\", others, including a then Prime Minister, describe it as a \"multinational state\", and the term Home Nations is used to describe the four national teams that represent the four nations of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). \n\nKingdom of the Netherlands \n\nA similar unusual example is the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As of 10 October 2010, the Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries: \n* Netherlands proper\n* Aruba\n* Curaçao\n* Sint Maarten\n\nEach is expressly designated as a land in Dutch law by the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike the German Länder and the Austrian Bundesländer, landen is consistently translated as \"countries\" by the Dutch government. \n\nIsrael \n\nIsrael was founded as a Jewish state in 1948. Its \"Basic Laws\" describe it as both a Jewish and a democratic state. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 75.7% of Israel's population is Jewish. Arabs, who make up 20.4% of the population, are the largest ethnic minority in Israel. Israel also has very small communities of Armenians, Circassians, Assyrians, Samaritans, and persons of some Jewish heritage. There are also some non-Jewish spouses of Israeli Jews. However, these communities are very small, and usually number only in the hundreds or thousands.\n\nPakistan \n\nPakistan, even being an ethnically diverse country and officially a federation, is regarded as a nation state due to its ideological basis on which it was given independence from British India as a separate nation rather than as part of a unified India. Different ethnic groups in Pakistan are strongly bonded by their common Muslim identity, common cultural and social values, common historical heritage, a national Lingua franca (Urdu) and joint political, strategic and economic interests. \n\nMinorities \n\nThe most obvious deviation from the ideal of 'one nation, one state', is the presence of minorities, especially ethnic minorities, which are clearly not members of the majority nation. An ethnic nationalist definition of a nation is necessarily exclusive: ethnic nations typically do not have open membership. In most cases, there is a clear idea that surrounding nations are different, and that includes members of those nations who live on the 'wrong side' of the border. Historical examples of groups, who have been specifically singled out as outsiders, are the Roma and Jews in Europe.\n\nNegative responses to minorities within the nation state have ranged from cultural assimilation enforced by the state, to expulsion, persecution, violence, and extermination. The assimilation policies are usually enforced by the state, but violence against minorities is not always state initiated: it can occur in the form of mob violence such as lynching or pogroms. Nation states are responsible for some of the worst historical examples of violence against minorities: minorities not considered part of the nation.\n\nHowever, many nation states accept specific minorities as being part of the nation, and the term national minority is often used in this sense. The Sorbs in Germany are an example: for centuries they have lived in German-speaking states, surrounded by a much larger ethnic German population, and they have no other historical territory. They are now generally considered to be part of the German nation and are accepted as such by the Federal Republic of Germany, which constitutionally guarantees their cultural rights. Of the thousands of ethnic and cultural minorities in nation states across the world, only a few have this level of acceptance and protection.\n\nMulticulturalism is an official policy in many states, establishing the ideal of peaceful existence among multiple ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Many nations have laws protecting minority rights.\n\nWhen national boundaries that do not match ethnic boundaries are drawn, such as in the Balkans and Central Asia, ethnic tension, massacres and even genocide, sometimes has occurred historically (see Bosnian genocide and 2010 ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan).\n\nIrredentism \n\n \n\nIdeally, the border of a nation state extends far enough to include all the members of the nation, and all of the national homeland. Again, in practice some of them always live on the 'wrong side' of the border. Part of the national homeland may be there too, and it may be governed by the 'wrong' nation. The response to the non-inclusion of territory and population may take the form of irredentism: demands to annex unredeemed territory and incorporate it into the nation state.\n\nIrredentist claims are usually based on the fact that an identifiable part of the national group lives across the border. However, they can include claims to territory where no members of that nation live at present, because they lived there in the past, the national language is spoken in that region, the national culture has influenced it, geographical unity with the existing territory, or a wide variety of other reasons. Past grievances are usually involved and can cause revanchism.\n\nIt is sometimes difficult to distinguish irredentism from pan-nationalism, since both claim that all members of an ethnic and cultural nation belong in one specific state. Pan-nationalism is less likely to specify the nation ethnically. For instance, variants of Pan-Germanism have different ideas about what constituted Greater Germany, including the confusing term Grossdeutschland, which, in fact, implied the inclusion of huge Slavic minorities from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.\n\nTypically, irredentist demands are at first made by members of non-state nationalist movements. When they are adopted by a state, they typically result in tensions, and actual attempts at annexation are always considered a casus belli, a cause for war. In many cases, such claims result in long-term hostile relations between neighbouring states. Irredentist movements typically circulate maps of the claimed national territory, the greater nation state. That territory, which is often much larger than the existing state, plays a central role in their propaganda.\n\nIrredentism should not be confused with claims to overseas colonies, which are not generally considered part of the national homeland. Some French overseas colonies would be an exception: French rule in Algeria unsuccessfully treated the colony as a département of France.\n\nFuture \n\nIt has been speculated by both proponents of globalization and various science fiction writers that the concept of a nation state may disappear with the ever-increasingly interconnected nature of the world. Such ideas are sometimes expressed around concepts of a world government. Another possibility is a societal collapse and move into communal anarchy or zero world government, in which nation states no longer exist and government is done on the local level based on a global ethic of human rights.\n\nThis falls into line with the concept of internationalism, which states that sovereignty is an outdated concept and a barrier to achieving peace and harmony in the world, thus also stating that nation states are also a similar outdated concept.\n\nGlobalization especially has helped to bring about the discussion about the disappearance of nation states, as global trade and the rise of the concepts of a 'global citizen' and a common identity have helped to reduce differences and 'distances' between individual nation states, especially with regards to the internet. \n\nClash of civilizations \n\nThe theory of the clash of civilizations lies in direct contrast to cosmopolitan theories about an ever more-connected world that no longer requires nation states. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world.\n\nThe theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled \"The Clash of Civilizations?\", in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.\n\nHuntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post–Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy and capitalist free market economics had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post–Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History and the Last Man, argued that the world had reached a Hegelian \"end of history\".\n\nHuntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had reverted only to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.\n\nAs an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.\n\nIn the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:\n\nIt is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.\n\nSandra Joireman suggests that Huntington may be characterised as a neo-primordialist, as, while he sees people as having strong ties to their ethnicity, he does not believe that these ties have always existed. \n\nHistoriography \n\nHistorians often look to the past to find the origins of a particular nation state. Indeed, they often put so much emphasis on the importance of the nation state in modern times, that they distort the history of earlier periods in order to emphasize the question of origins. Lansing and English argue that much of the medieval history of Europe was structured to follow the historical winners—especially the nation states that emerged around Paris and London. Important developments that did not directly lead to a nation state get neglected, they argue:\none effect of this approach has been to privilege historical winners, aspects of medieval Europe that became important in later centuries, above all the nation state.... Arguably the liveliest cultural innovation in the 13th century was Mediterranean, centered on Frederick II's polyglot court and administration in Palermo....Sicily and the Italian South in later centuries suffered a long slide into overtaxed poverty and marginality. Textbook narratives therefore focus not on medieval Palermo, with its Muslim and Jewish bureaucracies and Arabic-speaking monarch, but on the historical winners, Paris and London.",
"Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (; Kikongo, Kimbundu and Umbundu: Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in Southern Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, and is bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north and east, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to west. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda.\n\nAlthough its territory has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, modern Angola originates in Portuguese colonization, which began with, and was for centuries limited to, coastal settlements and trading posts established beginning in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. As a Portuguese colony, Angola did not encompass its present borders until the early 20th century, following resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. Independence was achieved in 1975 after the protracted liberation war. That same year, Angola descended into an intense civil war that lasted until 2002. It has since become a relatively stable unitary presidential republic.\n\nAngola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest growing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war. In spite of this, the standard of living remains low for the majority of the population, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Angola are among the worst in the world. Angola's economic growth is highly uneven, with the majority of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. \n\nAngola is a member state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union and the Southern African Development Community. A highly multiethnic country, Angola's 24.3 million people span various tribal groups, customs, and traditions. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, namely in the predominance of the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism, combined with diverse indigenous influences.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola (Kingdom of Angola), appearing as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo was a kingdom in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, nominally tributary to the king of Kongo but which was seeking greater independence during the 16th century.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly migrations and political units\n\nKhoi and San hunter-gatherers are the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area. They were largely absorbed or replaced by Bantu peoples during the Bantu migrations, though small numbers remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day. The Bantu came from the north, probably from somewhere near the present-day Republic of Cameroon.\n\nDuring this time, the Bantu established a number of political units (\"kingdoms\", \"empires\") in most parts of what today is Angola. The best known of these is the Kingdom of the Kongo that had its centre in the northwest of contemporary Angola, but included important regions in the west of present-day Democratic Republic and Republic of Congo and in southern Gabon. It established trade routes with other trading cities and civilisations up and down the coast of southwestern and West Africa and even with the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa Empire, but engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo.\n\nPortuguese colonization\n\nThe region now known as Angola was reached by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão in 1484. The year before, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kingdom of Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda enclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and elevated to a township in 1617.\n\nThe Portuguese established several other settlements, forts, and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for Brazilian plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire, usually sold in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe. This part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s.\n\nDespite Portugal's nominal claims, as late as the 19th century, their control over the interior country of Angola was minimal. In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of treaties and wars. Life for European colonists was difficult and progress slow. Iliffe notes that \"Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys\". \n\nAmid the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch occupied Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de Sá retook Luanda for Portugal in 1648; reconquest of the rest of the territory was completed by 1650. New treaties with Kongo were signed in 1649; others with Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo followed in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last major Portuguese expansion from Luanda, as attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Portugal also expanded inward from Benguela, but until the late 19th century the inroads from Luanda and Benguela were very limited. Portugal had neither the intention nor the means to carry out a large scale territorial occupation and colonization.\n\nDevelopment of the hinterland began after the Berlin Conference in 1885 fixed the colony's borders, and British and Portuguese investment fostered mining, railways, and agriculture based on various forced-labour and voluntary labour systems.(See also Chibalo.) Full Portuguese administrative control of the hinterland did not establish itself until the beginning of the 20th century. Portugal had a minimalist presence in Angola for nearly five hundred years, and early calls for independence provoked little reaction amongst the population who had no social identity related to the territory as a whole. More overtly political and \"nationalist\" organisations first appeared in the 1950s and began to make demands for self-determination, especially in international forums such as the Non-Aligned Movement.\n\nThe Portuguese régime, meanwhile, refused to accede to the demands for independence, provoking an armed conflict that started in 1961 when freedom fighters attacked both white and black civilians in cross-border operations in northeastern Angola. The war came to be known as the Colonial War. In this struggle, the principal protagonists included the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), founded in 1956, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which appeared in 1961, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), founded in 1966. After many years of conflict that weakened all of the insurgent parties, Angola gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon, Portugal, which overthrew the Portuguese régime headed by Marcelo Caetano.\n\nPortugal's new revolutionary leaders began in 1974 a process of political change at home and accepted independence for its former colonies abroad. In Angola a fight for dominance broke out immediately between the three nationalist movements. The events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens, creating up to 300 000 destitute Portuguese refugees—the retornados. The new Portuguese government tried to mediate an understanding between the three competing movements, and succeeded in getting them to agree, on paper, to form a common government. But in the end none of the African parties respected the commitments they had made, and military force resolved the issue.\n\nIndependence and civil war\n\nAfter it gained independence in November 1975, Angola experienced a devastating civil war which lasted several decades (with some interludes). It claimed millions of lives and produced many refugees; it didn't end until 2002. \n\nFollowing negotiations held in Portugal, itself experiencing severe social and political turmoil and uncertainty due to the April 1974 revolution, Angola's three main guerrilla groups agreed to establish a transitional government in January 1975. Within two months, however, the FNLA, MPLA and UNITA had started fighting each other and the country began splitting into zones controlled by rival armed political groups. The MPLA gained control of the capital Luanda and much of the rest of the country. With the support of the United States, Zaïre and South Africa intervened militarily in favour of the FNLA and UNITA with the intention of taking Luanda before the declaration of independence. In response, Cuba intervened in favor of the MPLA (see: Cuba in Angola), which became a flash point for the Cold War.\n\nWith Cuban support, the MPLA held Luanda and declared independence on 11 November 1975, with Agostinho Neto becoming the first president, though the civil war continued. At this time, most of the half-million Portuguese who lived in Angola – and who had accounted for the majority of the skilled workers in public administration, agriculture, industries and trade – fled the country, leaving its once prosperous and growing economy in a state of bankruptcy. \n\nFor most of 1975–1990, the MPLA organised and maintained a socialist régime. In 1990, when the Cold War ended, MPLA abandoned its ties to the Marxist–Leninist ideology and declared social democracy to be its official ideology, going on to win the 1992 general election. However, eight opposition parties rejected the elections as rigged,National Society for Human Rights, Ending the Angolan Conflict, Windhoek, Namibia, 3 July 2000 (opposition parties, massacres); John Matthew, Letters, The Times, UK, 6 November 1992 (election observer); NSHR, Press Releases, 12 September 2000, 16 May 2001 (MPLA atrocities). sparking the Halloween massacre.\n\nCeasefire with UNITA\n\nOn 22 March 2002, Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was killed in combat with government troops. The two sides reached a cease-fire shortly afterwards. UNITA gave up its armed wing and assumed the role of major opposition party, although in the knowledge that under the present regime a legitimate democratic election was impossible. Although the political situation of the country began to stabilize, regular democratic processes were not established until the elections in Angola in 2008 and 2012 and the adoption of a new Constitution of Angola in 2010, all of which strengthened the prevailing Dominant-party system. MPLA head officials continue e.g. to be given senior positions in top-level companies or other fields, although a few outstanding UNITA figures are given some of the economic as well as the military share. \n\nAngola has a serious humanitarian crisis, the result of the prolonged war, the abundance of minefields, the continued political, and to a much lesser degree, military activities in favour of the independence of the northern exclave of Cabinda, carried out in the context of the protracted Cabinda Conflict by the Frente para a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda, (FLEC), but most of all, the depradation of the country's rich mineral resources by the régime. While most of the internally displaced have now settled around the capital, in the so-called musseques, the general situation for Angolans remains desperate. \n\nDrought, in 2016, is the worst global food crisis in Southern Africa for 25 years. Drought affects 1.4 million people across seven of Angola’s 18 provinces. Food prices have risen and acute malnutrition rates have doubled, with more than 95,000 children being affected. Food insecurity is expected to worsen from July to the end of the year. \n\nGeography\n\nAt 481321 sqmi, Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country. It is comparable in size to Mali, or twice the size of France or Texas. It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E.\n\nAngola is bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west. The coastal exclave of Cabinda in the north, borders the Republic of the Congo to the north, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south. Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.\n\nClimate\n\nAngola has three seasons, a dry season which lasts from May to October, a transitional season with some rain from November to January and a hot, rainy season from February to April. April is the wettest month. \n\nPolitics\n\nAngola's motto is Virtus Unita Fortior, a Latin phrase meaning \"Virtue is stronger when united\". The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers. The legislative branch comprises a 220-seat unicameral legislature elected from both provincial and nationwide constituencies. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the presidency.\n\nThe Constitution of 2010 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and courts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court does not hold the powers of judicial review. Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by the president.\n\nAfter the end of the Civil War the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international community to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to implement a number of changes without substantially changing its character. \n\nAngola is classified as 'not free' by Freedom House in the Freedom in the World 2014 report. The report noted that the August 2012 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won more than 70% of the vote, suffered from serious flaws, including outdated and inaccurate voter rolls. Voter turnout dropped from 80% in 2008 to 60%.\n\nAngola scored poorly on the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 39 out of 52 sub-Saharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, and human development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa. \n\nThe new constitution, adopted in 2010, further sharpened the authoritarian character of the regime. In the future, there will be no presidential elections; the president and the vice-president of the political party which wins the parliamentary elections automatically become president and vice-president of Angola. Through a variety of mechanisms, the state president controls all the other organs of the state, so that separation of powers is not maintained. As a consequence, Angola no longer has a presidential system in the sense of the systems existing, e.g., in the USA or in France. In terms of the classifications used in constitutional law, its regime is considered one of several authoritarian regimes in Africa. \n\nOn 16 October 2014, Angola was elected for the second time as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, with 190 favourable votes out of 193. The mandate begins on 1 January 2015 and lasts for two years. \n\nAlso in that month, the country took on the leadership of the Group of African Ministers and Governors at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, following the debates at the annual meetings of both entities. \n\nSince January 2014 the Republic of Angola has held the presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). In 2015, the executive secretary of ICGLR, Ntumba Luaba, said that Angola is the example to be followed by members of the organization, because of the significant progress made over the 12 years of peace, particularly in terms of socioeconomic and political-military stability. \n\nMilitary\n\nThe Angolan Armed Forces (AAF) is headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defense. There are three divisions—the Army (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA), and National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is about 110,000. Its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers, and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucano for training role, Czech-made L-39 for training and bombing role, Czech Zlin for training role and a variety of western made aircraft such as C-212\\Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).\n\nPolice\n\nThe National Police departments are Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air wing, which will provide helicopter support for operations. The National Police are developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The force has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 taxation and frontier supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 economic activity inspectors.\n\nThe National Police have implemented a modernization and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganization, modernization projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programs and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm Uzis for officers in urban areas.\n\nJustice\n\nIn 2014, a new penal code took effect in Angola. The classification of money-laundering as a crime is one of the novelties in the new legislation. \n\nAdministrative divisions\n\n, Angola is divided into eighteen provinces (províncias) and 162 municipalities. The municipalities are further divided into 559 communes (townships). The provinces are:\n\nExclave of Cabinda\n\nWith an area of approximately 7283 km2, the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unusual in being separated from the rest of the country by a strip, some 60 km wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo along the lower Congo river. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and north-northeast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population center.\n\nAccording to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom live in neighboring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil. The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, \"the Kuwait of Africa\". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) from 1968 onwards.\n\nEver since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas province of Angola to the local independence groups (MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA), the territory of Cabinda has been a focus of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola (which has employed its military forces, the FAA—Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Cabindan separatists. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) announced a virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions.\n\nEconomy\n\nAngola has a rich subsoil heritage, from diamonds, oil, gold, copper, and a rich wildlife (dramatically impoverished during the civil war), forest, and fossils. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture have dramatically dropped because of the Angolan Civil War, but have begun to recover after 2002. The transformation industry that had come into existence in the late colonial period collapsed at independence, because of the exodus of most of the ethnic Portuguese population, but has begun to reemerge with updated technologies, partly because of the influx of new Portuguese entrepreneurs. Similar developments can be verified in the service sector.\n\nOverall, Angola's economy has in recent years moved on from the disarray caused by a quarter-century of civil war to become the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20 percent between 2005 and 2007. In the period 2001–10, Angola had the world's highest annual average GDP growth, at 11.1 percent. In 2004, the Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola. The loan was to be used to rebuild Angola's infrastructure, and also to limited the influence of the International Monetary Fund in the country. China is Angola's biggest trade partner and export destination as well as the fourth-largest importer. Bilateral trade reached $27.67 billion in 2011, up 11.5% year-on-year. China's imports, mainly crude oil and diamonds, increased 9.1% to $24.89 billion while China's exports, including mechanical and electrical products, machinery parts and construction materials, surged 38.8%. The oil glut led to a local unleaded gasoline \"pricetag\" of £0.37 per gallon. \n\nThe Economist reported in 2008 that diamonds and oil make up 60% of Angola's economy, almost all of the country's revenue and are its dominant exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed in late 2005 and was expected to grow to 2 Moilbbl/d by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. In December 2006, Angola was admitted as a member of OPEC. However, operations in diamond mines include partnerships between state-run Endiama and mining companies such as ALROSA which continue operations in Angola. The economy grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007. However, due to the global recession the economy contracted an estimated −0.3% in 2009. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.\n\nAlthough the country's economy has developed significantly since it achieved political stability in 2002, mainly thanks to the fast-rising earnings of the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of the almost continual state of conflict from 1961 onwards, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality are chiefly the outcome of a combination of a persistent political authoritarianism, of \"neo-patrimonial\" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military, and economic apparatuses, and of a pervasive corruption. The main beneficiary of this situation is a social segment constituted during the last decades, around the political, administrative, economic, and military power holders, which has accumulated (and continues accumulating) enormous wealth. \"Secondary beneficiaries\" are the middle strata which are about to become social classes. However, overall almost half the population has to be considered as poor, but in this respect there are dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities (where by now slightly more than 50% of the people live).\n\nAn inquiry carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística has it that in the rural areas roughly 58% must be classified as \"poor\", according to UN norms, but in the urban areas only 19%, while the overall rate is 37%. In the cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, have to adopt a variety of survival strategies. At the same time, in urban areas social inequality is most evident, and assumes extreme forms in the capital, Luanda. In the Human Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group. \n\nAccording to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, oil production from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil. “China has extended three multibillion dollar lines of credit to the Angolan government; two loans of $2 billion from China Exim Bank, one in 2004, the second in 2007, as well as one loan in 2005 of $2.9 billion from China International Fund Ltd.” Growing oil revenues have also created opportunities for corruption: according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, 32 billion US dollars disappeared from government accounts from 2007 to 2010. Furthermore, Sonangol, the state run oil company, has control of 51% of Cabinda’s oil. Due to this market control the company ends up determining the profit given to the government and the taxes paid. The council of foreign affairs states that the World Bank mentioned that Sonangol \" is a taxpayer, it carries out quasi-fiscal activities, it invests public funds, and, as concessionaire, it is a sector regulator. This multifarious work program creates conflicts of interest and characterizes a complex relationship between Sonangol and the government that weakens the formal budgetary process and creates uncertainty as regards the actual fiscal stance of the state.\" \n\nBefore independence in 1975, Angola was a breadbasket of southern Africa and a major exporter of bananas, coffee and sisal, but three decades of civil war (1975–2002) destroyed fertile countryside, left it littered with landmines and drove millions into the cities. The country now depends on expensive food imports, mainly from South Africa and Portugal, while more than 90% of farming is done at thefamily and subsistence level. Thousands of Angolan small-scale farmers are trapped in poverty. \n\nThe enormous differences between the regions pose a serious structural problem for the Angolan economy, illustrated by the fact that about one third of economic activities are concentrated in Luanda and neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior suffer economic stagnation and even regression. \n\nOne of the economic consequences of the social and regional disparities is a sharp increase in Angolan private investments abroad. The small fringe of Angolan society where most of the accumulation takes place seeks to spread its assets, for reasons of security and profit. For the time being, the biggest share of these investments is concentrated in Portugal where the Angolan presence (including that of the family of the state president) in banks as well as in the domains of energy, telecommunications, and mass media has become notable, as has the acquisition of vineyards and orchards as well as of touristic enterprises. \n\nSub-Saharan Africa nations are globally achieving impressive improvements in well-being, according to a report by Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative and The Boston Consulting Group. Angola has upgraded critical infrastructure, an investment made possible by funds from the nation's development of oil resources. According to this report, just slightly more than ten years after the end of the civil war Angola's standard of living has overall greatly improved. Life expectancy, which was just 46 years in 2002, reached 51 in 2011. Mortality rates for children fell from 25 percent in 2001 to 19 percent in 2010 and the number of students enrolled in primary school has tripled since 2001. However, at the same time the social and economic inequality that has characterised the country since long has not diminished, but on the contrary deepened in all respects.\n\nWith a stock of assets corresponding to 70 billion Kz (6.8 billion USD), Angola is now the third largest financial market in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and South Africa. According to the Angolan Minister of Economy, Abraão Gourgel, the financial market of the country grew modestly from 2002 and now lies in third place at the level of sub-Saharan Africa. \n\nAngola's economy is expected to grow by 3.9 percent in 2014 said the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to the Fund, robust growth in the non-oil economy, mainly driven by a very good performance in the agricultural sector, is expected to offset a temporary drop in oil production. \n\nAngola's financial system is maintained by the National Bank of Angola and managed by governor Jose de Lima Massano. According to a study on the banking sector, carried out by Deloitte, the monetary policy led by Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), the Angolan national bank, allowed a decrease in the inflation rate put at 7.96% in December 2013, which contributed to the sector's growth trend. According to estimates released by Angola's central bank, the country's economy should grow at an annual average rate of 5 percent over the next four years, boosted by the increasing participation of the private sector. \n\nOn 19 December 2014, the Capital Market in Angola started. BODIVA (Angola Securities and Debt Stock Exchange, in English) received the secondary public debt market, and it is expected to start the corporate debt market by 2015, but the stock market should only be a reality in 2016. \n\nAgriculture \n\nAgriculture and forestry is an area of opportunity for the country. “Angola requires 4.5 million tonnes a year of grain but only grows about 55% of the corn it needs, 20% of the rice and just 5% of its required wheat”(African economic Outlook) but “less than 3 percent of Angola's abundant fertile land is cultivated and the economic potential of the forestry sector remains largely unexploited” (World Bank). From this fact we can appreciate the capacity that Angola has to increase production not only for the national market but also for the international one. Investing in this sector can help reduce unemployment and more specifically in the rural areas. This will undoubted have consequences on the living standard of rural civilians.\n\nTransport\n\nTransport in Angola consists of:\n*Three separate railway systems totalling 2,761 km (1,715 mi)\n*76626 km of highway of which 19156 km is paved\n*1,295 navigable inland waterways\n*Eight major sea ports\n*243 airports, of which 32 are paved.\n\nTravel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola (and in some cases within) is often not best advised for those without four-by-four vehicles. While a reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and the war have taken their toll on the road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road. The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Completing the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made.\n\nTransport is an important aspect in Angola because it is strategically located and it could become a regional logistics hub. In addition Angola has some of the most important and biggest ports and so it is vital to connect them to the interior of the country as well as to neighbouring countries.\n\nTelecommunications\n\nThe telecommunications industry is considered one of the main strategic sectors in Angola. \n\nIn October 2014, the building of an optic fiber underwater cable was announced. This project aims to turn Angola into a continental hub, thus improving Internet connections both nationally and internationally. \n\nOn 11 March 2015, the First Angolan Forum of Telecommunications and Information Technology was held, in Luanda under the motto \"The challenges of telecommunications in the current context of Angola\". The purpose of this forum was to promote the debate on topical issues on telecommunications in Angola and worldwide. A study about this sector was also presented at this forum, and some of its conclusions were: Angola had the first telecommunications operator in Africa to test the High Speed Internet technology (LTE-Advanced with speeds up to 400Mbit/s); It has a mobile penetration rate of about 75%; There are about 3.5 million smartphones in the Angolan market; There are about of optical fiber installed in the country. \n\nThe first Angolan satellite, AngoSat-1, will be ready for launch into orbit in 2017 and it will ensure telecommunications throughout the country. According to Aristides Safeca, Secretary of State for Telecommunications, the satellite will provide telecommunications services, TV, internet and e-government and will remain into orbit \"at best\" for 18 years. \n\nTechnology\n\nThe management of the domain '.ao' on web pages, will go from Portugal to Angola in 2015, following the approval of a new legislation by the Angolan Government. The joint decree of the minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies, José Carvalho da Rocha, and the minister of Science and Technology, Maria Cândida Pereira Teixeira, states that \"under the massification\" of that Angolan domain, \"conditions are created for the transfer of the domain root '.ao' of Portugal to Angola\". \n\nDemographics\n\nAngola has a population of 24,383,301 inhabitants according to the preliminary results of its 2014 census, the first one conducted or carried out since 15 December 1970. It is composed of Ovimbundu (language Umbundu) 37%, Ambundu (language Kimbundu) 23%, Bakongo 13%, and 32% other ethnic groups (including the Chokwe, the Ovambo, the Ganguela and the Xindonga) as well as about 2% mestiços (mixed European and African), 1.6% Chinese and 1% European. The Ambundu and Ovimbundu nations combined form a majority of the population, at 62%. The population is forecast to grow to over 60 million people to 2050, 2.7 times the 2014 population. However, on March 23, 2016, official data revealed by Angola's National Statistic Institute - Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), states that Angola has a population of 25.789.024 inhabitants.\n\nIt is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who arrived in the 1970s. there were an estimated 400,000 Democratic Republic of the Congo migrant workers, at least 220,000 Portuguese, and about 259,000 Chinese living in Angola. \n\nSince 2003, more than 400,000 Congolese migrants have been expelled from Angola. Prior to independence in 1975, Angola had a community of approximately 350,000 Portuguese, but the vast majority left after independence and the ensuing civil war. However, Angola has recovered its Portuguese minority in recent years; currently, there are about 200,000 registered with the consulates, and increasing due to the debt crisis in Portugal and the relative prosperity in Angola. The Chinese population stands at 258,920, mostly composed of temporary migrants. Also, there is a small Brazilian community of about 5,000 people. \n\nThe total fertility rate of Angola is 5.54 children born per woman (2012 estimates), the 11th highest in the world.\n\nLanguages\n\nThe languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups and Portuguese, introduced during the Portuguese colonial era. The indigenous languages with the largest usage are Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country.\n\nMastery of the official language is probably more extended in Angola than it is elsewhere in Africa, and this certainly applies to its use in everyday life. Moreover, and above all, the proportion of native (or near-native) speakers of the language of the former colonizer, become official after independence, is no doubt considerably higher than in any other African country.\n\nThere are three intertwined historical reasons for this situation.\n#In the Portuguese \"bridgeheads\" Luanda and Benguela, which existed on the coast of what today is Angola since the 15th and 16th century, respectively, Portuguese was spoken not only by the Portuguese and their mestiço descendents, but—especially in and around Luanda—by a significant number of Africans, although these always remained native speakers of their local African language.\n#Since the Portuguese conquest of the present territory of Angola, and especially since its \"effective occupation\" in the mid-1920s, schooling in Portuguese was slowly developed by the colonial state as well as by Catholic and Protestant missions. The rhythm of this expansion was considerably accelerated during the late colonial period, 1961–1974, so that by the end of the colonial period children all over the territory (with relatively few exceptions) had at least some access to the Portuguese language. \n#In the same late colonial period, the legal discrimination of the black population was abolished, and the state apparatus in fields like health, education, social work, and rural development was enlarged. This entailed a significant increase in jobs for Africans, on condition that they spoke Portuguese.\n\nAs a consequence of all this, the African \"lower middle class\" which at that stage formed in Luanda and other cities began to prevent their children from learning the local African language, in order to guarantee that they learned Portuguese as their native language. At the same time, the white and \"mestiço\" population, where some knowledge of African languages could previously often be found, neglected this aspect more and more, to the point of frequently ignoring it totally.\nThese tendencies continued and grew under the rule of the MPLA whose main social roots are exactly in those social segments where the mastery of Portuguese as well as the proportion of native Portuguese speakers was highest. This became a political side issue, as FNLA and UNITA, given their regional constituencies, came out in favour of a greater attention to the African languages, and as the FNLA favoured French over Portuguese.\n\nThe dynamics of the language situation, as described above, were additionally fostered by the massive migrations triggered by the Civil War. Ovimbundu, the most populous ethnic group and the most affected by the war, appeared in great numbers in urban areas outside their areas, especially in Luanda and surroundings. At the same time, a majority of the Bakongo who had fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 1960s, or of their children and grandchildren, returned to Angola, but mostly did not settle in their original \"habitat\", but in the cities—and again above all in Luanda. As a consequence, more than half the population is now living in the cities which, from the linguistic point of view, have become highly heterogeneous. This means, of course, that Portuguese as the overall national language of communication is by now of paramount importance, and that the role of the African languages is steadily decreasing among the urban population—a trend which is beginning to spread into rural areas as well.\n\nThe exact numbers of those fluent in Portuguese or who speak Portuguese as a first language are unknown, although a census is expected to be carried out in July–August 2013. Quite a number of voices demand the recognition of \"Angolan Portuguese\" as a specific variant, comparable to those spoken in Portugal or in Brazil. However, while there exists a certain number of idiomatic particularities in everyday Portuguese, as spoken by Angolans, it remains to be seen whether or not the Angolan government comes to the conclusion that these particularities constitute a configuration that justifies the claim to be a new language variant.\n\nReligion\n\nThere are about 1000 mostly Christian religious communities in Angola. While reliable statistics are nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the Protestant churches introduced during the colonial period: the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its West, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the Northwest (now present in Luanda as well) and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans. In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the \"syncretic\" Tocoists and in the northwest a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the Congo/Zaïre. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, where by now about 50% of the population is living; several of these communities/churches are of Brazilian origin.\n\nThe U.S. Department of State estimates the Muslim population at 80,000–90,000, while the Islamic Community of Angola puts the figure closer to 500,000. Muslims consist largely of migrants from West Africa and the Middle East (especially Lebanon), although some are local converts. The Angolan government does not legally recognize any Muslim organizations and often shuts down mosques or prevents their construction.\n\nIn a study assessing nations' levels of religious regulation and persecution with scores ranging from 0 to 10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Angola was scored 0.8 on Government Regulation of Religion, 4.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 0 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 0 on Religious Persecution. \n\nForeign missionaries were very active prior to independence in 1975, although since the beginning of the anti-colonial fight in 1961 the Portuguese colonial authorities expelled a series of Protestant missionaries and closed mission stations based on the belief that the missionaries were inciting pro-independence sentiments. Missionaries have been able to return to the country since the early 1990s, although security conditions due to the civil war have prevented them until 2002 from restoring many of their former inland mission stations. \n\nThe Catholic Church and some major Protestant denominations mostly keep to themselves in contrast to the \"New Churches\" which actively proselytize. Catholics, as well as some major Protestant denominations, provide help for the poor in the form of crop seeds, farm animals, medical care and education. \n\nLargest cities\n\nCulture\n\nIn Angola, there is a Culture Ministry that is managed by Culture Minister Rosa Maria Martins da Cruz e Silva. Portugal has been present in Angola for 400 years, occupied the territory in the 19th and early 20th century, and ruled over it for about 50 years. As a consequence, both countries share cultural aspects: language (Portuguese) and main religion (Roman Catholic Christianity). The substrate of Angolan culture is African, mostly Bantu, while Portuguese culture has been imported. The diverse ethnic communities – the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda and other peoples – maintain to varying degrees their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times – in Luanda since its foundation in the 16th century. In this urban culture, the Portuguese heritage has become more and more dominant. An African influence is evident in music and dance, and is moulding the way in which Portuguese is spoken, but is almost disappearing from the vocabulary. This process is well reflected in contemporary Angolan literature, especially in the works of Pepetela and Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares.\n\nLeila Lopes, Miss Angola 2011, was crowned Miss Universe 2011 in Brazil on 12 September 2011 making her the first Angolan to win the pageant.\n\nIn 2014, Angola resume the National Festival of Angolan Culture (FENACULT), after a 25-years break. The festival took place in all the provincial capitals of the country between 30 August and 20 September and had as theme \"Culture as a Factor of Peace and Development\". \n\nHealth\n\nEpidemics of cholera, malaria, rabies and African hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg hemorrhagic fever, are common diseases in several parts of the country. Many regions in this country have high incidence rates of tuberculosis and high HIV prevalence rates. Dengue, filariasis, leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are other diseases carried by insects that also occur in the region. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancies. A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola. Demographic and Health Surveys is currently conducting several surveys in Angola on malaria, domestic violence and more. \n\nIn September 2014, the Angolan Institute for Cancer Control (IACC) was created by presidential decree, and it will integrate the National Health Service in Angola. The purpose of this new center is to ensure the health and medical care in oncology, policy implementation, programs and plans for prevention and specialized treatment. This cancer institute will be assumed as a reference institution in the central and southern regions of Africa. \n\nIn 2014, Angola launched a national campaign of vaccination against measles, extended to every child under ten years old and aiming to go to all 18 provinces in the country. The measure is part of the Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Measles 2014–2020 created by the Angolan Ministry of Health which includes strengthening routine immunization, a proper dealing with measles cases, national campaigns, introducing a second dose of vaccination in the national routine vaccination calendar and active epidemiological surveillance for measles. This campaign took place together with the vaccination against polio and vitamin A supplementation. \n\nThe yellow fever outbreak in Angola began in December 2015. More than 2,400 people have been infected since December, and 300 people have died from the yellow fever. The outbreak began in the capital of Luanda but now has spread to at least 14 of the 18 provinces in the country. This outbreak of the yellow fever is the worst in the southern African country in three decades. \n\nEducation\n\nAlthough by law education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a percentage of students are not attending due to a lack of school buildings and teachers.\"Botswana\". [http://web.archive.org/web/20140109071239/http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2005/tda2005.pdf 2005 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor]. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor (2006). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies.\n\nIn 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 percent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding.\n\nThe Ministry of Education hired 20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continued to implement teacher trainings. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shifts a day). Some teachers may reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their students. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely under-funded.\n\nAccording to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the adult literacy rate in 2011 was 70.4%. 82.9% of males and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at high schools, polytechnical institutes, and universities in Portugal, Brazil and Cuba through bilateral agreements; in general, these students belong to the elites.\n\nIn September 2014, the Angolan Ministry of Education announced an investment of 16 million Euros in the computerization of over 300 classrooms across the country. The project also includes training teachers at a national level, \"as a way to introduce and use new information technologies in primary schools, thus reflecting an improvement in the quality of teaching.\" \n\nIn 2010, the Angolan government started building the Angolan Media Libraries Network, distributed throughout several provinces in the country to facilitate the people's access to information and knowledge. Each site has a bibliographic archive, multimedia resources and computers with Internet access, as well as areas for reading, researching and socializing. The plan envisages the establishment of one media library in each Angolan province by 2017. The project also includes the implementation of several media libraries, in order to provide the several contents available in the fixed media libraries to the most isolated populations in the country. At this time, the mobile media libraries are already operating in the provinces of Luanda, Malanje, Uíge, Cabinda and Lunda South. As for REMA, the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Lubango and Soyo have currently working media libraries. \n\nSports\n\nAngola is the top basketball team of FIBA Africa, and a regular competitor at the Summer Olympic Games and the FIBA World Cup. The Angola national football team qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, as this was their first appearance on the World Cup finals stage. They were eliminated after one defeat and two draws in the group stage. They won 3 COSAFA Cups and finished runner up in 2011 African Nations Championship. Angola has participated in the World Women's Handball Championship for several years. The country has also appeared in the Summer Olympics for seven years and both compete and have hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup. Angola is also often believed to have historic roots in the martial art \"Capoeira Angola\" and \"Batuque\" which were practiced by enslaved African Angolans transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade.",
"The Angolan Civil War () was a major civil conflict in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict, the Angolan War of Independence (1961–74), had taken place. The following civil war was essentially a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). At the same time, the war served as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War and large-scale direct and indirect international involvement by opposing powers such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the United States was a major feature of the conflict. \n\nThe MPLA and UNITA had different roots in the Angolan social fabric and mutually incompatible leaderships, despite their shared aim of ending colonial rule. Although both had socialist leanings, for the purpose of mobilising \ninternational support they posed as \"Marxist–Leninist\" and \"anti-communist\", respectively. A third movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), having fought the MPLA alongside UNITA during the war for independence and the decolonization conflict, played almost no role in the Civil War. Additionally, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), an association of separatist militant groups, fought for the independence of the province of Cabinda from Angola.\n\nThe 27-year war can be divided roughly into three periods of major fighting – from 1975 to 1991, 1992 to 1994, and from 1998 to 2002 – broken up by fragile periods of peace. By the time the MPLA finally achieved victory in 2002, more than 500,000 people had died and over one million had been internally displaced. The war devastated Angola's infrastructure, and severely damaged the nation's public administration, economic enterprises, and religious institutions.\n\nThe Angolan Civil War was notable due to the combination of Angola's violent internal dynamics and massive foreign intervention. The war became a Cold War struggle, as both the Soviet Union and the United States, along with their respective allies, provided significant military assistance to parties in the conflict. Moreover, the Angolan conflict became entangled with the Second Congo War in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as with the Namibian War of Independence.\n\nOutline of main combatants\n\nAngola's three rebel movements had their roots in the anti-colonial movements of the 1950s. The MPLA was primarily an urban based movement in Luanda and its surrounding area. It was largely composed of Mbundu people. By contrast the other two major anti-colonial movements were rurally based groups, the FNLA and UNITA. The FNLA largely consisted of Bakongo people hailing from Northern Angola. UNITA, an offshoot of the FNLA, was mainly composed of Ovimbundu people from the Central highlands.\n\nMPLA\n\nSince its formation in the 1950s, the MPLA's main social base has been among the Ambundu people and the multiracial intelligentsia of cities such as Luanda, Benguela and Huambo. During its anti-colonial struggle of 1962–74, the MPLA was supported by several African countries, as well as by the Soviet Union. In the decolonization conflict of 1974–75, Cuba became the MPLA's strongest ally, sending significant contingents of combat and support personnel to Angola. This support, as well as that of several other countries of the Eastern Bloc, e.g. Romania and East Germany, was maintained during the Civil War. \n\nFNLA\n\nThe FNLA formed parallel to the MPLA, and was initially devoted to defending the interests of the Bakongo people and supporting the restoration of the historical Kongo Empire. However, it rapidly developed into a nationalist movement, supported in its struggle against Portugal by the government of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. During the early 1960s, the FNLA was also supported by the People's Republic of China, but when UNITA was founded in the mid-1960s, China switched its support to this new movement, because the FNLA had shown little real activity. The United States refused to give the FNLA support during the movement's war against Portugal, which was a NATO ally of the U.S.; however, the FNLA did receive U.S. aid during the decolonization conflict and later during the Civil Wars.\n\nUNITA\n\nUNITA's main social basis were the Ovimbundu of central Angola, who constituted about one third of the country's population, but the organization also had roots among several less numerous peoples of eastern Angola. UNITA was founded in 1966 by Jonas Savimbi, who until then had been a prominent leader of the FNLA. During the anti-colonial war, UNITA received some support from the People's Republic of China. During the subsequent decolonization conflict, the United States decided to support UNITA, and considerably augmented their aid to UNITA during the Civil War. However, in the latter period, UNITA's main ally was the Republic of South Africa.\n\nRoots of the conflict\n\nAngola, like most African countries, became constituted as a nation through colonial intervention. In Angola's case, its colonial power – Portugal – was present and active in the territory, in one way or another, for over four centuries.\n\nEthnic divisions\n\nThe original population of this territory were dispersed Khoisan groups. These were absorbed or pushed southwards, where residual groups still exist, by a massive influx of Bantu people who came from the north and east.\n\nThe Bantu influx began around 500 BC, and some continued their migrations inside the territory well into the 20th century. They established a number of major political units, of which the most important was the Kongo Empire whose centre was located in the northwest of what today is Angola, and which stretched northwards into the west of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the south and west of the contemporary Republic of Congo and even the southernmost part of Gabon.\n\nAlso of historical importance were the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms to the south of the Kongo Empire, in the Ambundu area. Additionally, the Lunda Empire, in the south-east of the present day DRC, occupied a portion of what today is north-eastern Angola. In the south of the territory, and the north of present-day Namibia, lay the Kwanyama kingdom, along with minor realms on the central highlands. All these political units were a reflection of ethnic cleavages that slowly developed among the Bantu populations, and were instrumental in consolidating these cleavages and fostering the emergence of new and distinct social identities.\n\nPortuguese colonialism\n\nAt the end of the 15th century, Portuguese settlers made contact with the Kongo Empire, maintaining a continuous presence in its territory and enjoying considerable cultural and religious influence thereafter. In 1575, Portugal established a settlement and fort called Saint Paul of Luanda on the coast south of the Kongo Empire, in an area inhabited by Ambundu people. Another fort, Benguela, was established on the coast further south, in a region inhabited by ancestors of the Ovimbundu people.\n\nNeither of these Portuguese settlement efforts was launched for the purpose of territorial conquest. It is true that both gradually came to occupy and farm a broad area around their initial bridgeheads (in the case of Luanda, mostly along the lower Kwanza River). However, their main function was trade – overwhelmingly the slave trade. Slaves were bought from African intermediaries and sold to Brazil and the Caribbean. In addition, Benguela developed a commerce in ivory, wax, and honey, which they bought from Ovimbundu caravans which fetched these goods from among the Ganguela peoples in the eastern part of what is now Angola. \n\nNonetheless, the Portuguese presence on the Angolan coast remained limited for much of the colonial period. The degree of real colonial settlement was minor, and, with few exceptions, the Portuguese did not interfere by means other than commercial in the social and political dynamics of the native peoples. There was no real delimitation of territory; Angola, to all intents and purposes, did not yet exist.\n\nIn the 19th century, the Portuguese began a more serious program of advancing into the continental interior. However, their intention was less territorial occupation and more establishing a de facto overlordship which allowed them to establish commercial networks as well as a few settlements. In this context, they also moved further south along the coast, and founded the \"third bridgehead\" of Moçâmedes. In the course of this expansion, they entered into conflict with several of the African political units. \n\nTerritorial occupation only became a central concern for Portugal in the last decades of the 19th century, during the European powers' \"Scramble for Africa\", especially following the 1884 Berlin Conference. A number of military expeditions were organized as preconditions for obtaining territory which roughly corresponded to that of present-day Angola. However, as late as 1906 only about 6% of that territory was effectively occupied, and the military campaigns had to continue. By the mid-1920s, the limits of the territory were finally fixed, and the last \"primary resistance\" was quelled in the early 1940s. It is thus reasonable to talk of Angola as a defined territorial entity from this point onwards.\n\nBuild-up to independence and rising tensions\n\nIn 1961, the FNLA and the MPLA, based in neighbouring countries, began a guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule on several fronts. The Portuguese Colonial War, which included the Angolan War of Independence, lasted until the Portuguese regime's overthrow in 1974 through a leftist military coup in Lisbon. When the timeline for independence became known, most of the roughly 500,000 ethnic Portuguese Angolans fled the territory during the weeks before or after that deadline. Portugal left behind a newly independent country whose population was mainly composed by Ambundu, Ovimbundu, and Bakongo peoples. The Portuguese that lived in Angola accounted for the majority of the skilled workers in public administration, agriculture, and industry; once they fled the country, the national economy began to sink into depression. \n\nThe South African government initially became involved in an effort to counter the Chinese presence in Angola, which was feared might escalate the conflict into a local theatre of the Cold War. In 1975, South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster authorized Operation Savannah, which began as an effort to protect engineers constructing the dam at Calueque, after unruly UNITA soldiers took over. The dam, paid for by South Africa, was felt to be at risk. The South African Defence Force (SADF) despatched an armoured task force to secure Calueque, and from this Operation Savannah escalated, there being no formal government in place and thus no clear lines of authority. The South Africans came to commit thousands of soldiers to the intervention, and ultimately clashed with Cuban forces assisting the MPLA.\n\n1970s\n\nIndependence\n\nAfter the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the end of the Angolan War of Independence, the parties of the conflict signed the Alvor Accords on 15 January 1975. In July 1975, the MPLA violently forced the FNLA out of Luanda, and UNITA voluntarily withdrew to its stronghold in the south. By August, the MPLA had control of 11 of the 15 provincial capitals, including Cabinda and Luanda. South Africa intervened on 23 October, sending between 1,500 and 2,000 troops from Namibia into southern Angola in order to support the FNLA and UNITA. Zaire, in a bid to install a pro-Kinshasa government and thwart the MPLA's drive for power, deployed armored cars, paratroopers, and three infantry battalions to Angola in support of the FNLA. Within three weeks, South African and UNITA forces had captured five provincial capitals, including Novo Redondo and Benguela. In response to the South African intervention, Cuba sent 18,000 soldiers as part of a large-scale military intervention nicknamed Operation Carlota in support of the MPLA. Cuba had initially provided the MPLA with 230 military advisers prior to the South African intervention. The Cuban intervention proved decisive in repelling the South African-UNITA advance. The FNLA were likewise routed at the Battle of Quifangondo and forced to retreat towards Zaire. The defeat of the FNLA allowed the MPLA to consolidate power over the capital Luanda.\n\n Agostinho Neto, the leader of the MPLA, declared the independence of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Angola as the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975. (Hereafter \"Rothchild\".) UNITA declared Angolan independence as the Social Democratic Republic of Angola based in Huambo, and the FNLA declared the Democratic Republic of Angola based in Ambriz. FLEC, armed and backed by the French government, declared the independence of the Republic of Cabinda from Paris. The FNLA and UNITA forged an alliance on 23 November, proclaiming their own coalition government based in Huambo with Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi as co-Presidents, and José Ndelé and Johnny Pinnock Eduardo as co-Prime Ministers. \n\nIn early November 1975, the South African government warned Savimbi and Roberto that the South African Defence Force (SADF) would soon end operations in Angola despite the failure of the coalition to capture Luanda and therefore secure international recognition for their government. Savimbi, desperate to avoid the withdrawal of South Africa, asked General Constand Viljoen to arrange a meeting for him with Prime Minister of South Africa John Vorster, who had been Savimbi's ally since October 1974. On the night of 10 November, the day before the formal declaration of independence, Savimbi secretly flew to Pretoria to meet Vorster. In a reversal of policy, Vorster not only agreed to keep his troops in Angola through November, but also promised to withdraw the SADF only after the OAU meeting on 9 December. The Soviets, well aware of South African activity in southern Angola, flew Cuban soldiers into Luanda the week before independence. While Cuban officers led the mission and provided the bulk of the troop force, 60 Soviet officers in the Congo joined the Cubans on 12 November. The Soviet leadership expressly forbade the Cubans from intervening in Angola's civil war, focusing the mission on containing South Africa.\n\nIn 1975 and 1976 most foreign forces, with the exception of Cuba, withdrew. The last elements of the Portuguese military withdrew in 1975 and the South African military withdrew in February 1976. However, Cuba's troop force in Angola increased from 5,500 in December 1975 to 11,000 in February 1976. Sweden provided humanitarian assistance to both the SWAPO and the MPLA in the mid-1970s, and regularly raised the issue of UNITA in political discussions between the two movements.\n\nClark Amendment\n\nPresident of the United States Gerald Ford approved covert aid to UNITA and the FNLA through Operation IA Feature on 18 July 1975, despite strong opposition from officials in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ford told William Colby, the Director of Central Intelligence, to establish the operation, providing an initial US$6 million. He granted an additional $8 million on 27 July and another $25 million in August.\n\nTwo days before the program's approval, Nathaniel Davis, the Assistant Secretary of State, told Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, that he believed maintaining the secrecy of IA Feature would be impossible. Davis correctly predicted the Soviet Union would respond by increasing involvement in the Angolan conflict, leading to more violence and negative publicity for the United States. When Ford approved the program, Davis resigned. John Stockwell, the CIA's station chief in Angola, echoed Davis' criticism saying that success required the expansion of the program, but its size already exceeded what could be hidden from the public eye. Davis' deputy, former U.S. ambassador to Chile Edward Mulcahy, also opposed direct involvement. Mulcahy presented three options for U.S. policy towards Angola on 13 May 1975. Mulcahy believed the Ford administration could use diplomacy to campaign against foreign aid to the communist MPLA, refuse to take sides in factional fighting, or increase support for the FNLA and UNITA. He warned however that supporting UNITA would not sit well with Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire.\n\nDick Clark, a Democratic Senator from Iowa, discovered the operation during a fact-finding mission in Africa, but Seymour Hersh, a reporter for The New York Times, revealed IA Feature to the public on 13 December 1975. Clark proposed an amendment to the Arms Export Control Act, barring aid to private groups engaged in military or paramilitary operations in Angola. The Senate passed the bill, voting 54–22 on 19 December 1975, and the House of Representatives passed the bill, voting 323–99 on 27 January 1976. Ford signed the bill into law on 9 February 1976. Even after the Clark Amendment became law, then-Director of Central Intelligence, George H. W. Bush, refused to concede that all U.S. aid to Angola had ceased.p. 52 pp. 186–187. According to foreign affairs analyst Jane Hunter, Israel stepped in as a proxy arms supplier for South Africa after the Clark Amendment took effect. Israel and South Africa established a longstanding military alliance, in which Israel provided weapons and training, as well as conducting joint military exercises. \n\nThe U.S. government vetoed Angolan entry into the United Nations on 23 June 1976. Zambia forbade UNITA from launching attacks from its territory on 28 December 1976 after Angola under MPLA rule became a member of the United Nations.\n\n'Cuba's Vietnam'\n\nThe Vietnam War tempered foreign involvement in Angola's civil war as neither the Soviet Union nor the United States wanted to be drawn into an internal conflict of highly debatable importance in terms of winning the Cold War. CBS Newscaster Walter Cronkite spread this message in his broadcasts to \"try to play our small part in preventing that mistake this time.\" The Politburo engaged in heated debate over the extent to which the Soviet Union would support a continued offensive by the MPLA in February 1976. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Premier Alexei Kosygin led a faction favoring less support for the MPLA and greater emphasis on preserving détente with the West. Leonid Brezhnev, the then head of the Soviet Union, won out against the dissident faction and the Soviet alliance with the MPLA continued even as Neto publicly reaffirmed its policy of non-alignment at the 15th anniversary of the First Revolt.\n\nThe MPLA government and Cuban troops had control over all southern cities by 1977, but roads in the south faced repeated UNITA attacks. Savimbi expressed his willingness for rapprochement with the MPLA and the formation of a unity, socialist government, but he insisted on Cuban withdrawal first. \"The real enemy is Cuban colonialism,\" Savimbi told reporters, warning, \"The Cubans have taken over the country, but sooner or later they will suffer their own Vietnam in Angola.\" MPLA and Cuban troops used flame throwers, bulldozers, and planes with napalm to destroy villages in a wide area along the Angola-Namibia border. Only women and children passed through this area, \"Castro Corridor,\" because MPLA troops had shot all males ten years of age or older to prevent them from joining the UNITA. The napalm killed cattle to feed government troops and to retaliate against UNITA sympathizers. A number of civilians fled from their homes; 10,000 going south to Namibia and 16,000 east to Zambia, where they lived in refugee camps.\n\nShaba invasions\n\nAbout 1,500 members of the Front for the National Liberation of the Congo (FNLC) invaded Shaba, Zaire, from eastern Angola on 7 March 1977. The FNLC wanted to overthrow Mobutu, and the MPLA government, suffering from Mobutu's support for the FNLA and UNITA, did not try to stop the invasion. The FNLC failed to capture Kolwezi, Zaire's economic heartland, but took Kasaji and Mutshatsha. The Zairean army (the Forces Armées Zaïroises) was defeated without difficulty and the FNLC continued to advance. On 2 April, Mobutu appealed to William Eteki of Cameroon, Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, for assistance. Eight days later, the French government responded to Mobutu's plea and airlifted 1,500 Moroccan troops into Kinshasa. This force worked in conjunction with the Zairean army, the FNLA and Egyptian pilots flying French-made Zairean Mirage fighter aircraft to beat back the FNLC. The counter-invasion force pushed the last of the militants, along with numerous refugees, into Angola and Zambia in April 1977.\n\nMobutu accused the MPLA, Cuban and Soviet governments of complicity in the war. While Neto did support the FNLC, the MPLA government's support came in response to Mobutu's continued support for Angola's FNLA The Carter Administration, unconvinced of Cuban involvement, responded by offering a meager $15 million-worth of non-military aid. American timidity during the war prompted a shift in Zaire's foreign policy towards greater engagement with France, which became Zaire's largest supplier of arms after the intervention. Neto and Mobutu signed a border agreement on 22 July 1977.\n\nJohn Stockwell, the CIA's station chief in Angola, resigned after the invasion, explaining in the April 1977 The Washington Post article \"Why I'm Leaving the CIA\" that he had warned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that continued American support for anti-government rebels in Angola could provoke a war with Zaire. He also said that covert Soviet involvement in Angola came after, and in response to, U.S. involvement.\n\nThe FNLC invaded Shaba again on 11 May 1978, capturing Kolwezi in two days. While the Carter Administration had accepted Cuba's insistence on its non-involvement in Shaba I, and therefore did not stand with Mobutu, the U.S. government now accused Castro of complicity. This time, when Mobutu appealed for foreign assistance, the U.S. government worked with the French and Belgian militaries to beat back the invasion, the first military cooperation between France and the United States since the Vietnam War.George (2005), p. 136. The French Foreign Legion took back Kolwezi after a seven-day battle and airlifted 2,250 European citizens to Belgium, but not before the FNLC massacred 80 Europeans and 200 Africans. In one instance, the FNLC killed 34 European civilians who had hidden in a room. The FNLC retreated to Zambia, vowing to return to Angola. The Zairean army then forcibly evicted civilians along Shaba's border with Angola. Mobutu, wanting to prevent any chance of another invasion, ordered his troops to shoot on sight.\n\nU.S.-mediated negotiations between the MPLA and Zairean governments led to a peace accord in 1979 and an end to support for insurgencies in each other's respective countries. Zaire temporarily cut off support to the FLEC, the FNLA and UNITA, and Angola forbade further activity by the FNLC.\n\nNitistas\n\nNeto's Interior Minister, Nito Alves, had successfully put down Daniel Chipenda's Eastern Revolt and the Active Revolt during Angola's War of Independence. Factionalism within the MPLA became a major challenge to Neto's power by late 1975 and he gave Alves the task of once again clamping down on dissent. Alves shut down the Cabral and Henda Committees while expanding his influence within the MPLA through his control of the nation's newspapers and state-run television. Alves visited the Soviet Union in October 1976. When he returned, Neto began taking steps to neutralize the threat he saw in the Nitistas, followers of Alves. Neto called a plenum meeting of the Central Committee of the MPLA. Neto formally designated the party Marxist-Leninist, abolished the Interior Ministry , the official branch of the MPLA used by the Nitistas, and established a Commission of Enquiry. Neto used the commission, officially created to examine and report factionalism, to target the Nitistas, and ordered the commission to issue a report of its findings in March 1977. Alves and Chief of Staff José Van-Dunem, his political ally, began planning a coup d'état against Neto.\n\nAlves represented the MPLA at the 25th Soviet Communist Party Congress in February 1977 and may have then obtained support for the coup from the Soviet Union. Alves and Van-Dunem planned to arrest Neto on 21 May before he arrived at a meeting of the Central Committee and before the commission released its report. The MPLA changed the location of the meeting shortly before its scheduled start, throwing the plotters' plans into disarray, but Alves attended the meeting and faced the commission anyway. The commission released its report, accusing him of factionalism. Alves fought back, denouncing Neto for not aligning Angola with the Soviet Union. After twelve hours of debate, the party voted 26 to 6 to dismiss Alves and Van-Dunem from their positions.\n\nTen armored cars with the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) 8th Brigade broke into São Paulo prison at 4 a.m. on 27 May, killing the prison warden and freeing more than 150 supporters, including 11 who had been arrested only a few days before. The brigade took control of the radio station in Luanda at 7 a.m. and announced their coup, calling themselves the MPLA Action Committee. The brigade asked citizens to show their support for the coup by demonstrating in front of the presidential palace. The Nitistas captured Bula and Dangereaux, generals loyal to Neto, but Neto had moved his base of operations from the palace to the Ministry of Defence in fear of such an uprising. Cuban troops retook the palace at Neto's request and marched to the radio station. After an hour of fighting, the Cubans succeeded and proceeded to the barracks of the 8th Brigade, recaptured by 1:30 p.m. While the Cuban force captured the palace and radio station, the Nitistas kidnapped seven leaders within the government and the military, shooting and killing six.George (2005), pp. 129–131.\n\nThe MPLA government arrested tens of thousands of suspected Nitistas from May to November and tried them in secret courts overseen by Defense Minister Iko Carreira. Those who were found guilty, including Van-Dunem, Jacobo \"Immortal Monster\" Caetano, the head of the 8th Brigade, and political commissar Eduardo Evaristo, were then shot and buried in secret graves. At least 18,000 followers (or alleged followers) of Nito Alves were estimated to have been killed by Cuban and MPLA troops in the aftermath over a period that lasted up to two years, with some estimates claiming as high as 70,000 dead. The coup attempt had a lasting effect on Angola's foreign relations. Alves had opposed Neto's foreign policy of non-alignment, evolutionary socialism, and multiracialism, favoring stronger relations with the Soviet Union, which he wanted to grant military bases in Angola. While Cuban soldiers actively helped Neto put down the coup, Alves and Neto both believed the Soviet Union supported Neto's ouster. Cuban Armed Forces Minister Raúl Castro sent an additional four thousand troops to prevent further dissension within the MPLA's ranks and met with Neto in August in a display of solidarity. In contrast, Neto's distrust of the Soviet leadership increased and relations with the USSR worsened. In December, the MPLA held its first party Congress and changed its name to the MPLA-Worker's Party (MPLA-PT). The Nitista coup took a toll on the MPLA's membership. In 1975, the MPLA reached 200,000 members. After the first party congress, that number decreased to 30,000.Georges A. Fauriol and Eva Loser. Cuba: The International Dimension, 1990 (ISBN 0-88738-324-6), p. 164.\n\nRise of dos Santos\n\nThe Soviets, trying to increase their influence in Luanda, began sending busts of Vladimir Lenin, a plane full of brochures with Leonid Brezhnev's speech at the February 1976 Party Congress, and two planes full of pamphlets denouncing Mao Zedong, to Angola. They sent so many busts that they ran out in the summer of 1976 and requested more from the CPSU Propaganda Department. Despite the best efforts of the Soviet propaganda machine and persistent lobbying by G. A. Zverev, the Soviet chargé d'affaires, Neto stood his ground, refusing to grant the permanent military bases the Soviets so desperately wanted in Angola. Neto allies like Defense Minister Iko Carreira and MPLA General Secretary Lúcio Lara also irked the Soviet leadership through their policies and personalities. With Alves out of the picture, the Soviet Union promoted Prime Minister Lopo do Nascimento, another 'internationalist', against Neto, a 'careerist,' for the MPLA's leadership. Neto moved swiftly to crush his adversary. The MPLA-PT's Central Committee met from 6 to 9 December. The Committee concluded the meeting by firing Nascimento as both Prime Minister and as Secretary of the Politburo, the Director of National Television, and the Director of Jornal de Angola. Commander C. R. Dilolua resigned as Second Deputy Prime Minister and a member of the Politburo.Kalley (1999), p. 10. Later that month the Committee abolished the positions of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Paving the way for dos Santos, Neto increased the ethnic composition of the MPLA-PT's political bureau as he replaced the hardline Old Guard with new blood. On 5 July 1979, Neto issued a decree requiring all citizens to serve in the military for three years upon reaching the age of 18. The MPLA gave a report to the UN claiming $293 million in property damage from South African attacks between 1976 and 1979, asking for compensation on 3 August 1979. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Cabinda, a Cabindan separatist rebel group, attacked a Cuban base near Tshiowa on 11 August.Kalley (1999), p. 12.\n\nPresident Neto died from inoperable cancer in Moscow on 10 September 1979. The MPLA declared 45 days of mourning. The government held his funeral at the Palace of the People on 17 September. Many foreign dignitaries, including Organization of African Unity President William R. Tolbert, Jr. of Liberia, attended. The Central Committee of the MPLA unanimously voted in favor of José Eduardo dos Santos as President. He was sworn in on 21 September. Under dos Santos' leadership, Angolan troops crossed the border into Namibia for the first time on 31 October, going into Kavango. The next day, the governments of Angola, Zambia, and Zaire signed a non-aggression pact.\n\n1980s\n\nIn the 1980s, fighting spread outward from southeastern Angola, where most of the fighting had taken place in the 1970s, as the National Congolese Army (ANC) and SWAPO increased their activity. The South African government responded by sending troops back into Angola, intervening in the war from 1981 to 1987, prompting the Soviet Union to deliver massive amounts of military aid from 1981 to 1986. The USSR gave the MPLA more than US$2 billion in aid in 1984. In 1981, newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan's U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, developed a linkage policy, tying Namibian independence to Cuban withdrawal and peace in Angola.\n\nThe South African military attacked insurgents in Cunene Province on 12 May 1980. The Angolan Ministry of Defense accused the South African government of wounding and killing civilians. Nine days later, the SADF attacked again, this time in Cuando-Cubango, and the MPLA threatened to respond militarily. The SADF launched a full-scale invasion of Angola through Cunene and Cuando-Cubango on 7 June, destroying SWAPO's operational command headquarters on 13 June, in what Prime Minister Pieter Willem Botha described as a \"shock attack\". The MPLA government arrested 120 Angolans who were planning to set off explosives in Luanda, on 24 June, foiling a plot purportedly orchestrated by the South African government. Three days later, the United Nations Security Council convened at the behest of Angola's ambassador to the UN, E. de Figuerido, and condemned South Africa's incursions into Angola. President Mobutu of Zaire also sided with the MPLA. The MPLA government recorded 529 instances in which they claim South African forces violated Angola's territorial sovereignty between January and June 1980.Kalley (1999), pp. 13–14.\n\nCuba increased its troop force in Angola from 35,000 in 1982 to 40,000 in 1985. South African forces tried to capture Lubango, capital of Huíla province, in Operation Askari in December 1983.\nAlso, in order to enhance MPLA's combat capacity, Romania sent 150 flight instructors and other aviation personnel, who contributed to the establishment of an Angolan Military Aviation School.\n\nOn 2 June 1985, American conservative activists held the Democratic International, a symbolic meeting of anti-Communist militants, at UNITA's headquarters in Jamba. Primarily funded by Rite Aid founder Lewis Lehrman and organized by anti-communist activists Jack Abramoff and Jack Wheeler, participants included Savimbi, Adolfo Calero, leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, Pa Kao Her, Hmong Laotian rebel leader, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, South African security forces, Abdurrahim Wardak, Afghan Mujahideen leader, Jack Wheeler, American conservative policy advocate, and many others. The Reagan administration, although unwilling to publicly support the meeting, privately expressed approval. The governments of Israel and South Africa supported the idea, but both respective countries were deemed inadvisable for hosting the conference.\n\nThe participants released a communiqué stating,\n\n\"We, free peoples fighting for our national independence and human rights, assembled at Jamba, declare our solidarity with all freedom movements in the world and state our commitment to cooperate to liberate our nations from the Soviet Imperialists.\"\n\nThe United States House of Representatives voted 236 to 185 to repeal the Clark Amendment on 11 July 1985. The MPLA government began attacking UNITA later that month from Luena towards Cazombo along the Benguela Railway in a military operation named Congresso II, taking Cazombo on 18 September. The MPLA government tried unsuccessfully to take UNITA's supply depot in Mavinga from Menongue. While the attack failed, very different interpretations of the attack emerged. UNITA claimed Portuguese-speaking Soviet officers led FAPLA troops while the government said UNITA relied on South African paratroopers to defeat the MPLA attack. The South African government admitted to fighting in the area, but said its troops fought SWAPO militants.\n\nWar intensifies\n\nBy 1986, Angola began to assume a more central role in the Cold War, with the Soviet Union, Cuba and other Eastern bloc nations enhancing support for the MPLA government, and American conservatives beginning to elevate their support for Savimbi's UNITA. Savimbi developed close relations with influential American conservatives, who saw Savimbi as a key ally in the U.S. effort to oppose and rollback Soviet-backed, non-democratic governments around the world. The conflict quickly escalated, with both Washington and Moscow seeing it as a critical strategic conflict in the Cold War.\n\nThe Soviet Union gave an additional $1 billion in aid to the MPLA government and Cuba sent an additional 2,000 troops to the 35,000-strong force in Angola to protect Chevron oil platforms in 1986. Savimbi had called Chevron's presence in Angola, already protected by Cuban troops, a \"target\" for UNITA in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine on 31 January. \n\nIn Washington, Savimbi forged close relationships with influential conservatives, including Michael Johns (the Heritage Foundation's foreign policy analyst and a key Savimbi advocate), Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax Reform and a Savimbi economic advisor), and others, who played critical roles in elevating escalated U.S. covert aid to Savimbi's UNITA and visited with Savimbi in his Jamba, Angola headquarters to provide the Angolan rebel leader with military, political and other guidance in his war against the MPLA government. With enhanced U.S. support, the war quickly escalated, both in terms of the intensity of the conflict and also in its perception as a key conflict in the overall Cold War. \n\nIn addition to escalating its military support for UNITA, the Reagan administration and its conservative allies also worked to expand recognition of Savimbi as a key U.S. ally in an important Cold War struggle. In January 1986, Reagan invited Savimbi to meet with him at the White House. Following the meeting, Reagan spoke of UNITA winning a victory that \"electrifies the world\" at the White House in January 1986. Two months later, Reagan announced the delivery of Stinger surface-to-air missiles as part of the $25 million in aid UNITA received from the U.S. government. Jeremias Chitunda, UNITA's representative to the U.S., became the Vice President of UNITA in August 1986 at the sixth party congress. Fidel Castro made Crocker's proposal, the withdrawal of foreign troops from Angola and Namibia, a prerequisite to Cuban withdrawal from Angola on 10 September.\n\nUNITA forces attacked Camabatela in Cuanza Norte province on 8 February 1986. ANGOP alleged UNITA massacred civilians in Damba in Uíge Province later that month, on 26 February. The South African government agreed to Crocker's terms in principle on 8 March. Savimbi proposed a truce regarding the Benguela railway on 26 March, saying MPLA trains could pass through as long as an international inspection group monitored trains to prevent their use for counter-insurgency activity. The government did not respond. In April 1987 Fidel Castro sent Cuba's Fiftieth Brigade to southern Angola, increasing the number of Cuban troops from 12,000 to 15,000. The MPLA and American governments began negotiating in June 1987.Kalley (1999), p. 36.\n\nCuito Cuanavale and New York Accords\n\nUNITA and South African forces attacked the MPLA's base at Cuito Cuanavale in Cuando Cubango province from 13 January to 23 March 1988, in the second largest battle in the history of Africa,George (2005), p. 1. after the Battle of El Alamein, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa since World War II.Alao (1994), pp. 33–34. Cuito Cuanavale's importance came not from its size or its wealth but its location. South African Defense Forces maintained an overwatch on the city using new, G5 artillery pieces. Both sides claimed victory in the ensuing Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. \n\nWith that manoeuvre, Fidel Castro claimed that he increased the cost to South Africa of continuing to fight in Angola and placed Cuba in its most aggressive combat position of the war, arguing that he was preparing to leave Angola with his opponents on the defensive. According to the Cubans, the political, economical and technical cost to South Africa of maintaining its presence in Angola proved too much. Conversely, the South Africans believe they indicated their resolve to the superpowers by preparing a nuclear test that ultimately forced the Cubans into a settlement. \n\nCuban troops were alleged to have used nerve gas against UNITA troops during the civil war. Belgian criminal toxologist Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx, studied alleged evidence, including samples of war-gas \"identification kits\" found after the battle at Cuito Cuanavale, claimed that \"there is no doubt anymore that the Cubans were using nerve gases against the troops of Mr. Jonas Savimbi.\" \n\nThe Cuban government joined negotiations on 28 January 1988, and all three parties held a round of negotiations on 9 March. The South African government joined negotiations on 3 May and the parties met in June and August in New York and Geneva. All parties agreed to a ceasefire on 8 August. Representatives from the governments of Angola, Cuba, and South Africa signed the New York Accords, granting independence to Namibia and ending the direct involvement of foreign troops in the civil war, in New York City on 22 December 1988. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 626 later that day, creating the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM), a peacekeeping force. UNAVEM troops began arriving in Angola in January 1989.\n\nCeasefire\n\nAs the Angolan Civil War began to take on a diplomatic component, in addition to a military one, two key Savimbi allies, The Conservative Caucus' Howard Phillips and the Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns visited Savimbi in Angola, where they sought to persuade Savimbi to come to the United States in the spring of 1989 to help the Conservative Caucus, the Heritage Foundation and other conservatives in making the case for continued U.S. aid to UNITA.\n\nPresident Mobutu invited 18 African leaders, Savimbi, and dos Santos to his palace in Gbadolite in June 1989 for negotiations. Savimbi and dos Santos met for the first time and agreed to the Gbadolite Declaration, a ceasefire, on 22 June, paving the way for a future peace agreement. President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia said a few days after the declaration that Savimbi had agreed to leave Angola and go into exile, a claim Mobutu, Savimbi, and the U.S. government disputed. Dos Santos agreed with Kaunda's interpretation of the negotiations, saying Savimbi had agreed to temporarily leave the country.\n\nOn 23 August, dos Santos complained that the U.S. and South African governments continued to fund UNITA, warning such activity endangered the already fragile ceasefire. The next day Savimbi announced UNITA would no longer abide by the ceasefire, citing Kaunda's insistence that Savimbi leave the country and UNITA disband. The MPLA government responded to Savimbi's statement by moving troops from Cuito Cuanavale, under MPLA control, to UNITA-occupied Mavinga. The ceasefire broke down with dos Santos and the U.S. government blaming each other for the resumption in armed conflict. \n\n1990s\n\nPolitical changes abroad and military victories at home allowed the government to transition from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on 1 April, eliminated the threat to the MPLA from South Africa, as the SADF withdrew from Nambia. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a \"democratic state based on the rule of law\" with a multi-party system. Observers met such changes with skepticism. American journalist Karl Maier wrote: \"In the New Angola ideology is being replaced by the bottom line, as security and selling expertise in weaponry have become a very profitable business. With its wealth in oil and diamonds, Angola is like a big swollen carcass and the vultures are swirling overhead. Savimbi's former allies are switching sides, lured by the aroma of hard currency.\" Savimbi also reportedly purged some of those within UNITA whom he may have seen as threats to his leadership or as questioning his strategic course. Among those killed in the purge were Tito Chingunji and his family in 1991. Savimbi denied his involvement in the Chingunji killing and blamed it on UNITA dissidents. \n\nBlack, Manafort, Stone and Kelly\n\nGovernment troops wounded Savimbi in battles in January and February 1990, but not enough to restrict his mobilityAlao (1994), p. XX. He went to Washington, D.C. in December and met with President George H. W. Bush again, the fourth of five trips he made to the United States. Savimbi paid Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, a lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C., $5 million to lobby the Federal government for aid, portray UNITA favorably in Western media, and acquire support among politicians in Washington. Savimbi was highly successful in this endeavour.\n\nSenators Larry Smith and Dante Fascell, a senior member of the firm, worked with the Cuban American National Foundation, Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, Neal Blair's Free the Eagle, and Howard Phillips' Conservative Caucus to repeal the Clark Amendment in 1985. From the amendment's repeal in 1985 to 1992 the U.S. government gave Savimbi $60 million per year, a total of $420 million. A sizable amount of the aid went to Savimbi's personal expenses. Black, Manafort filed foreign lobbying records with the U.S. Justice Department showing Savimbi's expenses during his U.S. visits. During his December 1990 visit he spent $136,424 at the Park Hyatt hotel and $2,705 in tips. He spent almost $473,000 in October 1991 during his week-long visit to Washington and Manhattan. He spent $98,022 in hotel bills, at the Park Hyatt, $26,709 in limousine rides in Washington and another $5,293 in Manhattan. Paul Manafort, a partner in the firm, charged Savimbi $19,300 in consulting and additional $1,712 in expenses. He also bought $1,143 worth of \"survival kits\" from Motorola. When questioned in an interview in 1990 about human rights abuses under Savimbi, Black said, \"Now when you're in a war, trying to manage a war, when the enemy ... is no more than a couple of hours away from you at any given time, you might not run your territory according to New Hampshire town meeting rules.\"\n\nBicesse Accords\n\nPresident dos Santos met with Savimbi in Lisbon, Portugal and signed the Bicesse Accords, the first of three major peace agreements, on 31 May 1991, with the mediation of the Portuguese government. The accords laid out a transition to multi-party democracy under the supervision of the United Nations' UNAVEM II mission, with a presidential election to be held within a year. The agreement attempted to demobilize the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). The FAA would consist of a national army with 40,000 troops, navy with 6,000, and air force with 4,000. While UNITA largely did not disarm, the FAA complied with the accord and demobilized, leaving the government disadvantaged.\n\nAngola held the first round of its 1992 presidential election on 29–30 September. Dos Santos officially received 49.57% of the vote and Savimbi won 40.6%. As no candidate received 50% or more of the vote, election law dictated a second round of voting between the top two contenders. Savimbi, along with eight opposition parties and many other election observers, said the election had been neither free nor fair.National Society for Human Rights, Ending the Angolan Conflict, Windhoek, Namibia, 3 July 2000 An official observer wrote that there was little UN supervision, that 500,000 UNITA voters were disenfranchised and that there were 100 clandestine polling stations. Savimbi sent Jeremias Chitunda, Vice President of UNITA, to Luanda to negotiate the terms of the second round.Rothchild, p. 134. The election process broke down on 31 October, when government troops in Luanda attacked UNITA. Civilians, using guns they had received from police a few days earlier, conducted house-by-house raids with the Rapid Intervention Police, killing and detaining hundreds of UNITA supporters. The government took civilians in trucks to the Camama cemetery and Morro da Luz ravine, shot them, and buried them in mass graves. Assailants attacked Chitunda's convoy on 2 November, pulling him out of his car and shooting him and two others in their faces. The MPLA massacred over ten thousand UNITA and FNLA voters nationwide in a few days in what was known as the Halloween Massacre.[https://books.google.com/books?idV_qm7zPo87oC&pg\nPA33&lpgPA33&dq\nAngola+Halloween+Massacre&sourcebl&ots\nz4kRxXc_VX&sigtcCDQm2tGVKOk4AFFfvAOtUCGnE&hl\nen&saX&oi\nbook_result&resnum1&ct\nresult#PPA67,M1 Historical Dictionary of Angola by W. Martin James, Susan Herlin Broadhead] on Google Books Savimbi said the election had neither been free nor fair and refused to participate in the second round. He then proceeded to resume armed struggle against the MPLA.\n\nThen, in a series of stunning victories, UNITA regained control over Caxito, Huambo, M'banza Kongo, Ndalatando, and Uíge, provincial capitals it had not held since 1976, and moved against Kuito, Luena, and Malange. Although the U.S. and South African governments had stopped aiding UNITA, supplies continued to come from Mobutu in Zaire.Hodges (2004). pp. 15–16. UNITA tried to wrest control of Cabinda from the MPLA in January 1993. Edward DeJarnette, Head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Angola for the Clinton Administration, warned Savimbi that, if UNITA hindered or halted Cabinda's production, the U.S. would end its support for UNITA. On 9 January, UNITA began a 55-day battle over Huambo, the War of the Cities. Hundreds of thousands fled and 10,000 were killed before UNITA gained control on 7 March. The government engaged in an ethnic cleansing of Bakongo, and, to a lesser extent Ovimbundu, in multiple cities, most notably Luanda, on 22 January in the Bloody Friday massacre. UNITA and government representatives met five days later in Ethiopia, but negotiations failed to restore the peace. The United Nations Security Council sanctioned UNITA through Resolution 864 on 15 September 1993, prohibiting the sale of weapons or fuel to UNITA. Perhaps the clearest shift in U.S. foreign policy emerged when President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12865 on 23 September, labeling UNITA a \"continuing threat to the foreign policy objectives of the U.S.\" By August 1993, UNITA had gained control over 70% of Angola, but the government's military successes in 1994 forced UNITA to sue for peace. By November 1994, the government had taken control of 60% of the country. Savimbi called the situation UNITA's \"deepest crisis\" since its creation.Rothchild, pp. 137–138. It is estimate that perhaps 120,000 people were killed in the first eighteen months following the 1992 election, nearly half the number of casualties of the previous sixteen years of war. Both sides of the conflict continued to commit widespread and systematic violations of the laws of war with UNITA in particular guilty of indiscriminate shelling of besieged cities resulting in large death toll to civilians. The MPLA government forces used air power in indiscriminate fashion also resulting in high civilian deaths. The Lusaka Protocol of 1994 reaffirmed the Bicesse Accords. \n\nLusaka Protocol\n\nSavimbi, unwilling to personally sign an accord, had former UNITA Secretary General Eugenio Manuvakola represent UNITA in his place. Manuvakola and Angolan Foreign Minister Venancio de Moura signed the Lusaka Protocol in Lusaka, Zambia on 31 October 1994, agreeing to integrate and disarm UNITA. Both sides signed a ceasefire as part of the protocol on 20 November. Under the agreement the government and UNITA would cease fire and demobilize. 5,500 UNITA members, including 180 militants, would join the Angolan national police, 1,200 UNITA members, including 40 militants, would join the rapid reaction police force, and UNITA generals would become officers in the Angolan Armed Forces. Foreign mercenaries would return to their home countries and all parties would stop acquiring foreign arms. The agreement gave UNITA politicians homes and a headquarters. The government agreed to appoint UNITA members to head the Mines, Commerce, Health, and Tourism ministries, in addition to seven deputy ministers, ambassadors, the governorships of Uige, Lunda Sul, and Cuando Cubango, deputy governors, municipal administrators, deputy administrators, and commune administrators. The government would release all prisoners and give amnesty to all militants involved in the civil war. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and South African President Nelson Mandela met in Lusaka on 15 November 1994 to boost support symbolically for the protocol. Mugabe and Mandela both said they would be willing to meet with Savimbi and Mandela asked him to come to South Africa, but Savimbi did not come. The agreement created a joint commission, consisting of officials from the Angolan government, UNITA, and the UN with the governments of Portugal, the United States, and Russia observing, to oversee its implementation. Violations of the protocol's provisions would be discussed and reviewed by the commission. The protocol's provisions, integrating UNITA into the military, a ceasefire, and a coalition government, were similar to those of the Alvor Agreement that granted Angola independence from Portugal in 1975. Many of the same environmental problems, mutual distrust between UNITA and the MPLA, loose international oversight, the importation of foreign arms, and an overemphasis on maintaining the balance of power, led to the collapse of the protocol.\n\nArms monitoring\n\nIn January 1995, U.S. President Clinton sent Paul Hare, his envoy to Angola, to support the Lusaka Protocol and impress the importance of the ceasefire onto the Angolan government and UNITA, both in need of outside assistance. The United Nations agreed to send a peacekeeping force on 8 February. Savimbi met with South African President Mandela in May. Shortly after, on 18 June, the MPLA offered Savimbi the position of Vice President under dos Santos with another Vice President chosen from the MPLA. Savimbi told Mandela he felt ready to \"serve in any capacity which will aid my nation,\" but he did not accept the proposal until 12 August. The United States Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency's Angola operations and analysis expanded in an effort to halt weapons shipments, a violation of the protocol, with limited success. The Angolan government bought six Mil Mi-17 from Ukraine in 1995.Vines (1999), pp. 103–104. The government bought L-39 attack aircraft from the Czechoslovakia in 1998 along with ammunition and uniforms from Zimbabwe Defence Industries and ammunition and weapons from Ukraine in 1998 and 1999. U.S. monitoring significantly dropped off in 1997 as events in Zaire, the Congo and then Liberia occupied more of the U.S. government's attention. UNITA purchased more than 20 FROG-7 scuds and three FOX 7 missiles from the North Korean government in 1999.Vines (1999), p. 106.\n\nThe UN extended its mandate on 8 February 1996. In March, Savimbi and dos Santos formally agreed to form a coalition government. The government deported 2,000 West African and Lebanese Angolans in Operation Cancer Two, in August 1996, on the grounds that dangerous minorities were responsible for the rising crime rate. In 1996 the Angolan government bought military equipment from India, two Mil Mi-24 attack helicopters and three Sukhoi Su-17 from Kazakhstan in December, and helicopters from Slovakia in March.\n\nThe international community helped install a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation in April 1997, but UNITA did not allow the regional MPLA government to take up residence in 60 cities. The UN Security Council voted on 28 August 1997, to impose sanctions on UNITA through Resolution 1127, prohibiting UNITA leaders from traveling abroad, closing UNITA's embassies abroad, and making UNITA-controlled areas a no-fly zone. The Security Council expanded the sanctions through Resolution 1173 on 12 June 1998, requiring government certification for the purchase of Angolan diamonds and freezing UNITA's bank accounts.\n\nDuring the First Congo War, the Angolan government joined the coalition to overthrow Mobutu's government due to Mobutu's support for UNITA. Mobutu's government fell on 16 May 1997. In early October 1997, Angola invaded the Republic of the Congo during its civil war, and helped Sassou Nguesso's rebels overthrow the government of Pascal Lissouba. Lissouba's government had allowed UNITA use of cities in the Republic of Congo in order to circumvent sanctions. \n\nThe UN spent $1.6 billion from 1994 to 1998 in maintaining a peacekeeping force. The Angolan military attacked UNITA forces in the Central Highlands on 4 December 1998, the day before the MPLA's fourth Congress. Dos Santos told the delegates the next day that he believed war to be the only way to ultimately achieve peace, rejected the Lusaka Protocol, and asked MONUA to leave. In February 1999, the Security Council withdrew the last MONUA personnel. In late 1998, several UNITA commanders, dissatisfied with Savimbi's leadership, formed UNITA Renovada, a breakaway militant group. Thousands more deserted UNITA in 1999 and 2000.\n\nThe Angolan military launched Operation Restore, a massive offensive, in September 1999, recapturing N'harea, Mungo and Andulo and Bailundo, the site of Savimbi's headquarters just one year before. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1268 on 15 October, instructing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to update the Security Council to the situation in Angola every three months. Dos Santos offered an amnesty to UNITA militants on 11 November. By December, Chief of Staff General João de Matos said the Angolan Armed Forces had destroyed 80% of UNITA's militant wing and captured 15,000 tons of military equipment.Martin (2004), p. 141. Following the dissolution of the coalition government, Savimbi retreated to his historical base in Moxico and prepared for battle. In order to isolate UNITA, the government forced civilians in countryside areas subject to UNITA influence to relocate to major cities. The strategy was successful isolating in UNITA but had adverse humanitarian consequences. \n\nDiamond trade\n\nUNITA's ability to mine diamonds and sell them abroad provided funding for the war to continue even as the movement's support in the Western world and among the local populace withered away. De Beers and Endiama, a state-owned diamond-mining monopoly, signed a contract allowing De Beers to handle Angola's diamond exports in 1990. According to the United Nation's Fowler Report, Joe De Deker, a former stockholder in De Beers, worked with the government of Zaire to supply military equipment to UNITA from 1993 to 1997. De Deker's brother, Ronnie, allegedly flew from South Africa to Angola, directing weapons originating in Eastern Europe. In return, UNITA gave Ronnie bushels of diamonds worth $6 million. De Deker sent the diamonds to De Beer's buying office in Antwerp, Belgium. De Beers openly acknowledges spending $500 million on legal and illegal Angolan diamonds in 1992 alone. The United Nations estimates Angolans made between three and four billion dollars through the diamond trade between 1992 and 1998. The UN also estimates that out of that sum, UNITA made at least $3.72 billion, or 93% of all diamond sales, despite international sanctions.\n\nExecutive Outcomes (EO), a private military company, played a major role in turning the tide for the MPLA, with one U.S. defense expert calling the EO the \"best fifty or sixty million dollars the Angolan government ever spent.\" Heritage Oil and Gas, and allegedly De Beers, hired EO to protect their operations in Angola. Executive Outcomes trained up to 5,000 troops and 30 combat pilots in camps in Lunda Sul, Cabo Ledo, and Dondo.\n\nCabinda separatism\n\nThe territory of Cabinda is north of Angola proper, separated by a strip of territory 60 km long in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Portuguese Constitution of 1933 designated Angola and Cabinda as overseas provinces. In the course of administrative reforms during the 1930s to 1950s, Angola was divided into districts, and Cabinda became one of the districts of Angola. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) formed in 1963 during the broader war for independence from Portugal. Contrary to the organization's name, Cabinda is an exclave, not an enclave. FLEC later split into the Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) and FLEC-Renovada (FLEC-R). Several other, smaller FLEC factions later broke away from these movements, but FLEC-R remained the most prominent because of its size and its tactics. FLEC-R members cut off the ears and noses of government officials and their supporters, similar to the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Despite Cabinda's relatively small size, foreign powers and the nationalist movements coveted the territory for its vast reserves of petroleum, the principal export of Angola then and now.\n\nIn the war for independence, the division of assimilados versus indigenas peoples masked the inter-ethnic conflict between the various native tribes, a division that emerged in the early 1970s. The Union of Peoples of Angola, the predecessor to the FNLA, only controlled 15% of Angola's territory during the independence war, excluding MPLA-controlled Cabinda. The People's Republic of China openly backed UNITA upon independence despite the mutual support from its adversary South Africa and UNITA's pro-Western tilt. The PRC's support for Savimbi came in 1965, a year after he left the FNLA. China saw Holden Roberto and the FNLA as the stooge of the West and the MPLA as the Soviet Union's proxy. With the Sino-Soviet split, South Africa presented the least odious of allies to the PRC. \n\nThroughout the 1990s, Cabindan rebels kidnapped and ransomed off foreign oil workers to in turn finance further attacks against the national government. FLEC militants stopped buses, forcing Chevron Oil workers out, and setting fire to the buses on 27 March and 23 April 1992. A large-scale battle took place between FLEC and police in Malongo on 14 May in which 25 mortar rounds accidentally hit a nearby Chevron compound. The government, fearing the loss of their prime source of revenue, began to negotiate with representatives from Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Renewal (FLEC-R), Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC), and the Democratic Front of Cabinda (FDC) in 1995. Patronage and bribery failed to assuage the anger of FLEC-R and FLEC-FAC and negotiations ended. In February 1997, FLEC-FAC kidnapped two Inwangsa SDN-timber company employees, killing one and releasing the other after receiving a $400,000 ransom. FLEC-FLAC kidnapped eleven people in April 1998, nine Angolans and two Portuguese, released for a $500,000 ransom. FLEC-R kidnapped five Byansol-oil engineering employees, two Frenchman, two Portuguese, and an Angolan, in March 1999. While militants released the Angolan, the government complicated the situation by promising the rebel leadership $12.5 million for the hostages. When António Bento Bembe, the President of FLEC-R, showed up, the Angolan army arrested him and his bodyguards. The Angolan army later forcibly freed the other hostages on 7 July. By the end of the year the government had arrested the leadership of all three rebel organizations.\n\n2000s\n\nIllicit arms trading characterized much of the later years of the Angolan Civil War, as each side tried to gain the upper hand by buying arms from Eastern Europe and Russia. Israel continued in its role as a proxy arms dealer for the United States. On 21 September 2000, a Russian freighter delivered 500 tons of Ukrainian 7.62 mm ammunition to Simportex, a division of the Angolan government, with the help of a shipping agent in London. The ship's captain declared his cargo \"fragile\" to minimize inspection. The next day, the MPLA began attacking UNITA, winning victories in several battles from 22 to 25 September. The government gained control over military bases and diamond mines in Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, hurting Savimbi's ability to pay his troops.\n\nAngola agreed to trade oil to Slovakia in return for arms, buying six Sukhoi Su-17 attack aircraft on 3 April 2000. The Spanish government in the Canary Islands prevented a Ukrainian freighter from delivering 636 tons of military equipment to Angola on 24 February 2001. The captain of the ship had inaccurately reported his cargo, falsely claiming the ship carried automobile parts. The Angolan government admitted Simportex had purchased arms from Rosvooruzhenie, the Russian state-owned arms company, and acknowledged the captain might have violated Spanish law by misreporting his cargo, a common practice in arms smuggling to Angola.\n\nUNITA carried out several attacks against civilians in May 2001 in a show of strength. UNITA militants attacked Caxito on 7 May, killing 100 people and kidnapping 60 children and two adults. UNITA then attacked Baia-do-Cuio, followed by an attack on Golungo Alto, a city 200 km east of Luanda, a few days later. The militants advanced on Golungo Alto at 2:00 pm on 21 May, staying until 9:00 pm on 22 May when the Angolan military retook the town. They looted local businesses, taking food and alcoholic beverages before singing drunkenly in the streets. More than 700 villagers trekked 60 km from Golungo Alto to Ndalatando, the provincial capital of Cuanza Norte, without injury. According to an aid official in Ndalatando, the Angolan military prohibited media coverage of the incident, so the details of the attack are unknown. Joffre Justino, UNITA's spokesman in Portugal, said UNITA only attacked Gungo Alto to demonstrate the government's military inferiority and the need to cut a deal. Four days later UNITA released the children to a Catholic mission in Camabatela, a city 200 km from where UNITA kidnapped them. The national organization said the abduction violated their policy towards the treatment of civilians. In a letter to the bishops of Angola, Jonas Savimbi asked the Catholic Church to act as an intermediary between UNITA and the government in negotiations. The attacks took their toll on Angola's economy. At the end of May 2001, De Beers, the international diamond mining company, suspended its operations in Angola, ostensibly on the grounds that negotiations with the national government reached an impasse.\n\nMilitants of unknown affiliation fired rockets at United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) planes on 8 June near Luena and again near Kuito a few days later. As the first plane, a Boeing 727, approached Luena someone shot a missile at the aircraft, damaging one engine but not critically as the three-man crew landed successfully. The plane's altitude, 5000 m, most likely prevented the assailant from identifying his target. As the citizens of Luena had enough food to last them several weeks, the UNFWP temporarily suspended their flights. When the flights began again a few days later, militants shot at a plane flying to Kuito, the first attack targeting UN workers since 1999. The UNWFP again suspended food aid flights throughout the country. While he did not claim responsibility for the attack, UNITA spokesman Justino said the planes carried weapons and soldiers rather than food, making them acceptable targets. UNITA and the Angolan government both said the international community needed to pressure the other side into returning to the negotiating table. Despite the looming humanitarian crisis, neither side guaranteed UNWFP planes safety. Kuito, which had relied on international aid, only had enough food to feed their population of 200,000. The UNFWP had to fly in all aid to Kuito and the rest of the Central Highlands because militants ambushed trucks. Further complicating the situation, potholes in the Kuito airport strip slowed aid deliveries. Overall chaos reduced the amount of available oil to the point at which the UN had to import its jet fuel.\n\nGovernment troops captured and destroyed UNITA's Epongoloko base in Benguela province and Mufumbo base in Cuanza Sul in October 2001.Martin (2004). p. 166. The Slovak government sold fighter jets to the Angolan government in 2001 in violation of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.\n\nDeath of Savimbi\n\nGovernment troops killed Jonas Savimbi on 22 February 2002, in Moxico province. UNITA Vice President António Dembo took over, but died from diabetes 12 days later on 3 March, and Secretary-General Paulo Lukamba became UNITA's leader. After Savimbi's death, the government came to a crossroads over how to proceed. After initially indicating the counter-insurgency might continue, the government announced it would halt all military operations on 13 March. Military commanders for UNITA and the MPLA met in Cassamba and agreed to a cease-fire. However, Carlos Morgado, UNITA's spokesman in Portugal, said the UNITA's Portugal wing had been under the impression General Kamorteiro, the UNITA general who agreed to the ceasefire, had been captured more than a week earlier. Morgado did say that he had not heard from Angola since Savimbi's death. The military commanders signed a Memorandum of Understanding as an addendum to the Lusaka Protocol in Luena on 4 April, with Santos and Lukambo observing.Crocker, Aall, and Osler (2004). p. 224.\n\nThe United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1404 on 18 April, extending the monitoring mechanism of sanctions by six months. Resolutions 1412 and 1432, passed on 17 May and 15 August respectively, suspended the UN travel ban on UNITA officials for 90 days each, finally abolishing the ban through Resolution 1439 on 18 October. UNAVEM III, extended an additional two months by Resolution 1439, ended on 19 December. \n\nUNITA's new leadership declared the rebel group a political party and officially demobilized its armed forces in August 2002. That same month, the United Nations Security Council replaced the United Nations Office in Angola with the United Nations Mission in Angola, a larger, non-military, political presence.\n\nAftermath\n\nThe civil war spawned a disastrous humanitarian crisis in Angola, internally displacing 4.28 million people – one-third of Angola's total population. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that 80% of Angolans lacked access to basic medical care, 60% lacked access to water, and 30% of Angolan children would die before the age of five, with an overall national life expectancy of less than 40 years of age.\n\nThere was an exodus from rural areas in most of the country. Today the urban population represents slightly more than half of the population, according to the latest census. In many cases, people went into cities outside the traditional area of their ethnic group. There are now important Ovimbundu communities in Luanda, Malanje, and Lubango. There has been a degree of return, but at a slow pace, while many younger people are reluctant to go to a rural life that they never knew.\n\nIn rural areas, one problem is that some were for years been under the control of the MPLA-government, while others were controlled by UNITA. Some of the population fled to neighbouring countries, while others went into remote mountainous areas.\n\nHumanitarian efforts \n\nThe government spent $187 million settling internally displaced persons (IDPs) between 4 April 2002, and 2004, after which the World Bank gave $33 million to continue the settling process. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that fighting in 2002 displaced 98,000 people between 1 January and 28 February alone. IDPs comprised 75% of all landmine victims. The IDPs, unacquainted with their surroundings, frequently and predominantly fell victim to these weapons. Militant forces laid approximately 15 million landmines by 2002. The HALO Trust began demining Angola in 1994, and had destroyed 30,000 landmines by July 2007. 1,100 Angolans and seven foreign workers are employed by the HALO Trust in Angola, with demining operations expected to finish by 2014.\n\nChild soldiers \n\nHuman Rights Watch estimates UNITA and the government employed more than 6,000 and 3,000 child soldiers respectively, some forcibly impressed, during the war. Additionally, human rights analysts found that between 5,000 and 8,000 underage girls were married to UNITA militants. Some girls were ordered to go and forage for food to provide for the troops – the girls were denied food if they did not bring back enough to satisfy their commander. After victories, UNITA commanders would be rewarded with women, who were often then sexually abused. The Angolan government and UN agencies identified 190 child soldiers in the Angolan army, and had relocated 70 of them by November 2002, but the government continued to knowingly employ other underage soldiers.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nIn John Milius's 1984 film Red Dawn, Bella, one of the Cuban officers who takes part in a joint Cuban-Soviet invasion of the United States, is said to have fought in the conflicts in Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.\n\nJack Abramoff wrote and co-produced the film Red Scorpion with his brother Robert in 1989. In the film, Dolph Lundgren plays Nikolai, a Soviet agent sent to assassinate an African revolutionary in a fictional country modeled on Angola. The South African government financed the film through the International Freedom Foundation, a front-group chaired by Abramoff, as part of its efforts to undermine international sympathy for the African National Congress. While working in Hollywood, Abramoff was convicted for fraud and other offenses that he had committed during his concurrent career as a lobbyist.\n\nThe war provides a more comedic background story in the South African comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 as a Cuban and an Angolan soldier repeatedly try to take each other prisoner, but ultimately part on (more or less) amicable terms.\n\nThe 2004 film The Hero, produced by Fernando Vendrell and directed by Zézé Gamboa, depicts the life of average Angolans in the aftermath of the civil war. The film follows the lives of three individuals: Vitório, a war veteran crippled by a landmine who returns to Luanda; Manu, a young boy searching for his soldier father; and Joana, a teacher who mentors the boy and begins a love affair with Vitório. The Hero won the 2005 Sundance World Dramatic Cinema Jury Grand Prize. A joint Angolan, Portuguese, and French production, The Hero was filmed entirely in Angola.\n\nThe character of Danny Archer in the 2006 film Blood Diamond, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, discusses on several occasions his service within the SADF during its intervention in the Angolan Civil War. As the film unfolds, it is revealed that he is a white Rhodesian orphan who ran away to South Africa only to be conscripted into the infamous 32 Battalion, with whom he saw combat in Angola around 1987.\n\nThe Angolan Civil War is featured in the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II, in which the player character assists Jonas Savimbi in a battle against MPLA forces. \n\nMetal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is partly set in the Angola—Zaire border region during the Angolan Civil War."
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Which city does David Soul come from?
|
tc_9
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
"TagMe"
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"David_Soul.txt"
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"David Soul"
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"David Soul (born August 28, 1943) is an American-British actor and singer. He is known for his role as Detective Kenneth \"Hutch\" Hutchinson in the ABC television series Starsky & Hutch from 1975 to 1979. He became a British citizen in 2004. \n\nEarly life\n\nSoul was born David Richard Solberg in Chicago, Illinois, on August 28, 1943. His mother, June Johnanne (Nelson), was a teacher, and his father, Dr. Richard W. Solberg, was a Lutheran minister, Professor of History and Political Science, and Director of Higher Education for the American Lutheran Church. Dr. Solberg was also Senior Representative for Lutheran World Relief during the reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War from 1949 until 1956. Because of this, the family moved frequently while Soul was growing up. Both of his grandfathers were evangelists. \n\nSoul attended Augustana College, University of the Americas in Mexico City and the University of Minnesota. At 19, he turned down a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox in order to study political science. While in Mexico, inspired by students who taught him to play the guitar, Soul changed his direction and decided to follow his passion for music. His first appearance upon returning from Mexico to the States was in a club in Minneapolis, The 10 O'Clock Scholar.\n\nCareer\n\nSoul first gained attention as the \"Covered Man\" appearing on The Merv Griffin Show in 1966 and 1967, on which he sang while wearing a mask. He explained: \"My name is David Soul, and I want to be known for my music.\" The same year, he made his television debut in Flipper.\n\nIn 1967, he signed a contract with Columbia Pictures and following a number of guest appearances, including the episode \"The Apple\" from the second season of Star Trek, he landed the role of Joshua Bolt on the television program Here Come the Brides with co-stars Robert Brown, Bobby Sherman and Bridget Hanley. The series was telecast on the ABC network from September 25, 1968 to September 18, 1970. In 1972 he co-starred as Arthur Hill's law partner on Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law. Following numerous guest-starring roles on TV, including Streets of San Francisco, he was cast by Clint Eastwood in the film Magnum Force.\n\nHis breakthrough came when he portrayed Detective Ken \"Hutch\" Hutchinson on Starsky and Hutch, a role he played from 1975 until 1979. Soul also directed three episodes of Starsky and Hutch: \"Huggy Can't Go Home\" (1979), \"Manchild on the Streets\" (1977), and \"Survival\" (1977). Throughout his career, he has also made guest appearances on Star Trek, I Dream of Jeannie, McMillan & Wife, Cannon, Gunsmoke, All in the Family, and numerous TV movies and mini-series including Homeward Bound (1980), World War III and Rage (1980) a TV movie commended on the floor of the US Senate and for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Soul also starred with James Mason in the 1979 TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot, which was also edited and released as a theatrical feature film in some countries.\n\nDuring the mid- to late-1970s, Soul returned to his singing roots. Produced by Tony Macaulay, he recorded hits including \"Don't Give Up on Us\" (1976) which reached No. 1 in the US and the UK, and \"Silver Lady\" (1977) which also topped the charts in the UK. From 1976 until 1978, he had five UK Top 20 singles and two Top 10 albums. From 1976 to 1982 he toured extensively in the US, Europe, Far East and South America.\n\nIn the U.S., he continued to make guest appearances in various television series. He starred in \"The Manions of America\" as Caleb Staunton in 1981. He starred in the short-lived 1983 NBC series Casablanca, playing nightclub owner Rick Blaine (the immortalized role that was made famous by Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 film Casablanca), and co-starred in the NBC series The Yellow Rose during the 1983-1984 season. He also starred in the television adaptation of Ken Follett's wartime drama The Key to Rebecca (1985) directed by David Hemmings. He later starred as the infamous Florida robber Michael Platt in the TV film In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders (1988), which depicted the 1986 FBI Miami shootout and which was subsequently used as an FBI training film. Soul also directed the episode \"No Exit\" of the 1980s TV series Miami Vice. In 1987 Soul was cast as Major Oldham in the movie The Hanoi Hilton.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nIn the mid-1990s, Soul took up residence in London, United Kingdom, forging a new career on the West End stage, including the role of Chandler Tate in Comic Potential. He also participated in the successful 1997 election campaign of his personal friend Martin Bell who ran as an MP for Tatton, as well as Bell's unsuccessful campaign in Brentwood in Essex in the 2001 General Election.\n \nIn 2003, Soul appeared (as himself) in the first series of the BBC's Little Britain. In 2004, he appeared in Agatha Christie's Poirot – Death on the Nile in the role of Andrew Pennington (he had also starred in the 1989 film adaptation of Christie's Appointment with Death). Soul was a guest on the BBC's Top Gear. He was one of the fastest drivers to have appeared on the show, finishing the lap in 1:54:00, but managed to break the car's gearbox (and subsequently that of the backup car) very close to the finish.\n\nOn 12 July 2004, he took over playing the role of Jerry Springer in Jerry Springer - The Opera at the Cambridge Theatre in London, which was televised by the BBC in 2005. He returned to the West End in 2006, playing Mack in a new production of Jerry Herman's musical Mack and Mabel at the Criterion Theatre. The production co-starred Janie Dee and was directed by John Doyle. He also appeared in the TV series Dalziel & Pascoe (Game of Soldiers). He had a brief cameo in the 2004 film version of Starsky & Hutch, alongside original co-star Paul Michael Glaser.\n\nIn August 2008, Soul appeared in the reality TV talent show-themed television series Maestro on BBC Two. \n\nHe appeared with Fred Ward and Willem Dafoe in the film Farewell directed by Christian Carion which received its US release in 2010.\n\nIn June 2012, Soul made a one-week appearance with Jerry Hall at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in a reprise of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play by A.R. Gurney, Love Letters. \n\nOn 29 July 2012, Soul appeared in an episode of the British television detective drama series Lewis, playing a murder victim. He was also featured in the hit album by Fosseytango, singing on the track \"Landlord\" (featuring Jimmy Page, on guitar).\n\nIn 2013, Soul appeared in a cameo role in the Scottish film Filth lip-syncing his own recording of \"Silver Lady\".\n\nIn 2014, Soul appeared in a British television commercial for National Express singing \"Silver Lady\" while driving a coach.\n\nPersonal life\n\nSoul has been married five times and has five sons and a daughter. He first married the actress Mirriam \"Mim\" Solberg (née Russeth), in 1964. The couple had one child together, but the marriage only lasted a year. \n\nSoul then married actress Karen Carlson in 1968, after they had met on the set of the television series Here Come The Brides. The couple also had a child together, and divorced in 1977.\n\nDuring the years he was filming Starsky & Hutch, Soul had an open relationship with actress Lynne Marta.\n\nSoul's third wife was Patti Carnel Sherman (the ex-wife of fellow Here Come the Brides co-star and teen pop idol Bobby Sherman), whom he married in 1980. They had three children together, but the marriage disintegrated due to Soul's alcoholism and violent temper. Soul had been an alcoholic for several years, a problem that had affected both of his previous marriages. During his marriage to Sherman, Soul was arrested and jailed for assaulting her while she was seven months pregnant. After being released, he was ordered to attend a two-year therapy program to deal with his drinking and anger. The couple divorced in 1986.\n\nSoul married again in 1987, to actress Julia Nickson. The couple had one child, China Soul, who is a singer/songwriter. Soul and Nickson divorced in 1993.\n\nSoul emigrated to the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s and settled in London with his girlfriend, American actress Alexa Hamilton, though the couple later broke up.\n\nIn September 2004 Soul became a British citizen while retaining dual United States citizenship. He is an avid fan of English football and is an Arsenal F.C. supporter.\n\nSoul married his fifth wife, Helen Snell, in June 2010. They had been in a relationship since 2002, after meeting when Soul was working in the British stage production of Deathtrap. \n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\n*1976: David Soul - UK #2 Australia #8\n*1977: Playing To An Audience Of One – UK #8 Australia #30\n*1979: Band Of Friends\n*1982: The Best Days of My Life\n*1997: Leave A Light On\nSource:\n\nSingles\n\n* \"Don't Give Up On Us\" (1976) UK #1, US #1\n* \"Going In With My Eyes Open\" (1977) UK #2, US #54\n* \"Silver Lady\" (1977) UK #1, US #52\n* \"Let's Have A Quiet Night In\" (1977) UK #8\n* \"It Sure Brings Out The Love In Your Eyes\" (1978) UK #12\nSource: \n\nBibliography\n\n* Top Pop Singles 1955-2002 by Joel Whitburn – 2003\n* The Life, The Legend by David Tailford – 1987"
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|
Who won Super Bowl XX?
|
tc_10
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
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"Super Bowl XX was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1985 season. The Bears defeated the Patriots by the score of 46–10, capturing their first NFL championship since 1963, three years prior to the birth of the Super Bowl. Super Bowl XX was played on January 26, 1986 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.\n\nTo date, it is the fourth, and most recent, Super Bowl where both teams were making their Super Bowl debuts. Presently, this would only occur again if the Detroit Lions face either the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, or the Houston Texans. The Bears entered the game after becoming the second team in NFL history to win 15 regular season games. With their then-revolutionary 46 defense, Chicago led the league in several defensive categories, outscored their opponents with a staggering margin of 456–198, and recorded two postseason shutouts. The Patriots were considered a cinderella team during the 1985 season, and posted an 11–5 regular season record, but entered the playoffs as a wild card because of tiebreakers. But defying the odds, New England posted three road playoff wins to advance to Super Bowl XX.\n\nIn their victory over the Patriots, the Bears set or tied Super Bowl records for sacks (seven), fewest rushing yards allowed (seven), and margin of victory (36 points). At the time, New England broke the record for the quickest lead in Super Bowl history, with Tony Franklin's 36-yard field goal 1:19 into the first quarter after a Chicago fumble. But the Patriots were eventually held to negative yardage (−19) throughout the entire first half, and finished with just 123 total yards from scrimmage, the second lowest total yards in Super Bowl history, behind the Minnesota Vikings (119 total yards) in Super Bowl IX. Bears defensive end Richard Dent, who had 1.5 quarterback sacks, forced two fumbles, and blocked a pass, was named the game's Most Valuable Player (MVP). \n\nThe telecast of the game on NBC was watched by an estimated 92.57 million viewers. To commemorate the 20th Super Bowl, all previous Super Bowl MVPs were honored during the pregame ceremonies.\n\nBackground\n\nNFL owners awarded the hosting of Super Bowl XX to New Orleans, Louisiana on December 14, 1982, at an owners meeting held in Dallas. This was the sixth time that New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl. Tulane Stadium was the site of Super Bowls IV, VI, and IX; while the Louisiana Superdome previously hosted XII and XV.\n\nAs of 2016, Super Bowl XX remains the last Super Bowl to feature two teams both making their first appearance in the game. It was the fourth overall following Super Bowl I, Super Bowl III, and Super Bowl XVI. Any future Super Bowl that would have such a combination would have to have the Detroit Lions playing either the Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, or Jacksonville Jaguars in the game.\n\nThe nation's recognition of the Bears' accomplishment was overshadowed by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster two days later, an event which caused the cancellation of the Bears' post-Super Bowl White House visit; the surviving members of the team eventually would be invited to the White House in 2011. \n\nChicago Bears\n\nUnder head coach Mike Ditka, who won the 1985 NFL Coach of the Year Award, the Bears went 15–1 in the regular season, becoming the second NFL team to win 15 regular season games, while outscoring their opponents with a staggering margin of 456–198.\n\nThe Bears' defense, the \"46 defense\", allowed the fewest points (198), fewest total yards (4,135), and fewest rushing of any team during the regular season (1,319). They also led the league in interceptions (34) and ranked third in sacks (64).\n\nPro Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon provided the team with a solid passing attack, throwing for 2,392 yards and 15 touchdowns, while also rushing for 252 yards and three touchdowns. Running back Walter Payton, who was then the NFL's all-time leading rusher with 14,860 yards, rushed for 1,551 yards. He also caught 49 passes for 483 yards, and scored 11 touchdowns. Linebacker Mike Singletary won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award by recording three sacks, three fumble recoveries, and one interception.\n\nBut one of the most distinguishable players on defense was a large rookie lineman named William \"The Refrigerator\" Perry. Perry came into training camp before the season weighing over 380 pounds. But after Bears defensive coach Buddy Ryan told the press that the team \"wasted\" their first round draft pick on him, Perry lost some weight and ended up being an effective defensive tackle. He got even more attention when Ditka started putting him in the game at the fullback position during offensive plays near the opponent's goal line. During the regular season, Perry rushed for 2 touchdowns, caught a pass for another touchdown, and was frequently a lead blocker for Payton during goal line plays.\n\nThe Bears \"46 defense\" also had the following impact players: On the defensive line, Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer Richard Dent led the NFL in sacks for the second year in a row with 17, while Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer Dan Hampton recorded 6.5 sacks, and nose tackle Steve McMichael compiled 8. In addition to Singletary, linebacker Otis Wilson had 10.5 sacks and 3 interceptions, while Wilber Marshall recorded 4 interceptions. In the secondary, defensive back Leslie Frazier had 6 interceptions, Mike Richardson recorded 4 interceptions, Dave Duerson had 5 interceptions, and Gary Fencik recorded 5 interceptions and 118 tackles.\n\nChicago's main offensive weapon was Payton and the running game. A big reason for Payton's success was fullback Matt Suhey as the primary lead blocker. Suhey was also a good ball carrier, rushing for 471 yards and catching 33 passes for 295 yards. The team's rushing was also aided by Pro Bowlers Jim Covert and Jay Hilgenberg and the rest of the Bears' offensive line.\n\nIn their passing game, the Bears' primary deep threat was wide receiver Willie Gault, who caught 33 passes for 704 yards, an average of 21.3 yards per catch, and returned 22 kickoffs for 557 yards and a touchdown. Tight end Emery Moorehead was another key contributor, catching 35 passes for 481 yards. Wide receiver Dennis McKinnon was another passing weapon, recording 31 receptions, 555 yards, and 7 touchdowns. On special teams, Kevin Butler set a rookie scoring record with 144 points, making 31 of 37 field goals (83%) and 51 of 51 extra points.\n\nMeanwhile, the players brought their characterizations to the national stage with the \"Super Bowl Shuffle\", a rap song the Bears recorded during the season. Even though it was in essence a novelty song, it actually peaked at #41 on the Billboard charts and received a Grammy nomination for best R&B song by a group.\n\nNew England Patriots\n\nThe Patriots were a cinderella team during the 1985 season because many sports writers and fans thought they were lucky to make the playoffs at all. New England began the season losing three of their first five games, but won six consecutive games to finish with an 11–5 record. However, the 11–5 mark only earned them third place in the AFC East behind the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets.\n\nQuarterback Tony Eason, in his third year in the NFL, was inconsistent during the regular season, completing 168 out of 299 passes for 2,156 yards and 11 touchdowns, but also 17 interceptions. Eason played poorly early on in the game, going 0-for-6 and losing a fumble, and was replaced by backup Steve Grogan, who was considered one of the best reserve quarterbacks in the league. Grogan was the starter in six of the Patriots' games, and finished the regular season with 85 out of 156 completions for 1,311 yards, 7 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions.\n\nWide receiver Stanley Morgan provided the team with a good deep threat, catching 39 passes for 760 yards and 5 touchdowns. On the other side of the field, multi-talented wide receiver Irving Fryar was equally effective, catching 39 passes for 670 yards, while also rushing for 27 yards, gaining another 559 yards returning punts and kickoffs, and scoring 10 touchdowns. But like the Bears, the Patriots' main strength on offense was their rushing attack. Halfback Craig James rushed for 1,227 yards, caught 27 passes for 370 yards, and scored 7 touchdowns. Fullback Tony Collins rushed for 657 yards, recorded a team-leading 52 receptions for 549 yards, and scored 5 touchdowns. The Patriots also had an outstanding offensive line, led by Pro Bowl tackle Brian Holloway and future Hall of Fame guard John Hannah.\n\nNew England's defense ranked 5th in the league in fewest yards allowed (5,048). Pro Bowl linebacker Andre Tippett led the AFC with 16.5 sacks and recovered 3 fumbles. Pro Bowl linebacker Steve Nelson was also a big defensive weapon, excelling at pass coverage and run stopping. Also, the Patriots' secondary only gave up 14 touchdown passes during the season, second fewest in the league. Pro Bowl defensive back Raymond Clayborn recorded 6 interceptions for 80 return yards and 1 touchdown, while Pro Bowler Fred Marion had 7 interceptions for 189 return yards.\n\nPlayoffs\n\nIn the playoffs, the Patriots qualified as the AFC's second wild card.\n\nBut the Patriots, under head coach Raymond Berry, defied the odds, beating the New York Jets 26–14, Los Angeles Raiders 27–20, and the Dolphins 31–14 – all on the road – to make it to the Super Bowl. The win against Miami had been especially surprising, not only because Miami was the only team to beat Chicago in the season, but also because New England had not won in the Orange Bowl (Miami's then-home field) since 1966, the Dolphins' first season (then in the AFL). The Patriots had lost to Miami there 18 consecutive times, including a 30–27 loss in their 15th game of the season. But New England dominated the Dolphins in the AFC Championship Game, recording two interceptions from quarterback Dan Marino and recovering 4 fumbles. New England remains the only team to finish third in their division and qualify for the Super Bowl in the same season.\n\nMeanwhile, the Bears became the first and only team in NFL history to shut out both of their opponents in the playoffs, beating the New York Giants 21–0 and the Los Angeles Rams 24–0.\n\nSuper Bowl pregame hype\n\nMuch of the Super Bowl pregame hype centered on Bears quarterback Jim McMahon. First, he was fined by the NFL during the playoffs for a violation of the league's dress code, wearing a head band from Adidas. He then started to wear a head band where he hand-wrote \"Rozelle\", after then-league commissioner Pete Rozelle.[http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/McMahon_Jim.html ESPN Classic - McMahon was a rebel without pause]\n\nMcMahon suffered a strained glute as the result of a hit taken in the NFC Championship Game and flew his acupuncturist into New Orleans to get treatment. During practice four days before the Super Bowl, he wore a headband reading \"Acupuncture\". During a Bears practice before the Super Bowl, McMahon mooned a helicopter that was hovering over the practice.\n\nAnother anecdote involving McMahon during the Super Bowl anticipation involved WDSU-TV reporting a quote attributed to McMahon, where he had allegedly referred to the women of New Orleans as \"sluts\" on a local morning sports talk show. This caused wide controversy among the women of New Orleans and McMahon began receiving calls from irate fans in his hotel. A groggy McMahon, who had not been able to sleep well because of all the calls he had gotten, was confronted by Mike Ditka later that morning and denied making the statement, saying he would not have even been awake to make the comment when he was said to have done so. He was supported in his claim by WLS reporter Les Grobstein, who was present when the alleged statements were made. WDSU would later retract the statement and make an on-air apology.\n\nTelevision and entertainment\n\nThe NBC telecast of the game, with play-by-play announcer Dick Enberg and color commentators Merlin Olsen and Bob Griese (who was not in the booth with Enberg and Olsen), garnered the third highest Nielsen rating of any Super Bowl to date, a 48.3 but it ended up being the first Super Bowl to garner over 90 million viewers the highest to date up to that point. While Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen and Bob Griese called the game, Bob Costas and his NFL '85 castmates, Ahmad Rashad and Pete Axthelm anchored the pregame, halftime and postgame coverage. Other contributors included Charlie Jones (recapping Super Bowl I) and Bill Macatee. Also, the pregame coverage included what became known as \"the silent minute\"; a 60-second countdown over a black screen (a concept devised by then-NBC Sports executive Michael Weisman); a skit featuring comedian Rodney Dangerfield and an interview by NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw of United States President Ronald Reagan at the White House (this would not become a regular Super Bowl pregame feature until Super Bowl XLIII; when Today show host Matt Lauer interviewed U.S. President Barack Obama).\n\nTo celebrate the 20th Super Bowl game, the Most Valuable Players of the previous Super Bowls were featured during the pregame festivities. This would start a tradition occurring every ten years (in Super Bowls XXX, XL and 50) in which past Super Bowl MVPs would be honored before the game.\n\nAfter trumpeter Wynton Marsalis performed the national anthem, Bart Starr, MVP of Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II, tossed the coin.\n\nThe performance event group Up with People performed during the halftime show titled \"Beat of the Future\". Up with People dancers portrayed various scenes into the future. This was the last Super Bowl to feature Up with People as a halftime show, though they later performed in the Super Bowl XXV pregame show. The halftime show was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (the first observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day had been held the previous Monday).\n\nThe Last Precinct debuted on NBC after the game.\n\nSuper Bowl XX was simulcast in Canada on CTV and also broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.\n\nSuper Bowl XX is featured on NFL's Greatest Games under the title Super Bears with narration by Don LaFontaine.\n\nGame summary\n\nThe Patriots took the then-quickest lead in Super Bowl history after linebacker Larry McGrew recovered a fumble from Walter Payton at the Chicago 19-yard line on the second play of the game (the Bears themselves would break this record in Super Bowl XLI when Devin Hester ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown). Bears quarterback Jim McMahon took responsibility for this fumble after the game, saying he had called the wrong play. This set up Tony Franklin's 36-yard field goal 1:19 into the first quarter after three incomplete passes by Tony Eason (the first of which starting tight end Lin Dawson went down with torn ligaments in his knee). \"I looked up at the message board,\" said Chicago linebacker Mike Singletary, \"and it said that 15 of the 19 teams that scored first won the game. I thought, yeah, but none of those 15 had ever played the Bears.\" Chicago struck back with a 7-play, 59-yard drive, featuring a 43-yard pass completion from McMahon to wide receiver Willie Gault, to set up a field goal from Kevin Butler, tying the score 3–3.\n\nAfter both teams traded punts, Richard Dent and linebacker Wilber Marshall shared a sack on Eason, forcing a fumble that lineman Dan Hampton recovered on the Patriots 13-yard line. Chicago then drove to the 3-yard line, but had to settle for another field goal from Butler after rookie defensive lineman William \"The Refrigerator\" Perry was tackled for a 1-yard loss while trying to throw his first NFL pass on a halfback option play. On the Patriots' ensuing drive, Dent forced running back Craig James to fumble, which was recovered by Singletary at the 13-yard line. Two plays later, Bears fullback Matt Suhey scored on an 11-yard touchdown run to increase the lead to 13–3.\n\nNew England took the ensuing kickoff and ran one play before the first quarter ended, which resulted in positive yardage for the first time in the game (a 3-yard run by James). But after an incomplete pass and a 4-yard loss, they had to send in punter Rich Camarillo again, and receiver Keith Ortego returned the ball 12 yards to the 41-yard line. The Bears subsequently drove 59 yards in 10 plays, featuring a 24-yard reception by Suhey, to score on McMahon's 2-yard touchdown run to increase their lead, 20–3. After the ensuing kickoff, New England lost 13 yards in 3 plays and had to punt again, but got the ball back with great field position when defensive back Raymond Clayborn recovered a fumble from Suhey at their own 46-yard line. On the punt, Ortego forgot what the play call was for the punt return, and the ensuing chaos resulted in him being penalized for running after a fair catch and teammate Leslie Frazier suffering a knee injury, which ended his career.\n\nPatriots coach Raymond Berry then replaced Eason with Steve Grogan, who had spent the previous week hoping he would have the opportunity to step onto NFL's biggest stage. \"I probably won't get a chance,\" he had told reporters a few days before the game. \"I just hope I can figure out some way to get on the field. I could come in on the punt-block team and stand behind the line and wave my arms, or something.\" But on his first drive, Grogan could only lead them to the 37-yard line, and they decided to punt rather than risk a 55-yard field goal attempt. The Bears then marched 72 yards in 11 plays, moving the ball inside the Patriots' 10-yard line. New England kept them out of the end zone, but Butler kicked his third field goal on the last play of the half to give Chicago a 23–3 halftime lead.\n\nThe end of the half was controversial. With 21 seconds left in the first half, McMahon scrambled to the Patriots' 3-yard line and was stopped inbounds. With the clock ticking down, players from both teams were fighting, and the Bears were forced to snap the ball before the officials formally put it back into play, allowing McMahon to throw the ball out of bounds and stop the clock with three seconds left. The Bears were penalized five yards for delay of game, but according to NFL rules, 10 seconds should have also been run off the clock during such a deliberate clock-stopping attempt in the final two minutes of a half. In addition, a flag should have been thrown for fighting (also according to NFL rules). This would have likely resulted in offsetting penalties, which would still allow for a field goal attempt. As far as the illegal snap is concerned, the non-call was promptly acknowledged by the officials and reported by NBC sportscasters during halftime, but the resulting three points were not taken away from the Bears (because of this instance, the NFL instructed officials to strictly enforce the 10-second run-off rule at the start of the 1986 season).\n\nThe Bears had dominated New England in the first half, holding them to 21 offensive plays (only four of which resulted in positive yardage), −19 total offensive yards, two pass completions, one first down, and 3 points. While Eason was in the game, the totals were six possessions, one play of positive yardage out of 15 plays, no first downs, 3 points, 3 punts, 2 turnovers, no pass completions, and -36 yards of total offense. Meanwhile, Chicago gained 236 yards and scored 23 points themselves.\n\nAfter the Patriots received the second-half kickoff, they managed to get one first down, but then had to punt after Grogan was sacked twice. Camarillo, who punted four times in the first half, managed to pin the Bears back at their own 4-yard line with a then-Super Bowl record 62-yard punt. But the Patriots' defense still had no ability to stop Chicago's offense. On their very first play, McMahon faked a handoff to Payton, then threw a 60-yard completion to Gault. Eight plays later, McMahon finished the Super Bowl-record 96-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to increase the Bears' lead to 30–3. On New England's second drive of the quarter, Chicago cornerback Reggie Phillips (who replaced Frazier) intercepted a pass from Grogan and returned it 28 yards for a touchdown to increase the lead to 37–3.\n\nOn the second play of their ensuing possession, the Patriots turned the ball over again, when receiver Cedric Jones lost a fumble after catching a 19-yard pass from Grogan, and Wilber Marshall returned the fumble 13 yards to New England's 37-yard line. A few plays later, McMahon's 27-yard completion to receiver Dennis Gentry moved the ball to the 1-yard line, setting up perhaps the most memorable moment of the game. William \"The Refrigerator\" Perry was brought on to score on offense, as he had done twice in the regular season. His touchdown (while running over Patriots linebacker Larry McGrew in the process) made the score 44–3. The Bears' 21 points in the third quarter is still a record for the most points scored in that period.\n\nPerry's surprise touchdown cost Las Vegas sports books hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses from prop bets. The Patriots finally scored a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, advancing the ball 76 yards in 12 plays and scoring on an 8-yard fourth-down pass from Grogan to receiver Irving Fryar. But the Bears' defense dominated New England for the rest of the game, forcing another fumble, another interception, and defensive lineman Henry Waechter's sack on Grogan in the end zone for a safety to make the final score 46–10.\n\nOne oddity in the Bears' victory was that Walter Payton had a relatively poor performance running the ball and never scored a touchdown in Super Bowl XX, his first and only Super Bowl appearance during his Hall of Fame career (Many people including Mike Ditka have claimed that the reason for this was due to the fact that the Patriots' defensive scheme was centered on stopping Payton). Although Payton was ultimately the Bears' leading rusher during the game, the Patriots' defense held him to only 61 yards on 22 carries, with his longest run being only 7 yards. He was given several opportunities to score near the goal line, but New England stopped him every time before he reached the end zone (such as his 2-yard loss from the New England 3-yard line a few plays before Butler's second field goal, and his 2-yard run from the 4-yard line right before McMahon's first rushing touchdown). Thus, Chicago head coach Mike Ditka opted to go for other plays to counter the Patriots' defense. Perry's touchdown and McMahon's rushing touchdowns are scoring opportunities that were denied to Payton. Ditka has since gone on record stating that his biggest regret of his career was not creating a scoring opportunity for Payton during the game.\n\nMcMahon, who completed 12 out of 20 passes for 256 yards, became the first quarterback in a Super Bowl to score 2 rushing touchdowns. Bears receiver Willie Gault finished the game with 129 receiving yards on just 4 receptions, an average of 32.3 yards per catch. He also returned 4 kickoffs for 49 yards. Suhey had 11 carries for 52 yards and a touchdown, and caught a pass for 24 yards. Singletary tied a Super Bowl record with 2 fumble recoveries.\n\nEason became the first Super Bowl starting quarterback to fail to complete a pass, going 0 for 6 attempts. Grogan completed 17 out of 30 passes for 177 yards and 1 touchdown, with 2 interceptions. Although fullback Tony Collins was the Patriots' leading rusher, he was limited to just 4 yards on 3 carries, and caught 2 passes for 19 yards. New England receiver Stephen Starring returned 7 kickoffs for 153 yards and caught 2 passes for 39 yards. The Patriots, as a team, only recorded 123 total offensive yards, the second-lowest total in Super Bowl history.\n\nBox score\n\nFinal statistics\n\nSources: [http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/boxscore/sbxx NFL.com Super Bowl XX], [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/super/superbowl-xx-plays.htm USA Today Super Bowl XX Play by Play]\n\nStatistical comparison\n\nIndividual leaders\n\n1Completions/attempts\n2Carries\n3Long gain\n4Receptions\n\nStarting lineups\n\nSource: \n\nOfficials\n\n* Referee: Red Cashion #43 first Super Bowl\n* Umpire: Ron Botchan #110 first Super Bowl\n* Head Linesman: Dale Williams #8 first Super Bowl\n* Line Judge: Bama Glass #15 first Super Bowl\n* Field Judge: Jack Vaughan #93 first Super Bowl\n* Side Judge: Bob Rice #80 second Super Bowl (XVI)\n* Back Judge: Al Jury #106 first Super Bowl"
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Which was the first European country to abolish capital punishment?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The ethnic groups in Europe are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. According to German monograph Minderheitenrechte in Europa co-edited by Pan and Pfeil (2002) there are 87 distinct peoples of Europe, of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans. \n\nModern ethnic Europeans are a recent and ongoing evolution. The original anatomically modern human migrants to Europe from Africa arrived 40,000 years ago; these prehistoric Europeans were predominantly dark skinned, short of stature, lactose intolerant, and looked dramatically different in comparison to modern Europeans. The genetic lineage of Europe mysteriously transformed about 4,500 years ago, with changes in diet, body size and skin pigmentation, when Central Asian and West Asian migrants arrived with taller height and light skin genes, respectively. There is no precise or universally accepted definition of the terms \"ethnic group\" or \"nationality\". In the context of European ethnography in particular, the terms ethnic group, people (without nation state), nationality, national minority, ethnic minority, linguistic community, linguistic group, linguistic minority and genetic haplogroup are used as mostly synonymous, although preference may vary in usage with respect to the situation specific to the individual countries of Europe. \n\nOverview\n\nThere are eight peoples of Europe (defined by their language) with more than 30 million members residing in Europe. These eight groups between themselves account for some 465 million or about 65% of European population:\n# Russians (c. 95 million residing in Europe),\n# Germans (c. 82 million),\n# French (c. 60 million),\n# British (c. 60 million), \n# Italians (55 million), \n# Spanish (c. 50 million),\n# Ukrainians (38–55 million),\n# Poles (c. 38 million).\n\nAbout 20–25 million residents (3%) are members of diasporas of non-European origin. The population of the European Union, with some five hundred million residents, accounts for two thirds of the European population.\n\nBoth Spain and the United Kingdom are special cases, in that the designation of nationality, Spanish and British, may controversially take ethnic aspects, subsuming various regional ethnic groups, see nationalisms and regionalisms of Spain and native populations of the United Kingdom. Switzerland is a similar case, but the linguistic subgroups of the Swiss are not usually discussed in terms of ethnicity, and Switzerland is considered a \"multi-lingual state\" rather than a \"multi-ethnic state\".\n\nLinguistic classifications\n\nOf the total population of Europe of some 730 million (as of 2005), over 80% or some 600 million fall within three large branches of Indo-European languages, viz., Slavic, Italic (Romance) and Germanic. The largest groups that do not fall within these three are the Greeks (about 12 million) and the Albanians (about 8 million). Beside the Indo-European languages there are two other major language families on the European continent: Turkic languages and Uralic languages. The Semitic languages that dominate the coast of northern Africa as well as the Near East are preserved in Malta, a Mediterranean archipelago. Basque is a linguistic isolate unrelated to any other languages inside or outside of Europe.\n\nIndo-European languages\n\nThere are approximately 641 million residents in the family of the Indo-European languages divided into linguistic branches and peoples. \n\nLanguage isolates\n\nCaspian\n\nKartvelian\n\nPontic\n\nVasconic\n\nMongolic languages\n\nSemitic languages\n\nEurope has a population of about 2 million ethnic Jews (mostly also counted as part of the ethno-linguistic group of their respective home countries):\n*Ashkenazi Jews (about 1.4 million, mostly German and French)\n*Italian Jews (some 50,000, mostly Italian)\n*Karaites (less than 4,000 in Poland and Lithuania)\n*Mizrahi Jews (about 0.3 million, mostly French)\n*Romaniotes (some 6,000, mostly Greek)\n*Sephardi Jews (about 0.3 million, mostly French and Italian)\n\nTurkic languages\n\nUralic languages\n\nBy country\n\nPan and Pfeil (2002) distinguish 33 peoples which form the majority population in at least one sovereign state geographically situated in Europe. These majorities range from nearly homogeneous populations as in Albania or Poland, to comparatively slight majorities as in Latvia or Belgium. Montenegro is multiethnic state in which no group forms a majority.\n\nHistory\n\nPrehistoric populations\n\nThe Basques are assumed to descend from the populations of the Atlantic Bronze Age directly. \nThe Indo-European groups of Europe (the Centum groups plus Balto-Slavic and Albanian) are assumed to have developed in situ by admixture of early Indo-European groups arriving in Europe by the Bronze Age (Corded ware, Beaker people). \nThe Finnic peoples are mostly assumed to be descended from populations that had migrated to their historical homelands by about 3,000 years ago.\n\nReconstructed languages of Iron Age Europe include Proto-Celtic, Proto-Italic and Proto-Germanic, all of these Indo-European languages of the centum group, and Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic, of the satem group. A group of Tyrrhenian languages appears to have included Etruscan, Rhaetian and perhaps also Eteocretan and Eteocypriot. A pre-Roman stage of Proto-Basque can only be reconstructed with great uncertainty.\n\nRegarding the European Bronze Age, the only secure reconstruction is that of Proto-Greek (ca. 2000 BC). A Proto-Italo-Celtic ancestor of both Italic and Celtic (assumed for the Bell beaker period), and a Proto-Balto-Slavic language (assumed for roughly the Corded Ware horizon) has been postulated with less confidence. Old European hydronymy has been taken as indicating an early (Bronze Age) Indo-European predecessor of the later centum languages.\n\nHistorical populations\n\nIron Age (pre-Great Migrations) populations of Europe known from Greco-Roman historiography, notably Herodotus, Pliny, Ptolemy and Tacitus:\n*Aegean: Greek tribes, Pelasgians/Tyrrhenians, and Anatolians.\n*Armenian Highlands/Anatolia: Armenians \n*Balkans: Illyrians (List of ancient tribes in Illyria), Dacians, and Thracians.\n*Caucasus: Georgians\n*Italian peninsula: Italic peoples, Etruscans, Adriatic Veneti, Ligurians and Greek colonies.\n*Western/Central Europe: Celts (list of peoples of Gaul, List of Celtic tribes), Rhaetians and Swabians, Vistula Veneti, Lugii and Balts.\n*Iberian peninsula: Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (Iberians, Lusitani, Aquitani, Celtiberians) Basques and Phoenicians ( Carthaginians).\n*Sardinia: Nuragic people, comprising the Corsi, Balares and Ilienses tribes.\n*British Isles: Celtic tribes in Britain and Ireland and Picts/Priteni.\n*Northern Europe: Finnic peoples, Germanic peoples (list of Germanic peoples).\n*Southern Europe: Sicani.\n*Eastern Europe: Scythians, Sarmatians.\n\nHistorical immigration\n\nEthno-linguistic groups that arrived from outside Europe during historical times are:\n*Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean, from about 1200 BC to the fall of Carthage after the Third Punic War in 146 BC.\n*Iranian influence: Achaemenid control of Thrace (512–343 BC) and the Bosporan Kingdom, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Ossetes.\n*the Jewish diaspora reached Europe in the Roman Empire period, the Jewish community in Italy dating to around AD 70 and records of Jews settling Central Europe (Gaul) from the 5th century (see History of the Jews in Europe). \n*The Hunnic Empire (5th century), converged with the Barbarian invasions, contributing to the formation of the First Bulgarian Empire\n* Avar Khaganate (c.560s-800), converged with the Slavic migrations, fused into the South Slavic states from the 9th century.\n* the Bulgars (or proto-Bulgarians), a semi-nomadic people, originally from Central Asia, eventually absorbed by the Slavs.\n* the Magyars (Hungarians), a Ugric people, and the Turkic Pechenegs and Khazars, arrived in Europe in about the 8th century (see Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin).\n* the Arabs conquered Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, some places along the coast of southern Italy, Malta, Hispania and, in the early 11th century, Emirate of Sicily (831–1072) and Al-Andalus (711–1492)\n* the Berber dynasties of the Almoravides and the Almohads ruled much of Spain and Portugal. \n* exodus of Maghreb Christians \n* the western Kipchaks known as Cumans entered the lands of present-day Ukraine in the 11th century.\n* the Mongol/Tatar invasions (1223–1480), and Ottoman control of the Balkans (1389–1878). These medieval incursions account for the presence of European Turks and Tatars.\n*the Romani people (Gypsies) arrived during the Late Middle Ages\n* the Mongol Kalmyks arrived in Kalmykia in the 17th century.\n\nHistory of European ethnography\n\nThe earliest accounts of European ethnography date to Classical Antiquity. Herodotus described the Scythians and Thraco-Illyrians. Dicaearchus gave a description of Greece itself besides accounts of western and northern Europe. His work survives only fragmentarily, but was received by Polybius and others.\n\nRoman Empire period authors include Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and Tacitus.\nJulius Caesar gives an account of the Celtic tribes of Gaul, while Tacitus describes the Germanic tribes of Magna Germania.\n\nThe 4th century Tabula Peutingeriana records the names of numerous peoples and tribes.\nEthnographers of Late Antiquity such as Agathias of Myrina Ammianus Marcellinus, Jordanes or Theophylact Simocatta give early accounts of the Slavs, the Franks, the Alamanni and the Goths.\n\nBook IX of Isidore's Etymologiae (7th century) treats de linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus (of languages, peoples, realms, armies and cities).\nAhmad ibn Fadlan in the 10th century gives an account of the Bolghar and the Rus' peoples.\nWilliam Rubruck, while most notable for his account of the Mongols, in his account of his journey to Asia also gives accounts of the Tatars and the Alans.\nSaxo Grammaticus and Adam of Bremen give an account of pre-Christian Scandinavia. The Chronicon Slavorum (12th century) gives an account of the northwestern Slavic tribes.\n\nGottfried Hensel in his 1741 Synopsis Universae Philologiae published what is probably the earliest ethno-linguistic map of Europe, showing the beginning of the pater noster in the various European languages and scripts. \nIn the 19th century, ethnicity was discussed in terms of scientific racism, and the ethnic groups of Europe were grouped into a number of \"races\", Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic, all part of a larger \"Caucasian\" group.\n\nThe beginnings of ethnic geography as an academic subdiscipline lie in the period following World War I, in the context of nationalism, and in the 1930s exploitation for the purposes of fascist and Nazi propaganda so that it was only in the 1960s that ethnic geography began to thrive as a bona fide academic subdiscipline. \n\nThe origins of modern ethnography are often traced to the work of Bronisław Malinowski who emphasized the importance of fieldwork. \nThe emergence of population genetics further undermined the categorisation of Europeans into clearly defined racial groups. A 2007 study on the genetic history of Europe found that the most important genetic differentiation in Europe occurs on a line from the north to the south-east (northern Europe to the Balkans), with another east-west axis of differentiation across Europe, separating the \"indigenous\" Basques and Sami from other European populations.\nDespite these stratifications it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: \"there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world.\" \n\nNational minorities\n\nThe total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of Europeans.\n\nThe member states of the Council of Europe in 1995 signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The broad aims of the Convention are to ensure that the signatory states respect the rights of national minorities, undertaking to combat discrimination, promote equality, preserve and develop the culture and identity of national minorities, guarantee certain freedoms in relation to access to the media, minority languages and education and encourage the participation of national minorities in public life. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities defines a national minority implicitly to include minorities possessing a territorial identity and a distinct cultural heritage. By 2008, 39 member states have signed and ratified the Convention, with the notable exception of France.\n\nIndigenous minorities\n\nMost of Europe's indigenous peoples, or ethnic groups known to have the earliest known historical connection to a particular region, have gone extinct or been absorbed by (or, perhaps, contributed to) the dominant cultures. Those that survive are largely confined to remote areas. Groups that have been identified as indigenous include the Sami of northern Scandinavia, the Basques of northern Spain and southern France, the Bretons of western France and a many of the western indigenous peoples of Russia. Groups in Russia include Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Komi and Mordvins of the western Ural Mountains, Samoyedic peoples such as the Nenets people of northern Russia.\n\nNon-indigenous minorities\n\nMany non-European ethnic groups and nationalities have immigrated to Europe over the centuries. Some arrived centuries ago, while others immigrated more recently in the 20th century, often from former colonies of the British, French, and Spanish empires.\n\n*Western Asians\n** Jews: approx. 2.0 million, mostly in the UK, France and Germany. They are descended from the Israelites of the Middle East (Southwest Asia), originating from the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12-19.\n***Ashkenazi Jews: approx. 1.4 million, mostly in Germany and France, probably via southern Europe in the Roman era and coalescing in France and Germany towards the end of the first millennium. The Nazi Holocaust wiped out the vast majority during World War II and forced many to flee.\n***Sephardi Jews: approx. 0.3 million, mostly in France. They arrived via Spain and Portugal in the pre-Roman and Roman eras, and were forcibly converted or expelled in the 15th and 16th centuries.\n***Mizrahi Jews: approx. 0.3 million, mostly in France, via Islamic-majority countries of the Middle East.\n***Italqim: approx. 50,000, mostly in Italy, since the 2nd century BCE.\n***Romaniotes: approx. 6,000, mostly in Greece, with communities dating at least from the 1st century CE.\n***Crimean Karaites (Karaim): less than 4,000, mostly in Poland and Lithuania. They arrived in Crimea in the Middle Ages.\n**Assyrians: mostly in Sweden and Germany, as well in Russia.\n**Kurds: approx. 2.5 million, mostly in the UK, Germany, Sweden and Turkey.\n**Iraqi diaspora: mostly in the UK, Germany and Sweden.\n**Lebanese diaspora: especially in France, Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus and the UK. \n**Syrian diaspora: Largest number of Syrians live in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.\n*Africans\n**North Africans (Arabs and Berbers): approx. 5 million, mostly in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. The bulk of North African migrants are Moroccans, although France also has a large number of Algerians.\n**Horn Africans: approx. 200,000 Somalis, mostly in the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavia.\n**Sub-Saharan Africans (many ethnicities including Afro-Caribbeans and others by descent): approx. 5 million but rapidly growing, mostly in the UK and France, with smaller numbers in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere. \n*Latin Americans: approx. 2.2 million, mainly in Spain and to a lesser extent Italy and the UK. See also Latin American Britons (80,000 Latin American born in 2001). \n**Brazilians: around 70,000 in Portugal and Italy each, and 50,000 in Germany.\n** Chilean refugees escaping the Augusto Pinochet regime of the 1970s formed communities in France, Sweden, the UK, former East Germany and the Netherlands.\n**Venezuelans: around 520,000 mostly in Spain (200,000), Portugal (100,000), France (30,000), Germany (20,000), UK (15,000), Ireland (5,000), Italy (5,000) and the Netherlands (1,000). \n*South Asians: approx. 3 - 4 million, mostly in the UK but reside in smaller numbers in Germany and France.\n**Romani (Gypsies): approx. 4 or 10 million (although estimates vary widely), dispersed throughout Europe but with large numbers concentrated in the Balkans area, they are of ancestral South Asian and European origin.\n**Indians: approx. 2 million, mostly in the UK, also in Germany and smaller numbers in Ireland.\n**Pakistanis: approx. 1,000,000, mostly in the UK, but also in Norway and Sweden.\n**Tamils: approx. 250,000, predominantly in the UK.\n**Bangladeshi residing in Europe estimated at over 500,000, the bulk live in the UK.\n**Afghans, about 100,000 to 200,000, most happen to live in the UK, but Germany and Sweden are destinations for Afghan immigrants since the 1960s.\n*East Asians\n**Chinese: approx. 1.7 million, mostly in France, Russia, the UK, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.\n**Filipinos: above 1 million, mostly in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.\n**Japanese: mostly in the UK and a sizable community in Düsseldorf, Germany.\n**Koreans: 100,000 estimated (excludes a possible 100,000 more in Russia), mainly in the UK, France and Germany. See also Koryo-saram.\n**Southeast Asians of multiple nationalities, ca. total 1 million, such as Indonesians in the Netherlands, Thais in the UK and Sweden, Vietnamese in France and former East Germany, and Cambodians in France. See also Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic.\n**Mongolians are a sizable community in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.\n*North Americans\n**U.S. and Canadian expatriates: American British and Canadian British, Canadiens and Acadians in France, as well Americans/Canadians of European ancestry residing elsewhere in Europe.\n***African Americans (i.e. African American British) who are Americans of black/African ancestry reside in other countries. In the 1920s, African-American entertainers established a colony in Paris (African American French) and descendants of World War II/Cold War-era black American soldiers stationed in France, Germany and Italy are well known.\n*Others\n**European diaspora - Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans (mostly White South Africans of Afrikaaner and British descent), mainly in the UK.\n**Pacific Islanders: A small population of Tahitians of Polynesian origin in mainland France, Fijians in the United Kingdom from Fiji and Māori in the United Kingdom of the Māori people of New Zealand.\n**Amerindians and Inuit, a scant few in the European continent of American Indian ancestry (often Latin Americans in Spain, France and the UK; Inuit in Denmark), but most may be children or grandchildren of U.S. soldiers from American Indian tribes by intermarriage with local European women. In Germany, the Native American Association of Germany founded in 1994 as a socio-cultural organization estimates 50,000 North American Indians (descendants) live in the country. \n\nEuropean identity\n\nHistorical\n\nMedieval notions of a relation of the peoples of Europe are expressed in terms of genealogy of mythical founders of the individual groups.\nThe Europeans were considered the descendants of Japheth from early times, corresponding to the division of the known world into three continents, the descendants of Shem peopling Asia and those of Ham peopling Africa. Identification of Europeans as \"Japhetites\" is also reflected in early suggestions for terming the Indo-European languages \"Japhetic\".\n\nIn this tradition, the Historia Brittonum (9th century) introduces a genealogy of the peoples of the Migration period (as it was remembered in early medieval historiography) as follows,\nThe first man that dwelt in Europe was Alanus, with his three sons, Hisicion, Armenon, and Neugio. Hisicion had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Bruttus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Valagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, and Longobardus. Neugio had three sons, Vandalus, Saxo, and Boganus.\nFrom Hisicion arose four nations—the Franks, the Latins, the Germans, and Britons; from Armenon, the Gothi, Valagothi, Cibidi, Burgundi, and Longobardi; from Neugio, the Bogari, Vandali, Saxones, and Tarincgi. The whole of Europe was subdivided into these tribes. \nThe text goes then on to list the genealogy of Alanus, connecting him to Japheth via eighteen generations.\n\nEuropean culture\n\nEuropean culture is largely rooted in what is often referred to as its \"common cultural heritage\". Due to the great number of perspectives which can be taken on the subject, it is impossible to form a single, all-embracing conception of European culture. Nonetheless, there are core elements which are generally agreed upon as forming the cultural foundation of modern Europe. One list of these elements given by K. Bochmann includes: \n*A common cultural and spiritual heritage derived from Greco-Roman antiquity, Christianity, the Renaissance and its Humanism, the political thinking of the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, and the developments of Modernity, including all types of socialism; \n*A rich and dynamic material culture that has been extended to the other continents as the result of industrialization and colonialism during the \"Great Divergence\";\n*A specific conception of the individual expressed by the existence of, and respect for, a legality that guarantees human rights and the liberty of the individual; \n*A plurality of states with different political orders, which are condemned to live together in one way or another;\n*Respect for peoples, states and nations outside Europe.\n\nBerting says that these points fit with \"Europe's most positive realisations\". \nThe concept of European culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic and philosophical principles which set it apart from other civilizations. Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon. The term has come to apply to countries whose history has been strongly marked by European immigration or settlement during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Europe.\n\nReligion\n\nSince the High Middle Ages, most of Europe used to be dominated by Christianity. There are three major denominations, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox, with Protestantism restricted mostly to Northern Europe, and Orthodoxy to Slavic regions, Romania, Greece and Georgia. Also The Armenian Apostolic Church, part of the Oriental Church, is in Europe - another branch of Christianity (world's oldest National Church). Part of the Catholicism, while centered in the Latin parts, has a significant following also in Germanic and Slavic regions, Hungary, and Ireland (with some in Great Britain).\n\nChristianity is still the largest religion in Europe; according to a 2011 survey, 76.2% of Europeans considered themselves Christians. Also according to a study on Religiosity in the European Union in 2012, by Eurobarometer, Christianity is the largest religion in the European Union, accounting for 72% of the EU's population. \n\nIslam has some tradition in the Balkans and Caucasus (the European dominions of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th to 19th centuries). Muslims account for the majority of the populations in Albania, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus and Turkey. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 47% of the population is Muslim. Significant minorities are present in the rest of Europe. In addition to Turkey and Azerbaijan, Russia has one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe, including the Tatars of the Middle Volga and multiple groups in the Caucasus, including Chechens, Avars, Ingush and others. With 20th-century migrations, Muslims in Western Europe have become a noticeable minority. According to the Pew Forum, the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2010 was about 44 million (6%).Pew Forum, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, January 2011, [http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/][http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/][http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/], [http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/table-muslim-population-by-country/], [http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/] excluding Turkey. While the total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 was about 16 million (3.2%). \n\nJudaism has a long history in Europe, but is a small minority religion, with France (1%) the only European country with a Jewish population in excess of 0.5%. The Jewish population of Europe is composed primarily of two groups, the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi. Ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews likely migrated to the middle of Europe at least as early as the 8th century, while Sephardi Jews established themselves in Spain and Portugal at least one thousand years before that. Jews originated in the Levant where they resided for thousands of years until the 2nd century AD, when they spread around the Mediterranean and into Europe, although small communities were known to exist in Greece since at least the 1st century BC. Jewish history was notably affected by the Holocaust and emigration (including Aliyah, as well as emigration to America) in the 20th century.\n\nIn modern times, significant secularization has taken place, notably in laicist France in the 19th century and in the 20th century such as Estonia and German Democratic Republic. Currently, distribution of theism in Europe is very heterogeneous, with more than 95% in Poland, and less than 20% in the Czech Republic and Estonia. The 2005 Eurobarometer poll[http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf EC.Europa.eu] found that 52% of EU citizens believe in God.\n\nPan-European identity\n\n\"Pan-European identity\" or \"Europatriotism\" is an emerging sense of personal identification with Europe, or the European Union as a result of the gradual process European integration taking place over the last quarter of the 20th century, and especially in the period after the end of the Cold War, since the 1990s. The foundation of the OSCE following the 1990s Paris Charter has facilitated this process on a political level during the 1990s and 2000s.\n\nFrom the later 20th century, 'Europe' has come to be widely used as a synonym for the European Union even though there are millions of people living on the European continent in non-EU states. The prefix pan implies that the identity applies throughout Europe, and especially in an EU context, and 'pan-European' is often contrasted with national identity.",
"Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital is derived from the Latin capitalis (\"of the head\", referring to execution by beheading).\n\nThirty-six countries actively practise capital punishment, 103 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 50 have abolished it de facto (have not used it for at least ten years or are under moratorium).\n\nCapital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment. Also, the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members.\n\nThe United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition. Although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia. \n\nHistory\n\nExecution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime and to suppress political dissent. In most countries that practise capital punishment it is reserved for murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery, incest and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy in Islamic nations (the formal renunciation of the state religion). In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny. \n\nThe use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment and execution. Usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included a formal apology, compensation or blood feuds.\n\nA blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the emergence of an arbitration system based on state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour. \"Acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies (as well as potential allies) that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished.\" However, in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest.\n\nSevere historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation, scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun.\n\nAncient history\n\nElaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context and compensation system. Compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material (for example, cattle, slave) compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, or transfers of property or blood money or in some case an offer of a person for execution. The person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals. Blood feuds could be regulated at meetings, such as the Norsemen things. Systems deriving from blood feuds may survive alongside more advanced legal systems or be given recognition by courts (for example, trial by combat). One of the more modern refinements of the blood feud is the duel.\n\nIn certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics, monarchies or tribal oligarchies emerged. These nations were often united by common linguistic, religious or family ties. Moreover, expansion of these nations often occurred by conquest of neighbouring tribes or nations. Consequently, various classes of royalty, nobility, various commoners and slave emerged. Accordingly, the systems of tribal arbitration were submerged into a more unified system of justice which formalized the relation between the different \"classes\" rather than \"tribes\". The earliest and most famous example is Code of Hammurabi which set the different punishment and compensation, according to the different class/group of victims and perpetrators. The Torah (Jewish Law), also known as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament), lays down the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, magic, violation of the Sabbath, blasphemy, and a wide range of sexual crimes, although evidence suggests that actual executions were rare. \n\nA further example comes from Ancient Greece, where the Athenian legal system was first written down by Draco in about 621 BC: the death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes, though Solon later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining only Draco's homicide statutes. The word draconian derives from Draco's laws. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offences.\n\nTang dynasty\n\nAlthough many are executed in the People's Republic of China each year in the present day, there was a time in the Tang dynasty when the death penalty was abolished. This was in the year 747, enacted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756). When abolishing the death penalty Xuanzong ordered his officials to refer to the nearest regulation by analogy when sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the prescribed punishment was execution. Thus depending on the severity of the crime a punishment of severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan region might take the place of capital punishment. However, the death penalty was restored only 12 years later in 759 in response to the An Lushan Rebellion. At this time in the Tang dynasty only the emperor had the authority to sentence criminals to execution. Under Xuanzong capital punishment was relatively infrequent, with only 24 executions in the year 730 and 58 executions in the year 736.\n\nThe two most common forms of execution in the Tang dynasty were strangulation and decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of execution for 144 and 89 offences respectively. Strangulation was the prescribed sentence for lodging an accusation against one's parents or grandparents with a magistrate, scheming to kidnap a person and sell them into slavery and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation was the method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and sedition. Despite the great discomfort involved, most of the Tang Chinese preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional Tang Chinese belief that the body is a gift from the parents and that it is, therefore, disrespectful to one's ancestors to die without returning one's body to the grave intact.\n\nSome further forms of capital punishment were practised in the Tang dynasty, of which the first two that follow at least were extralegal. The first of these was scourging to death with the thick rod which was common throughout the Tang dynasty especially in cases of gross corruption. The second was truncation, in which the convicted person was cut in two at the waist with a fodder knife and then left to bleed to death.Benn, p. 210 A further form of execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts, was used from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905.\n\nWhen a minister of the fifth grade or above received a death sentence the emperor might grant him a special dispensation allowing him to commit suicide in lieu of execution. Even when this privilege was not granted, the law required that the condemned minister be provided with food and ale by his keepers and transported to the execution ground in a cart rather than having to walk there.\n\nNearly all executions under the Tang dynasty took place in public as a warning to the population. The heads of the executed were displayed on poles or spears. When local authorities decapitated a convicted criminal, the head was boxed and sent to the capital as proof of identity and that the execution had taken place.\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nIn medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalized form of punishment. During the reign of Henry VIII of England, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed. \n\nDuring early modern Europe, a massive moral panic regarding witchcraft swept across Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this period, there were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands of women were prosecuted and executed through the witch trials of the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries).\n\nThe death penalty also targeted sexual offences such as sodomy. In England, the Buggery Act 1533 stipulated hanging as punishment for \"buggery\". James Pratt and John Smith were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835. \n\nDespite the wide use of the death penalty, calls for reform were not unknown. The 12th century Jewish legal scholar, Moses Maimonides, wrote, \"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death.\" He argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely \"according to the judge's caprice\". Maimonides's concern was maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission. \n\nIslam on the whole accepts capital punishment, and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad, such as Al-Mu'tadid, were often cruel in their punishments. For hudud crimes such as zina (consensual extramarital or homosexual sex) and apostasy (leaving Islam and converting to another religion), Sharia requires capital punishment in public, while for crimes such as murder and manslaughter, the victim's family can either seek execution (Qisas) or can choose to spare the life of the killer in exchange for blood money restitution (Diyya). \n\nModern era\n\nIn the last several centuries, with the emergence of modern nation states, justice came to be increasingly associated with the concept of natural and legal rights. The period saw an increase in standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. Rational choice theory, a utilitarian approach to criminology which justifies punishment as a form of deterrence as opposed to retribution, can be traced back to Cesare Beccaria, whose influential treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764) was the first detailed analysis of capital punishment to demand the abolition of the death penalty. Jeremy Bentham, regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism, also called for the abolition of the death penalty. Beccaria, and later Charles Dickens and Karl Marx noted the incidence of increased violent criminality at the times and places of executions. Official recognition of this phenomenon led to executions being carried out inside prisons, away from public view.\n\nIn England in the 18th century, when there was no police force, there was a large increase in the number of capital offences to more than 200. These were mainly property offences, for example cutting down a cherry tree in an orchard. In 1820, there were 160, including crimes such as shoplifting, petty theft or stealing cattle. The severity of the so-called Bloody Code was often tempered by juries who refused to convict, or judges, in the case of petty theft, who arbitrarily set the value stolen at below the statutory level for a capital crime. \n\nContemporary era\n\nThe 20th century was a violent period. Tens of millions were killed in wars between nation-states as well as genocide perpetrated by nation states against political opponents (both perceived and actual), ethnic and religious minorities; the Turkish assault on the Armenians, Hitler's attempt to exterminate the European Jews, the Khmer Rouge decimation of Cambodia, the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, to cite four of the most notorious examples. A large part of execution was the summary execution of enemy combatants. In Nazi Germany there were three types of capital punishment; hanging, decapitation and death by shooting. Also, modern military organisations employed capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. The Soviets, for example, executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during World War II. In the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, looting, shirking under enemy fire and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death (see decimation and running the gauntlet). One method of execution, since firearms came into common use, has also been firing squad, although some countries use execution with a single shot to the head or neck.\n\nVarious authoritarian states— for example those with fascist or Communist governments—employed the death penalty as a potent means of political oppression. According to Robert Conquest, the leading expert on Stalin's purges, more than 1 million Soviet citizens were executed during the Great Terror of 1937–38, almost all by a bullet to the back of the head. Mao Zedong publicly stated that \"800,000\" people had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949. Partly as a response to such excesses, civil rights organizations have started to place increasing emphasis on the concept of human rights and an abolition of the death penalty.\n\nAmong countries around the world, almost all European and many Pacific Area states (including Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished capital punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital punishment while some countries, such as Brazil, allow for capital punishment only in exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States (the federal government and 32 of the states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (for example, Japan and India) and Africa (for example, Botswana and Zambia) retain it. South Africa's Constitutional Court, in judgment of the case of State v Makwanyane and Another, unanimously abolished the death penalty on 6 June 1995.\n\nAbolition was often adopted due to political change, as when countries shifted from authoritarianism to democracy, or when it became an entry condition for the European Union. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans on capital punishment for decades, the earliest is Michigan, where it was abolished in 1846, while others actively use it today. The death penalty there remains a contentious issue which is hotly debated.\n\nIn abolitionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders though few countries have brought it back after abolishing it. However, a spike in serious, violent crimes, such as murders or terrorist attacks, has prompted some countries (such as Sri Lanka and Jamaica) to effectively end the moratorium on the death penalty. In retention countries, the debate is sometimes revived when a miscarriage of justice has occurred though this tends to cause legislative efforts to improve the judicial process rather than to abolish the death penalty.\n\nModern-day public opinion\n\nThe public opinion on the death penalty varies considerably by country and by the crime in question. Countries where a majority of people are against execution include New Zealand, where 55 percent of the population oppose its use, Australia where only 23 percent support the death penalty, and Norway where only 25 percent are in favour. Most French, Finns and Italians also oppose the death penalty. A 2010 Gallup poll shows that 64% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, down from 65% in 2006 and 68% in 2001. \n\nUse of capital punishment is growing in India in the 2010s due to both a growth in right wing politics and due to anger over several recent brutal cases of rape. While support for the death penalty for murder is still high in China, executions have dropped precipitously, with 3,000 executed in 2012 versus 12,000 in 2002. A poll in South Africa found that 76 percent of millennium generation South Africans support re-introduction of the death penalty, which is abolished in South Africa. \n\nMovements towards non-painful execution\n\nTrends in most of the world have long been to move to less painful, or more humane, executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of the 18th century, while Britain banned drawing and quartering in the early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long drop \"hanging\" where the subject is dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. The Shah of Persia introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun as quick and painless alternatives to more torturous methods of executions used at that time. In the U.S., the electric chair and the gas chamber were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging, but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection. A small number of countries still employ slow hanging methods and stoning.\n\nA study of executions carried out in the U.S. between 1977 and 2001 indicated that at least 34 of the 749 executions, or 4.5%, involved \"unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner.\" The rate of these \"botched executions\" remained steady over the period of the study. A separate study published in The Lancet in 2005 found that in 43% of cases of lethal injection, the blood level of hypnotics was insufficient to guarantee unconsciousness. However, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2008 (Baze v. Rees) that lethal injection is a constitutional form of punishment, and again in 2015 (Glossip v. Gross).\n\nAbolition of capital punishment\n\nMany countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Since World War II there has been a trend toward abolishing capital punishment. Capital punishment has been completely abolished by 103 countries, a further 6 have done so for all offences except under special circumstances and 50 more have abolished it in practice because they have not used it for at least 10 years or are under a moratorium.\n\nThe death penalty was banned in China between 747 and 759. In Japan, Emperor Saga abolished the death penalty in 818 under the influence of Shinto and it lasted until 1156. \n\nIn England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, written in 1395. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, debated the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form, coming to no firm conclusion. More recent opposition to the death penalty stemmed from the book of the Italian Cesare Beccaria Dei Delitti e Delle Pene (\"On Crimes and Punishments\"), published in 1764. In this book, Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the injustice, but even the futility from the point of view of social welfare, of torture and the death penalty. Influenced by the book, Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg, famous enlightened monarch and future Emperor of Austria, abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first permanent abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto blocked capital executions (the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the instruments for capital execution in his land. In 2000, Tuscany's regional authorities instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event. The event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating Cities for Life Day.\n\nThe Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death penalty in 1854 and San Marino did so in 1865. The last execution in San Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals in 1852 and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867.\n\nAbolition occurred in Canada in 1976 (except for some military offences, with complete abolition in 1998), in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973 (although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984). In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to \"progressively restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment\". \n\nIn the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder (leaving only treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards and a number of wartime military offences as capital crimes) for a five-year experiment in 1965 and permanently in 1969, the last execution having taken place in 1964. It was abolished for all peacetime offences in 1998. \n\nIn the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on 18 May 1846. The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia (death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability) and Roper v. Simmons (death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed). In the United States, 18 states and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment.\n\nOne of the latest countries to abolish the death penalty for all crimes was Gabon, in February 2010. \n\nAbolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it \"cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment\". Amnesty International considers it to be \"the ultimate, irreversible denial of Human Rights\". \n\nSee also: Capital punishment abolition chronology.\n\nContemporary use\n\nCapital punishment by country\n\nMost countries including almost all First World nations have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Notable exceptions are the United States, China, North Korea, Japan, and most Islamic states. The U.S. is the only Western country to use the death penalty. \n\nSince World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty. 36 countries retain the death penalty in active use, 103 countries have abolished capital punishment altogether, six have done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 50 have abolished it in practice because they had not used it for at least ten years or are under a moratorium.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, 25 countries are known to have performed executions in 2015, three more than in 2014. There are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea.\n\nThe use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some retentionist countries including Taiwan and Singapore. Indonesia carried out no executions between November 2008 and March 2013. Japan and the United States are the only developed countries that are classified by Amnesty International as 'retentionist' (South Korea is classified as 'abolitionist in practice'). Nearly all retentionist countries are situated in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. The only retentionist country in Europe is Belarus. The death penalty was overwhelmingly practised in poor and authoritarian states, which often employed the death penalty as a tool of political oppression. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America swelled the ranks of abolitionist countries.\n\nThis was soon followed by the fall of Communism in Europe. Many of the countries which restored democracy aspired to enter the EU. The European Union and the Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death penalty (see Capital punishment in Europe). Public support for the death penalty in the EU varies. The last execution on the present day territory of the Council of Europe took place in 1997 in Ukraine. On the other hand, rapid industrialisation in Asia has been increasing the number of developed retentionist countries. In these countries, the death penalty enjoys strong public support, and the matter receives little attention from the government or the media; in China there is a small but growing movement to abolish the death penalty altogether. This trend has been followed by some African and Middle Eastern countries where support for the death penalty is high.\n\nSome countries have resumed practising the death penalty after having suspended executions for long periods. The United States suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976; there was no execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its moratorium on the death penalty on 20 November 2004, although it has not yet performed any executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death penalty in 1993 after abolishing it in 1987, but abolished it again in 2006.\n\nThe United States and Japan are the only developed countries to have carried out executions. The federal government and 32 states have a valid death penalty statute, and over 1,400 executions have been carried in the country since it reinstated the death penalty in 1976, including 28 in 2015.\n\nThe most recent country to abolish the death penalty was Suriname in March 2015. \n\nJuvenile offenders\n\nThe death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the time of their crime) has become increasingly rare. Considering the age of majority is still not 18 in some countries, since 1990 nine countries have executed offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of China (PRC), Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States, and Yemen. The PRC, Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Iran have since raised the minimum age to 18. Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing their offences as juveniles. The PRC does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have reportedly taken place. \n\nStarting in 1642 within British America, an estimated 365 juvenile offenders were executed by the states and federal government of the United States. The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005).\n\nBetween 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen were reported to have executed child offenders, the most being from Iran. \n\nThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and ratified, except for Somalia and the United States (notwithstanding the latter's Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice). The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (whose Article 6.5 also states that \"Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age...\").\n\nIran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has received international condemnation; the country's record is the focus of the Stop Child Executions Campaign. But on 10 February 2012, Iran's parliament changed the controversial law of executing juveniles. In the new law, the age of 18 (solar year) would be for both genders considered and juvenile offenders will be sentenced on a separate law than of adults. Based on the Islamic law which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of lunar year (11 days shorter than a solar year) were fully responsible for their crimes. Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently has roughly 140 people on death row for crimes committed as juveniles (up from 71 in 2007).[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-09-17-child-executions_N.htm Iranian activists fight child executions], Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, 17 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-22. The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni and Makwan Moloudzadeh became international symbols of Iran's child capital punishment and the judicial system that hands down such sentences. \n\nSaudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offence. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. \n\nThere is evidence that child executions are taking place in the parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). In October 2008, a girl, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009 (reiterated in 2013) that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country. \n\nMethods\n\nThe following methods of execution were used in 2015: \n\n* Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, Yemen, Egypt, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Liberia, Chad, Washington state in the USA)\n* Shooting (the People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Vietnam, Belarus, North Korea, Indonesia, Yemen, and in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Utah).\n* Lethal injection (United States, Guatemala, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam)\n* Electrocution and gas inhalation (some U.S. states, but only if the prisoner request it or if lethal injection is unavailable)\n* Beheading (Saudi Arabia)\n\nPublic execution\n\nA public execution is a form of capital punishment in which \"members of the general public may voluntarily attend\". The standard definition normally excludes the presence of a limited number of \"passive citizens\" that \"witness the event to assure executive accountability\". While today the great majority of the world considers public executions to be uncivilized and distasteful and most countries have outlawed the practice, throughout much of history executions were performed publicly as a means for the state to demonstrate \"its power before those who fell under its jurisdiction be they criminals, enemies, or political opponents\". Additionally, it afforded the public a chance to witness \"what was considered a great spectacle\". \n\nAccording to Amnesty International, in 2012 \"public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia\". Public executions have also taken place in Hamas-controlled Gaza. \n\nCapital crime\n\nCrimes against humanity\n\nCrimes against humanity such as genocide are usually punished by the death penalty in countries retaining it. Death sentences were handed down and carried out during the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 and the Tokyo Trials in 1948, but the current International Criminal Court doesn't uses capital punishment, life imprisonment being the highest penalty available.\n\nMurder\n\nIntentional homicide is punishable by death in most countries retaining capital punishment, but generally provided it involves an aggravating factor required by statute or judicial precedents.\n\nDrug trafficking\n\nSome countries provide the death penalty for drug trafficking, mostly in Asia. Among countries who regularly execute drug offenders are China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore.\n\nOther offences\n\nOther crimes that are punishable by death include treason, and other graves crimes against the state (most countries with the death penalty), rape (China, Iran, Saudi Arabia), economic crimes (China), adultery, sodomy, religious offences such as apostasy (many Islamic countries), blasphemy (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan), and forms of aggravated robbery (Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Zambia).\n\nControversy and debate\n\nCapital punishment is controversial. Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane and criticize it for its irreversibility. They assert also that capital punishment lacks deterrent effect, discriminates against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a \"culture of violence\". There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International, and country-specific, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that have abolition of the death penalty as a fundamental purpose. \n\nAdvocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, is a good tool for police and prosecutors (in plea bargaining for example), makes sure that convicted criminals do not offend again, and is a just penalty for atrocious crimes. \n\nRetribution\n\nSupporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as for murder of law enforcement officers, child murder, torture murder, multiple homicide and mass killing such as terrorism, massacre and genocide. This argument is strongly defended by New York Law School's Professor Robert Blecker, who says that the punishment must be painful in proportion to the crime. 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant defended a more extreme position, according to which every murderer deserves to die on the grounds that loss of life is incomparable to any jail term. \n\nSome abolitionists argue that retribution is simply revenge and cannot be condoned. Others while accepting retribution as an element of criminal justice nonetheless argue that life without parole is a sufficient substitute. It is also argued that the punishing of a killing with another death is a relatively unique punishment for a violent act, because in general violent crimes are not punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act (e.g. rapists are not punished by corporal punishment). \n\nHuman rights\n\nAbolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it \"cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment\". Amnesty International considers it to be \"the ultimate irreversible denial of Human Rights\". Albert Camus wrote in a 1956 book called Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death:\n\nIn the classic doctrine of natural rights as expounded by for instance Locke and Blackstone, on the other hand, it is an important idea that the right to life can be forfeited.Joel Feinberg: [http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/feinberg80.pdf Voluntary Euthanasia and the Inalienable Right to Life] The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, 1 April 1977. As John Stuart Mill explained in a speech against an amendment to abolish capital punishment for murder in 1868:\n\nWrongful execution\n\nIt is frequently argued that capital punishment leads to miscarriage of justice through the wrongful execution of innocent persons. Many people have been proclaimed innocent victims of the death penalty.[http://capitaldefenseweekly.com/innocent.html Capital Defense Weekly] \n\nSome have claimed that as many as 39 executions have been carried out in the face of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt in the US from 1992 through 2004. Newly available DNA evidence prevented the pending execution of more than 15 death row inmates during the same period in the US, but DNA evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases. As of 2010, 139 prisoners on death row have been exonerated by DNA or other evidence, which is seen as an indication that innocent prisoners have almost certainly been executed. \n\nImproper procedure may also result in unfair executions. For example, Amnesty International argues that in Singapore \"the Misuse of Drugs Act contains a series of presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused. This conflicts with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty\". This refers to a situation when someone is being caught with drugs. In this situation, in almost any jurisdiction, the prosecution has a prima facie case.\n\nSince the death penalty reinstatement in the United States during the 1970s, no inmate executed has been granted posthumous exoneration. \n\nRacial, ethnic and social class bias\n\nOpponents of the death penalty argue that this punishment is being used more often against perpetrators from racial and ethnic minorities and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, than against those criminals who come from a privileged background; and that the background of the victim also influences the outcome. Researchers have shown that white Americans are more likely to support the death penalty when told that it is mostly applied to African Americans, and that more stereotypically black-looking defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if the case involves a white victim. \n\nSupporters of the death penalty retort that the over-representation of minorities among those sentenced to death only reflects their over-representation among criminals in general. \n\nInternational views\n\nThe United Nations introduced a resolution during the General Assembly's 62nd sessions in 2007 calling for a universal ban. The approval of a draft resolution by the Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights issues, voted 99 to 52, with 33 abstentions, in favour of the resolution on 15 November 2007 and was put to a vote in the Assembly on 18 December. \n\nAgain in 2008, a large majority of states from all regions adopted a second resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the UN General Assembly (Third Committee) on 20 November. 105 countries voted in favour of the draft resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.\n\nA range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty countries were overwhelmingly defeated. It had in 2007 passed a non-binding resolution (by 104 to 54, with 29 abstentions) by asking its member states for \"a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty\". \n\nA number of regional conventions prohibit the death penalty, most notably, the Sixth Protocol (abolition in time of peace) and the 13th Protocol (abolition in all circumstances) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The same is also stated under the Second Protocol in the American Convention on Human Rights, which, however has not been ratified by all countries in the Americas, most notably Canada and the United States. Most relevant operative international treaties do not require its prohibition for cases of serious crime, most notably, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This instead has, in common with several other treaties, an optional protocol prohibiting capital punishment and promoting its wider abolition. \n\nSeveral international organizations have made the abolition of the death penalty (during time of peace) a requirement of membership, most notably the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe. The EU and the Council of Europe are willing to accept a moratorium as an interim measure. Thus, while Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and the death penalty remains codified in its law, it has not made use of it since becoming a member of the Council – Russia has not executed anyone since 1996. With the exception of Russia (abolitionist in practice), Kazakhstan (abolitionist for ordinary crimes only), and Belarus (retentionist), all European countries are classified as abolitionist.\n\nLatvia abolished de jure the death penalty for war crimes in 2012, becoming the last EU member to do so. \n\nThe [http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT187&CM\n&DF&CL\nENG Protocol no.13] calls for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances (including for war crimes). The majority of European countries have signed and ratified it. Some European countries have not done this, but all of them except Belarus and Kazakhstan have now abolished the death penalty in all circumstances (de jure, and Russia de facto). Poland is the most recent country to ratify the protocol, on 28 August 2013. \n\nThe [http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT114&CM\n&DF&CL\nENG Protocol no.6] which prohibits the death penalty during peacetime has been ratified by all members of the European Council, except Russia (which has signed, but not ratified).\n\nThere are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has 81 parties; and the [http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/a-53.html Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty] (for the Americas; ratified by 13 states). \n\nIn Turkey, over 500 people were sentenced to death after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. About 50 of them were executed, the last one 25 October 1984. Then there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey. As a move towards EU membership, Turkey made some legal changes. The death penalty was removed from peacetime law by the National Assembly in August 2002, and in May 2004 Turkey amended its constitution in order to remove capital punishment in all circumstances. It ratified Protocol no. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights in February 2006. As a result, Europe is a continent free of the death penalty in practice, all states but Russia, which has entered a moratorium, having ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been lobbying for Council of Europe observer states who practise the death penalty, the U.S. and Japan, to abolish it or lose their observer status. In addition to banning capital punishment for EU member states, the EU has also banned detainee transfers in cases where the receiving party may seek the death penalty. \n\nSub-Saharan African countries that have recently abolished the death penalty include Burundi, which abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2009, and Gabon which did the same in 2010. On 5 July 2012, Benin became part of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits the use of the death penalty. \n\nThe newly created South Sudan is among the 111 UN member states that supported the resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly that called for the removal of the death penalty, therefore affirming its opposition to the practice. South Sudan, however, has not yet abolished the death penalty and stated that it must first amend its Constitution, and until that happens it will continue to use the death penalty. \n\nAmong non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are noted for their opposition to capital punishment. A number of such NGOs, as well as trade unions, local councils and bar associations formed a World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002.\n\nReligious views\n\nThe world's major religions have mixed opinions on the death penalty, depending on the sect, the individual believer, and the time period.\n\nBuddhism\n\nThere is disagreement among Buddhists as to whether or not Buddhism forbids the death penalty. The first of the Five Precepts (Panca-sila) is to abstain from destruction of life. Chapter 10 of the Dhammapada states:\n\nEveryone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore you do not kill or cause to be killed. \n\nChapter 26, the final chapter of the Dhammapada, states, \"Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures. He neither kills nor helps others to kill.\" These sentences are interpreted by many Buddhists (especially in the West) as an injunction against supporting any legal measure which might lead to the death penalty. However, as is often the case with the interpretation of scripture, there is dispute on this matter. Historically, most states where the official religion is Buddhism have imposed capital punishment for some offences. One notable exception is the abolition of the death penalty by the Emperor Saga of Japan in 818. This lasted until 1165, although in private manors executions continued to be conducted as a form of retaliation. Japan still imposes the death penalty, although some recent justice ministers have refused to sign death warrants, citing their Buddhist beliefs as their reason. Other Buddhist-majority states vary in their policy. For example, Bhutan has abolished the death penalty, but Thailand still retains it, although Buddhism is the official religion in both. Mongolia abolished the death penalty in 2012.\n\nMany stories in Buddhist scripture stress the superior power of the Buddha's teaching to rehabilitate murderers and other criminals. The most well-known example is Angulimala in the Theravadan Pali canon who had killed 999 people and then attempted to kill his own mother and the Buddha, but under the influence of the Buddha he repented and entered the monkhood. The Buddha succeeded when the King and all his soldiers failed to eliminate the murderer by force. \n\nWithout one official teaching on the death penalty, Thai monks are typically divided on the issue, with some favoring abolition of the death penalty while others see it as bad karma stemming from bad actions in the past.\n \n\nIn the edicts of the great Buddhist king Ashoka (ca. 304–232 BC) inscribed on great pillars around his kingdom, the King showed reverence for all life by giving up the slaughtering of animals, and many of his subjects followed his example. King Ashoka also extended the period before execution of those condemned to death so they could make a final appeal for their lives.\n\nA close reading of texts in the Pali canon reveals different attitudes towards violence and capital punishment. The Pali scholar [http://salc.uchicago.edu/faculty/collins Steven Collins] finds Dhamma in the Pali canon divided into two categories according to the attitude taken towards violence. In Mode 1 Dhamma the use of violence is \"context-dependent and negotiable\". A King should not pass judgement in haste or anger, but the punishment should fit the crime, with warfare and capital punishment acceptable in certain situations. In Mode 2 Dhamma the use of violence is \"context-independent and non-negotiable\" and the only advice to kings is to abdicate, renounce the world and leave everything to the law of karma. Buddhism is incompatible with any form of violence especially warfare and capital punishment.\n \n\nIn the world that humans inhabit there is a continual tension between these two modes of Dhamma. This tension is best exhibited in the [http://www.basicbuddhism.org/index.cfm?GPID=29 Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta] (Digha Nikaya 26 of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon), the story of humanity's decline from a golden age in the past. A critical turning point comes when the King decides not to give money to a man who has committed theft, but instead to cut off his head and also to carry out this punishment in a particularly cruel and humiliating manner, parading him in public to the sound of drums as he is taken to the execution ground outside the city. In the wake of this decision by the king, thieves take to imitating the King's actions and murder the people from whom they steal to avoid detection. Thieves turn to highway robbery and attacking small villages and towns far away from the royal capital where they won't be detected. A downwards spiral towards social disorder and chaos has begun.\n \n\nChristianity\n\nViews on the death penalty in Christianity run a spectrum of opinions, from complete condemnation of the punishment, seeing it as a form of revenge and as contrary to Christ's message of forgiveness, to enthusiastic support based primarily on Old Testament law.\n\nAmong the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, the message to his followers that one should \"Turn the other cheek\" and his example in the story Pericope Adulterae, in which Jesus intervenes in the stoning of an adulteress, are generally accepted as his condemnation of physical retaliation (though most scholars agree that the latter passage was \"certainly not part of the original text of St John's Gospel\" ). More militant Christians consider Romans 13:3–4 to support the death penalty. Many Christians have believed that Jesus' doctrine of peace speaks only to personal ethics and is distinct from civil government's duty to punish crime.\n\nIn the Old Testament, Leviticus provides a list of transgressions in which execution is recommended. Christian positions on these passages vary. The sixth commandment (fifth in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches) is translated as \"Thou shalt not kill\" by some denominations and as \"Thou shalt not murder\" by others. As some denominations do not have a hard-line stance on the subject, Christians of such denominations are free to make a personal decision. \n\nEastern Orthodox Christianity does not officially condemn or endorse capital punishment. It states that it is not a totally objectionable thing, but also that its abolition can be driven by genuine Christian values, especially stressing the need for mercy. \n\nThe Rosicrucian Fellowship and many other Christian esoteric schools condemn capital punishment in all circumstances. \n\nRoman Catholic Church\n\nIn recent times, the Catholic Church has generally moved away from any explicit condoning or approval of the death penalty and has instead increasingly adopted a more disapproving stance on the issue. Many modern Church figures such as Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have in fact actively discouraged the death penalty or advocated for the out-right abolition of the death penalty. Historically and officially, however, the Catholic Church has held that, in certain cases, a legal system may be justified in levying a death sentence, as such a sentence may deter crime, may protect society from potential future acts of violence by an offender, may bring retribution for an offender's wrongful acts, and may even help the offender to move closer to reconciliation with God in the face of death. St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, accepted the death penalty as a deterrent and prevention method but not as a means of vengeance. (See Aquinas on the death penalty.) In 1566, the Roman Catechism stated this teaching thus:\n\nAnother kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord. \n\nThe 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia suggested that Catholics should hold that \"the infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians\", but that the matter of \"the advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations.\" \n\nMore recently, however, in the 1995 Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II suggested that capital punishment should be avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question, opining that punishment \"ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.\" The most recent edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church restates this view, and further states that:\n\nAssuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.\n\nThat the assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul II is not binding on the Catholic faithful was confirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger when he wrote in 2004 that,\n\nif a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia. \n\nIn 2015, Pope Francis stated in an address to the International Commission against the Death Penalty that: \"Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed.\" Francis argued that the death penalty is no longer justified by a society's need to defend itself and has lost all legitimacy due to the possibility of judicial error. He further stated that capital punishment is an offense \"against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God's plan for man and society\" and \"does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.\" In the address, Francis further explained: \n\n In certain circumstances, when hostilities are underway, a measured reaction is necessary in order to prevent the aggressor from causing harm, and the need to neutralize the aggressor may result in his elimination; it is a case of legitimate defence (cf. Evangelium Vitae, n. 55). Nevertheless, the prerequisites of legitimate personal defence are not applicable in the social sphere without the risk of distortion. In fact, when the death penalty is applied, people are killed not for current acts of aggression, but for offences committed in the past. Moreover, it is applied to people whose capacity to cause harm is not current, but has already been neutralized, and who are deprived of their freedom. [...] \n\nFor a constitutional State the death penalty represents a failure, because it obliges the State to kill in the name of justice [...] Justice is never reached by killing a human being. [...] The death penalty loses all legitimacy due to the defective selectivity of the criminal justice system and in the face of the possibility of judicial error. Human justice is imperfect, and the failure to recognize its fallibility can transform it into a source of injustice. With the application of capital punishment, the person sentenced is denied the possibility to make amends or to repent of the harm done; the possibility of confession, with which man expresses his inner conversion; and of contrition, the means of repentance and atonement, in order to reach the encounter with the merciful and healing love of God. Furthermore, capital punishment is a frequent practice to which totalitarian regimes and fanatical groups resort, for the extermination of political dissidents, minorities, and every individual labelled as “dangerous” or who might be perceived as a threat to their power or to the attainment of their objectives. As in the first centuries and also in the current one, the Church suffers from the application of this penalty to her new martyrs. \n\nThe death penalty is contrary to the meaning of humanitas and to divine mercy, which must be models for human justice. It entails cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as is the anguish before the moment of execution and the terrible suspense between the issuing of the sentence and the execution of the penalty, a form of “torture” which, in the name of correct procedure, tends to last many years, and which oftentimes leads to illness and insanity on death row. \n\nShortly prior to Francis's address, the Vatican had officially given support to a 2015 United Nations campaign against the death penalty. During a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting concerning the abolishment of capital punishment, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi declared that \"The Holy See Delegation fully supports the efforts to abolish the use of the death penalty.\" The Archbishop stated: \n\n Considering the practical circumstances found in most States ... it appears evident nowadays that means other than the death penalty 'are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons [...] We should take into account that no clear positive effect of deterrence results from the application of the death penalty and that the irreversibility of this punishment does not allow for eventual corrections in the case of wrongful convictions. \n\nDespite recent Church statements, the Catholic Church still officially holds, as per the most recent 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, that the death penalty may be employed where public authority cannot find any other way to contain a dangerous person.\n\nProtestants\n\nSouthern Baptists support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts, so long as it does not constitute as an act of personal revenge or discrimination. \n\nThe Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops condemned the death penalty in 1988:\n\nThe United Methodist Church, along with other Methodist churches, also condemns capital punishment, saying that it cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking human life. The Church also holds that the death penalty falls unfairly and unequally upon marginalised persons including the poor, the uneducated, ethnic and religious minorities, and persons with mental and emotional illnesses. The General Conference of the United Methodist Church calls for its bishops to uphold opposition to capital punishment and for governments to enact an immediate moratorium on carrying out the death penalty sentence.\n\nIn a 1991 social policy statement, the ELCA officially took a stand to oppose the death penalty. It states that revenge is a primary motivation for capital punishment policy and that true healing can only take place through repentance and forgiveness. \n\nCommunity of Christ, the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is opposed to capital punishment. The first stand against capital punishment was taken by the church's Presiding High Council in 1995. This was followed by a resolution of the World Conference in 2000. This resolution, WC 1273, states: \n\nSeveral key leaders early in the Protestant Reformation, including Martin Luther and John Calvin, followed the traditional reasoning in favour of capital punishment, and the Lutheran Church's Augsburg Confession explicitly defended it. Some Protestant groups have cited Genesis 9:5–6, Romans 13:3–4, and\nLeviticus 20:1–27 as the basis for permitting the death penalty. \n\nMennonites, Church of the Brethren and Friends have opposed the death penalty since their founding, and continue to be strongly opposed to it today. These groups, along with other Christians opposed to capital punishment, have cited Christ's Sermon on the Mount (transcribed in Matthew Chapter 5–7) and Sermon on the Plain (transcribed in Luke 6:17–49). In both sermons, Christ tells his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies, which these groups believe mandates nonviolence, including opposition to the death penalty.\n\nThe Church of Scotland considers that capital punishment is unacceptable and does not provide an answer for even the most serious crimes. \n\nIn 2015, a large association representing over 30 U.S. Protestant denominations ceased promoting a pro-death penalty stance and announced its affirmation of Christians who oppose the death penalty as well as those who support it, and also affirmed both sides' ethical reasoning in doing so.\n\nMormonism\n\nThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints neither supports nor opposes capital punishment, although the church's founder, Joseph Smith, supported it. However, today the church officially states that it is a \"matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law.\" \n\nHinduism\n\nA basis can be found in Hindu teachings both for permitting and forbidding the death penalty. Hinduism preaches ahimsa (or ahinsa, non-violence), but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body. The soul is reborn into another body upon death (until Moksha), akin to a human changing clothes. The religious, civil and criminal law of Hindus is encoded in the Dharmaśāstras and the Arthasastra. The Dharmasastras describe many crimes and their punishments and call for the death penalty in several instances, including murder and righteous warfare. \n\nIslam\n\nSharia, the religious law in Islam, requires capital punishment for certain crimes.Samuel M. Zwemer, The law of Apostasy, The Muslim World\nVolume 14, Issue 4, pp. 373–391 For example, the Quran states,\n\nSimilarly, capital punishment by stoning for zina (extramarital sex) is prescribed in the Hadiths, the most trusted books in Islam after the official text called the Quran, particularly in Kitab Al-Hudud.Z. Mir-Hosseini (2011), Criminalizing sexuality: zina laws as violence against women in Muslim contexts, Int'l Journal on Human Rights, 15, 7–16 \n\nIn the four primary schools of Sunni fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the two primary schools of Shi'a fiqh, certain types of crimes mandate capital punishment. Certain hudud crimes, for example, are considered crimes against God and require capital punishment in public.Mohamed El-Awa (1993), Punishment in Islamic Law, American Trust Publications, ISBN 978-0892591428, pp 1–68 These include apostasy (leaving Islam to become an atheist or convert to another religion such as Christianity),David Forte, [http://www.cepos.eu/pdf/revista%20de%20stiinte%20politice%20nr%2029.pdf Islam's Trajectory], Revue des Sciences Politiques, No. 29 (2011), pages 92–101 fasad (mischief in the land, or moral corruption against Allah, social disturbance and creating disorder within the Muslim state) and zina (consensual heterosexual or homosexual relations not allowed by Islam).\n\nQisas is another category of sentencing where sharia permits capital punishment, for intentional or unintentional murder. In the case of death, sharia gives the murder victim's nearest relative or Wali () a right to, if the court approves, take the life of the killer. \n\nFurther, in case of Qisas-related capital punishment, sharia offers the victim's guardian the option of Diyya (monetary compensation). In several Islamic countries such as the Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, both hudud and qisas type capital punishment is part of the legal system and in use. In others, there is variation in the use of capital punishment. Some Islamic or Muslim-majority nations like the Republic of Turkey have abolished the death penalty.\n\nCapital punishment for apostasy in Islam and stoning to death in Islam are controversial topics. Similarly, the discriminatory option between capital punishment and monetary compensation for crimes such as murder is controversial, where jurists have asked if poor offenders face trial and capital punishment while wealthy offenders are able to avoid a trial by paying off the Qisas compensation money. Another historic and continuing controversy is the perceived discrimination between the death of a Muslim and a non-Muslim dhimmi, as well as discrimination between the death of a male and a female, used in sharia-ruled states. A woman's life is considered half the worth of a man, while Christians and Jews are worth half of a Muslim, and the life of Buddhist, Hindu, folk religion or atheist is considered 1/16th the worth of a Muslim by some Islamist governments. This has reporedly led certain Islamic nations to discriminate between Muslims and non-Muslims while imposing capital punishment and compensation, for both intentional murder and manslaughter, depending on whether the victim is Muslim or non-Muslim, as well as based on the religion of the individual who has committed the crime. \n\nLethal stoning and beheading in public under sharia is controversial for being a perceived as a strict form of capital punishment. These forms of execution remain part of the religious law enforced in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Pakistan and Mauritania. \n\nJudaism\n\nThe official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent. In practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical. A capital case could not be tried by a normal Beit Din of three judges, it can only be adjudicated by a Sanhedrin of a minimum of 23 judges. Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in approximately the year 70 CE, i.e. in approximately 30 CE, the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment, making it a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment, fitting in finality for God alone to use, not fallible people.\n\nThe 12th-century Jewish legal scholar, Maimonides said:\n\n\"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.\" \n\nMaimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely \"according to the judge's caprice\". Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect. \n\nOne of the only two executions in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was hanged after his trial in Jerusalem. It is the last judicial execution carried out by the country."
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In which country did he widespread use of ISDN begin in 1988?
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tc_15
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the traditional circuits of the public switched telephone network. It was first defined in 1988 in the CCITT red book. Prior to ISDN, the telephone system was viewed as a way to transport voice, with some special services available for data. The key feature of ISDN is that it integrates speech and data on the same lines, adding features that were not available in the classic telephone system. The ISDN standards define several kinds of access interfaces, such as Basic Rate Interface (BRI), Primary Rate Interface (PRI), Narrowband ISDN (N-ISDN), and Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN).\n\nISDN is a circuit-switched telephone network system, which also provides access to packet switched networks, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in potentially better voice quality than an analog phone can provide. It offers circuit-switched connections (for either voice or data), and packet-switched connections (for data), in increments of 64 kilobit/s. In some countries, ISDN found major market application for Internet access, in which ISDN typically provides a maximum of 128 kbit/s bandwidth in both upstream and downstream directions. Channel bonding can achieve a greater data rate; typically the ISDN B-channels of three or four BRIs (six to eight 64 kbit/s channels) are bonded.\n\nISDN is employed as the network, data-link and physical layers in the context of the OSI model, or could be considered a suite of digital services existing on layers 1, 2, and 3 of the OSI model. In common use, ISDN is often limited to usage to Q.931 and related protocols, which are a set of signaling protocols establishing and breaking circuit-switched connections, and for advanced calling features for the user. They were introduced in 1986. \n\nIn a videoconference, ISDN provides simultaneous voice, video, and text transmission between individual desktop videoconferencing systems and group (room) videoconferencing systems.\n\nISDN elements\n\nIntegrated services refers to ISDN's ability to deliver at minimum two simultaneous connections, in any combination of data, voice, video, and fax, over a single line. Multiple devices can be attached to the line, and used as needed. That means an ISDN line can take care of most people's complete communications needs (apart from broadband Internet access and entertainment television) at a much higher transmission rate, without forcing the purchase of multiple analog phone lines. It also refers to integrated switching and transmission in that telephone switching and carrier wave transmission are integrated rather than separate as in earlier technology.\n\nBasic Rate Interface\n\nThe entry level interface to ISDN is the Basic Rate Interface (BRI), a 128 kbit/s service delivered over a pair of standard telephone copper wires. The 144 kbit/s payload rate is broken down into two 64 kbit/s bearer channels ('B' channels) and one 16 kbit/s signaling channel ('D' channel or data channel). This is sometimes referred to as 2B+D. \n\nThe interface specifies the following network interfaces:\n* The U interface is a two-wire interface between the exchange and a network terminating unit, which is usually the demarcation point in non-North American networks.\n* The T interface is a serial interface between a computing device and a terminal adapter, which is the digital equivalent of a modem.\n* The S interface is a four-wire bus that ISDN consumer devices plug into; the S & T reference points are commonly implemented as a single interface labeled 'S/T' on a Network termination 1 (NT1).\n* The R interface defines the point between a non-ISDN device and a terminal adapter (TA) which provides translation to and from such a device.\n\nBRI-ISDN is very popular in Europe but is much less common in North America. It is also common in Japan — where it is known as INS64. \n\nPrimary Rate Interface\n\nThe other ISDN access available is the Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which is carried over an E1 (2048 kbit/s) in most parts of the world. An E1 is 30 'B' channels of 64 kbit/s, one 'D' channel of 64 kbit/s and a timing and alarm channel of 64 kbit/s. This is often referred to as 30B+D. \n \nIn North America PRI service is delivered on one or more T1 carriers (often referred to as 23B+D) of 1544 kbit/s (24 channels). A PRI has 23 'B' channels and 1 'D' channel for signalling (Japan uses a circuit called a J1, which is similar to a T1). Inter-changeably but incorrectly, a PRI is referred to as T1 because it uses the T1 carrier format. A true T1 (commonly called \"Analog T1\" to avoid confusion) uses 24 channels of 64 kbit/s of in-band signaling. Each channel uses 56 kb for data and voice and 8 kb for signaling and messaging. PRI uses out of band signaling which provides the 23 B channels with clear 64 kb for voice and data and one 64 kb 'D' channel for signaling and messaging. In North America, Non-Facility Associated Signalling allows two or more PRIs to be controlled by a single D channel, and is sometimes called \"23B+D + n*24B\". D-channel backup allows for a second D channel in case the primary fails. NFAS is commonly used on a T3.\n\nPRI-ISDN is popular throughout the world, especially for connecting private branch exchanges to the public network.\n\nEven though many network professionals use the term \"ISDN\" to refer to the lower-bandwidth BRI circuit, in North America BRI is relatively uncommon whilst PRI circuits serving PBXs are commonplace.\n\nBearer channels\n\nThe bearer channel (B) is a standard 64 kbit/s voice channel of 8 bits sampled at 8 kHz with G.711 encoding. B-Channels can also be used to carry data, since they are nothing more than digital channels.\n\nEach one of these channels is known as a DS0.\n\nMost B channels can carry a 64 kbit/s signal, but some were limited to 56K because they traveled over RBS lines. This was commonplace in the 20th century, but has since become less so.\n\nSignaling channel\n\nThe signaling channel (D) uses Q.931 for signaling with the other side of the link.\n\nX.25\n\nX.25 can be carried over the B or D channels of a BRI line, and over the B channels of a PRI line. X.25 over the D channel is used at many point-of-sale (credit card) terminals because it eliminates the modem setup, and because it connects to the central system over a B channel, thereby eliminating the need for modems and making much better use of the central system's telephone lines.\n\nX.25 was also part of an ISDN protocol called \"Always On/Dynamic ISDN\", or AO/DI. This allowed a user to have a constant multi-link PPP connection to the internet over X.25 on the D channel, and brought up one or two B channels as needed.\n\nFrame Relay\n\nIn theory, Frame Relay can operate over the D channel of BRIs and PRIs, but it is seldom, if ever, used.\n\nConsumer and industry perspectives\n\nThere is a second viewpoint: that of the telephone industry, where ISDN is a core technology. A telephone network can be thought of as a collection of wires strung between switching systems. The common electrical specification for the signals on these wires is T1 or E1. Between telephone company switches, the signaling is performed via SS7. Normally, a PBX is connected via a T1 with robbed bit signaling to indicate on-hook or off-hook conditions and MF and DTMF tones to encode the destination number. ISDN is much better because messages can be sent much more quickly than by trying to encode numbers as long (100 ms per digit) tone sequences. This results in faster call setup times. Also, a greater number of features are available and fraud is reduced.\n\nISDN is also used as a smart-network technology intended to add new services to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) by giving users direct access to end-to-end circuit-switched digital services and as a backup or failsafe circuit solution for critical use data circuits.\n\nISDN and broadcast industry\n\nISDN is used heavily by the broadcast industry as a reliable way of switching low-latency, high-quality, long-distance audio circuits. In conjunction with an appropriate codec using MPEG or various manufacturers proprietary algorithms, an ISDN BRI can be used to send stereo bi-directional audio coded at 128 kbit/s with 20 Hz – 20 kHz audio bandwidth, although commonly the G.722 algorithm is used with a single 64 kbit/s B channel to send much lower latency mono audio at the expense of audio quality. Where very high quality audio is required multiple ISDN BRIs can be used in parallel to provide a higher bandwidth circuit switched connection. BBC Radio 3 commonly makes use of three ISDN BRIs to carry 320 kbit/s audio stream for live outside broadcasts. ISDN BRI services are used to link remote studios, sports grounds and outside broadcasts into the main broadcast studio. ISDN via satellite is used by field reporters around the world. It is also common to use ISDN for the return audio links to remote satellite broadcast vehicles.\n\nIn many countries, such as the UK and Australia, ISDN has displaced the older technology of equalised analogue landlines, with these circuits being phased out by telecommunications providers. IP-based streaming codecs are starting to gain a foothold in the broadcast sector, using broadband internet to connect remote studios. However, reliability and latency is crucially important for broadcasters and the quality of service offered by ISDN has not yet been matched by packet switched alternatives.\n\nCountries\n\nUnited States and Canada\n\nISDN-BRI never gained popularity as a general use telephone access technology in Canada and the US, and remains a niche product. The service was seen as a solution in search of a problem, and the extensive array of options and features were difficult for customers to understand and use. ISDN has long been known by derogatory backronyms highlighting these issues, such as It Still Does Nothing, Innovations Subscribers Don't Need, and I Still Don't kNow. \n\nOnce the concept of broadband Internet access came to be associated with data rates incoming to the customer at 256 kbit/s or more, and alternatives like ADSL grew in popularity, the consumer market for BRI did not develop. Its only remaining advantage is that while ADSL has a functional distance limitation and can use ADSL loop extenders, BRI has a greater limit and can use repeaters. As such, BRI may be acceptable for customers who are too remote for ADSL. Widespread use of BRI is further stymied by some small North American CLECs such as CenturyTel having given up on it and not providing Internet access using it. However, AT&T in most states (especially the former SBC/SWB territory) will still install an ISDN BRI line anywhere a normal analog line can be placed and the monthly charge is roughly $55.\n\nISDN-BRI is currently primarily used in industries with specialized and very specific needs. High-end videoconferencing hardware made by companies such as Sony, Polycom, Tandberg, and LifeSize via the LifeSize Networker can bond up to 8 B-channels together (using a BRI circuit for every 2 channels) to provide digital, circuit-switched video connections to almost anywhere in the world. This is very expensive, and is being replaced by IP-based conferencing, but where cost concern is less of an issue than predictable quality and where a QoS-enabled IP does not exist, BRI is the preferred choice.\n\nMost modern non-VoIP PBXs use ISDN-PRI circuits. These are connected via T1 lines with the central office switch, replacing older analog two-way and direct inward dialing (DID) trunks. PRI is capable of delivering Calling Line Identification (CLID) in both directions so that the telephone number of an extension, rather than a company's main number, can be sent. It is still commonly used in recording studios, when a voice-over actor is in one studio, but the director and producer are in a studio at another location. The ISDN protocol delivers channelized, not-over-the-Internet service, powerful call setup and routing features, faster setup and tear down, superior audio fidelity as compared to POTS (plain old telephone service), lower delay and, at higher densities, lower cost.\n\nIn 2013, Verizon announced it would no longer take orders for ISDN service in the Northeastern United States. \n\nIndia\n\nBharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel are the largest communication service providers, and offer both ISDN BRI and PRI services across the country. Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel uses the DLC technology for providing these services. With the introduction of broadband technology, the load on bandwidth is being absorbed by ADSL. ISDN continues to be an important backup network for point-to-point leased line customers such as banks, Eseva Centers, Life Insurance Corporation of India, and SBI ATMs.\n\nJapan\n\nOn April 19, 1988, Japanese telecommunications company NTT began offering nationwide ISDN services trademarked INS Net 64, and INS Net 1500, a fruition of NTT's independent research and trial from the 1970s of what it referred to the INS (Information Network System). \n\nPreviously, on April 1985, Japanese digital telephone exchange hardware made by Fujitsu was used to experimentally deploy the world's first I interface ISDN. The I interface, unlike the older and incompatible Y interface, is what modern ISDN services use today.\n\nSince 2000, NTT's ISDN offering have been known as FLET's ISDN, incorporating the \"FLET's\" brand that NTT uses for all of its ISP offerings.\n\nIn Japan, the number of ISDN subscribers dwindled as alternative technologies such as ADSL, cable Internet access, and fiber to the home gained greater popularity. On November 2, 2010, NTT announced plans to migrate their backend from PSTN to the IP network from around 2020 to around 2025. For this migration, ISDN services will be retired, and fiber optic services are recommended as an alternative. \n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nIn the United Kingdom, British Telecom (BT) provides ISDN2e (BRI) as well as ISDN30 (PRI). Until April 2006, they also offered services named Home Highway and Business Highway, which were BRI ISDN-based services that offered integrated analogue connectivity as well as ISDN. Later versions of the Highway products also included built-in universal serial bus (USB) sockets for direct computer access. Home Highway was bought by many home users, usually for Internet connection, although not as fast as ADSL, because it was available before ADSL and in places where ADSL does not reach.\n\nIn early 2015, BT announced their intention to retire the UK's ISDN infrastructure by 2025. \n\nFrance\n\nFrance Telecom offers ISDN services under their product name Numeris (2 B+D), of which a professional Duo and home Itoo version is available. ISDN is generally known as RNIS in France and has widespread availability. The introduction of ADSL is reducing ISDN use for data transfer and Internet access, although it is still common in more rural and outlying areas, and for applications such as business voice and point-of-sale terminals.\n\nGermany\n\nIn Germany, ISDN was very popular with an installed base of 25 million channels (29% of all subscriber lines in Germany as of 2003 and 20% of all ISDN channels worldwide). Due to the success of ISDN, the number of installed analog lines was decreasing. Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) offered both BRI and PRI. Competing phone companies often offered ISDN only and no analog lines. However, these operators generally offered free hardware that also allows the use of POTS equipment, such as NTBAs with integrated terminal adapters. Because of the widespread availability of ADSL services, ISDN was primarily used for voice and fax traffic.\n\nUntil 2007 ISDN (BRI) and ADSL/VDSL were often bundled on the same line, mainly because the combination of ADSL with an analog line had no cost advantage over a combined ISDN-ADSL line. This advantage diminished when vendors of ISDN technology stopped manufacturing it and spare parts became hard to come by. Since then phone companies started introducing cheaper ADSL-only products using VoIP for telephony. \n\nSince the introduction of VDSL2 using outdoor MSANs, ISDN became obsolete. Today new ISDN lines are not available anymore in Germany and existing ISDN lines will be phased out until 2018 and replaced by G.992.3 Annex J all digital mode ADSL. \n\nGreece\n\nOTE, the incumbent telecommunications operator, offers ISDN BRI (BRA) services in Greece. Following the launch of ADSL in 2003, the importance of ISDN for data transfer began to decrease and is today limited to niche business applications with point-to-point requirements.\n\nInternational deployment\n\nA study of the German Department of Science shows the following spread of ISDN-channels per 1,000 inhabitants in the year 2005:\n* Norway 401\n* Denmark 339\n* Germany 333\n* Switzerland 331\n* Japan 240\n* UK 160\n* Finland 160\n* Sweden 135\n* Italy 105\n* France 85\n* Spain 58\n* United States 47\n\nConfigurations\n\nIn ISDN, there are two types of channels, B (for \"bearer\") and D (for \"data\"). B channels are used for data (which may include voice), and D channels are intended for signaling and control (but can also be used for data).\n\nThere are two ISDN implementations. Basic Rate Interface (BRI), also called basic rate access (BRA) — consists of two B channels, each with bandwidth of 64 kbit/s, and one D channel with a bandwidth of 16 kbit/s. Together these three channels can be designated as 2B+D. Primary Rate Interface (PRI), also called primary rate access (PRA) in Europe — contains a greater number of B channels and a D channel with a bandwidth of 64 kbit/s. The number of B channels for PRI varies according to the nation: in North America and Japan it is 23B+1D, with an aggregate bit rate of 1.544 Mbit/s (T1); in Europe, India and Australia it is 30B+1D, with an aggregate bit rate of 2.048 Mbit/s (E1). Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (BISDN) is another ISDN implementation and it is able to manage different types of services at the same time. It is primarily used within network backbones and employs ATM.\n\nAnother alternative ISDN configuration can be used in which the B channels of an ISDN BRI line are bonded to provide a total duplex bandwidth of 128 kbit/s. This precludes use of the line for voice calls while the internet connection is in use. The B channels of several BRIs can be bonded, a typical use is a 384K videoconferencing channel.\n\nUsing bipolar with eight-zero substitution encoding technique, call data is transmitted over the data (B) channels, with the signaling (D) channels used for call setup and management. Once a call is set up, there is a simple 64 kbit/s synchronous bidirectional data channel (actually implemented as two simplex channels, one in each direction) between the end parties, lasting until the call is terminated. There can be as many calls as there are bearer channels, to the same or different end-points. Bearer channels may also be multiplexed into what may be considered single, higher-bandwidth channels via a process called B channel BONDING, or via use of Multi-Link PPP \"bundling\" or by using an H0, H11, or H12 channel on a PRI.\n\nThe D channel can also be used for sending and receiving X.25 data packets, and connection to X.25 packet network, this is specified in X.31. In practice, X.31 was only commercially implemented in UK, France, Japan and Germany.\n\nReference points\n\nA set of reference points are defined in the ISDN standard to refer to certain points between the telco and the end user ISDN equipment.\n*R – defines the point between a non-ISDN terminal equipment 2 (TE2) device and a terminal adapter (TA) which provides translation to and from such a device\n*S – defines the point between the ISDN terminal equipment 1 (TE1) or TA and a Network Termination Type 2 (NT2) device\n*T – defines the point between the NT2 and network termination 1 (NT1) devices.\n\nMost NT-1 devices can perform the functions of the NT2 as well, and so the S and T reference points are generally collapsed into the S/T reference point.\n\nIn North America, the NT1 device is considered customer premises equipment (CPE) and must be maintained by the customer, thus, the U interface is provided to the customer. In other locations, the NT1 device is maintained by the telco, and the S/T interface is provided to the customer. In India, service providers provide U interface and an NT1 may be supplied by Service provider as part of service offering.\n\nTypes of communications\n\nAmong the kinds of data that can be moved over the 64 kbit/s channels are pulse-code modulated voice calls, providing access to the traditional voice PSTN. This information can be passed between the network and the user end-point at call set-up time. In North America, ISDN is now used mostly as an alternative to analog connections, most commonly for Internet access. Some of the services envisioned as being delivered over ISDN are now delivered over the Internet instead. In Europe, and in Germany in particular, ISDN has been successfully marketed as a phone with features, as opposed to a POTS phone with few or no features. Meanwhile, features that were first available with ISDN (such as Three-Way Calling, Call Forwarding, Caller ID, etc.) are now commonly available for ordinary analog phones as well, eliminating this advantage of ISDN. Another advantage of ISDN was the possibility of multiple simultaneous calls (one call per B channel), e.g. for big families, but with the increased popularity and reduced prices of mobile telephony this has become less interesting as well, making ISDN unappealing to the private customer. However, ISDN is typically more reliable than POTS, and has a significantly faster call setup time compared with POTS, and IP connections over ISDN typically have some 30–35ms round trip time, as opposed to 120–180ms (both measured with otherwise unused lines) over 56k or V.34/V.92 modems, making ISDN more reliable and more efficient for telecommuters.\n\nWhere an analog connection requires a modem, an ISDN connection requires a terminal adapter (TA). The function of an ISDN terminal adapter is often delivered in the form of a PC card with an S/T interface, and single-chip solutions seem to exist, considering the plethora of combined ISDN- and ADSL-routers.\n\nISDN is commonly used in radio broadcasting. Since ISDN provides a high quality connection this assists in delivering good quality audio for transmission in radio. Most radio studios are equipped with ISDN lines as their main form of communication with other studios or standard phone lines. Equipment made by companies such as Telos/Omnia (the popular Zephyr codec), Comrex, Tieline and others are used regularly by radio broadcasters. Almost all live sports broadcasts on radio are backhauled to their main studios via ISDN connections.\n\nSample call\n\nThe following is an example of a Primary Rate (PRI) ISDN call showing the Q.921/LAPD and the Q.931/Network message intermixed (i.e. exactly what was exchanged on the D-channel). The call is originating from the switch where the trace was taken and goes out to some other switch, possibly an end-office LEC, who terminates the call.\n\nThe first line format is . If the message is an ISDN level message, then a decoding of the message is attempted showing the various Information Elements that make up the message. All ISDN messages are tagged with an ID number relative to the switch that started the call (local/remote). Following this optional decoding is a dump of the bytes of the message in ... ... format.\n\nThe RR messages at the beginning prior to the call are the keep alive messages. SETUP message indicate the start of the call. Each message is acknowledged by the other side with a RR.\n\n10:49:47.33 21/1/24 R RR \n0000 02 01 01 a5 ....\n\n10:49:47.34 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 b9 ....\n\n10:50:17.57 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 02 01 01 a5 ....\n\n10:50:17.58 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 b9 ....\n\n10:50:24.37 21/1/24 T SETUP\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n Bearer Capability : CCITT, Speech, Circuit mode, 64 kbit/s\n Channel ID : Implicit Interface ID implies current span, 21/1/5, Exclusive\n Calling Party Number : 8018023000 National number User-provided, not screened Presentation allowed\n Called Party Number : 3739120 Type: SUBSCRB\n0000 00 01 a4 b8 08 02 00 3e 05 04 03 80 90 a2 18 03 .......>........\n0010 a9 83 85 6c 0c 21 80 38 30 31 38 30 32 33 30 30 ...l.!.801802300\n0020 30 70 08 c1 33 37 33 39 31 32 30 0p..3739120\n\n10:50:24.37 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 00 01 01 a6 ....\n\n10:50:24.77 21/1/24 R CALL PROCEEDING\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n Channel ID : Implicit Interface ID implies current span, 21/1/5, Exclusive\n0000 02 01 b8 a6 08 02 80 3e 02 18 03 a9 83 85 .......>......\n\n10:50:24.77 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 ba ....\n\n10:50:25.02 21/1/24 R ALERTING\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n Progress Indicator : CCITT, Public network serving local user,\nIn-band information or an appropriate pattern is now available\n0000 02 01 ba a6 08 02 80 3e 01 1e 02 82 88 .......>.....\n\n10:50:25.02 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 bc ....\n\n10:50:28.43 21/1/24 R CONNECT\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n0000 02 01 bc a6 08 02 80 3e 07 .......>.\n\n10:50:28.43 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 be ....\n\n10:50:28.43 21/1/24 T CONNECT_ACK\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n0000 00 01 a6 be 08 02 00 3e 0f .......>.\n\n10:50:28.44 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 00 01 01 a8 ....\n\n10:50:35.69 21/1/24 T DISCONNECT\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n Cause : 16, Normal call clearing.\n0000 00 01 a8 be 08 02 00 3e 45 08 02 8a 90 .......>E....\n\n10:50:35.70 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 00 01 01 aa ....\n\n10:50:36.98 21/1/24 R RELEASE\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n0000 02 01 be aa 08 02 80 3e 4d .......>M\n\n10:50:36.98 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 c0 ....\n\n10:50:36.99 21/1/24 T RELEASE COMPLETE\n Call Reference : 000062-local\n0000 00 01 aa c0 08 02 00 3e 5a .......>Z\n\n10:50:36.00 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 00 01 01 ac ....\n\n10:51:06.10 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 02 01 01 ad ....\n\n10:51:06.10 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 c1 ....\n\n10:51:36.37 21/1/24 R RR\n0000 02 01 01 ad ....\n\n10:51:36.37 21/1/24 T RR\n0000 02 01 01 c1 ...."
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What is Bruce Willis' real first name?
|
tc_16
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor, producer, and singer. His career began on the Off-Broadway stage and then in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in Moonlighting (1985–1989). He is known for his role of John McClane in the Die Hard series. He has appeared in over 60 films, including Color of Night (1994), Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Red (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012), and Looper (2012).\n\nWillis married actress Demi Moore in 1987, and they had three daughters, including Rumer, before their divorce in 2000. Since 2009, he has been married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has two daughters.\n\nEarly life \n\nWillis was born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955 in the town of Idar-Oberstein, West Germany. His father, David Willis (1929-2009), was an American soldier. His mother, Marlene, was German, born in Kassel. Willis is the oldest of four children: he has a sister, Florence, and a brother, David. His brother Robert died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, aged 42. \n\nAfter being discharged from the military in 1957, Willis's father took his family back to Carneys Point Township, New Jersey.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2001 Willis has described himself as having come from a \"long line of blue collar people\". His mother worked in a bank and his father was a welder, master mechanic, and factory worker. Willis attended Penns Grove High School in his hometown, where he encountered issues with a stutter. He was nicknamed \"Buck-Buck\" by his schoolmates. Finding it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process, Willis began performing on stage; his high school activities were marked by such things as the drama club and being student council president.\n\nAfter high school, Willis took a job as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. After working as a private investigator (a role he would play in the television series Moonlighting and the 1991 film The Last Boy Scout), Willis turned to acting. He enrolled in the Drama Program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City, where in the early 1980s he supported himself as a bartender at the West 19th Street art bar Kamikaze. \n\nCareer \n\n1980s \n\nWillis left New York City and headed to California to audition for several television shows. In 1984, he appeared in an episode of the TV series Miami Vice, titled \"No Exit\". In 1985, he was the guest actor in the first episode of the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone, \"Shatterday\". He auditioned for the role of David Addison Jr. of the television series Moonlighting (1985–89), competing against 3,000 other actors for the position. The starring role, opposite Cybill Shepherd, helped to establish him as a comedic actor, with the show lasting five seasons winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy. During the height of the show's success, beverage maker Seagram hired Willis as the pitchman for their Golden Wine Cooler products. The advertising campaign paid the rising star between $5–7 million over two years. In spite of that, Willis chose not to renew his contract with the company when he decided to stop drinking alcohol in 1988. \n\nWillis had his first lead role in a feature film in the 1987 Blake Edwards film Blind Date, with Kim Basinger and John Larroquette. Edwards cast him again to play the real-life cowboy actor Tom Mix in Sunset (1988). However, it was his then-unexpected turn in the film Die Hard (1988) as John McClane that catapulted him to movie star and action hero status. He performed most of his own stunts in the film, and the film grossed $138,708,852 worldwide. Following his success with Die Hard, he had a leading role in the drama In Country as Vietnam veteran Emmett Smith and also provided the voice for a talking baby in Look Who's Talking, as well as its sequel Look Who's Talking Too.\n\nIn the late 1980s, Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording an album of pop-blues titled The Return of Bruno, which included the hit single \"Respect Yourself\" featuring The Pointer Sisters. The LP was promoted by a Spinal Tap–like rockumentary parody featuring scenes of Willis performing at famous events including Woodstock. He released a version of the Drifters song \"Under the Boardwalk\" as a second single; it got to No. 2 in the UK Top 40 but was less successful in the U.S. Willis returned to the recording studio several times afterward. (See Discography below.)\n\n1990s \n\nHaving acquired major personal success and pop culture influence playing John McClane in Die Hard, Willis reprised his role in the sequels Die Hard 2 (1990) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). These first three installments in the Die Hard series grossed over US$700 million internationally and propelled Willis to the first rank of Hollywood action stars.\n\nIn the early 1990s, Willis's career suffered a moderate slump, as he starred in flops such as The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Striking Distance (1993) and a film he co-wrote, Hudson Hawk (1991), among others. He starred in a leading role in the highly sexualized erotic thriller, Color of Night (1994): another box office failure, it was savaged by critics but did well in the home video market and became one of the Top 20 most-rented films in the United States in 1995. \n\nIn 1994, he had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed Pulp Fiction, which gave a new boost to his career. In 1996, he was the executive producer and star of the cartoon Bruno the Kid which featured a CGI representation of himself. He went on to play the lead roles in Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Fifth Element (1997). However, by the end of the 1990s, his career had fallen into another slump with critically panned films, like The Jackal, Mercury Rising, and Breakfast of Champions, saved only by the success of the Michael Bay-directed Armageddon which was the highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The same year his voice and likeness were featured in the PlayStation video game Apocalypse. In 1999, Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The Sixth Sense. The film was both a commercial and critical success and helped to increase interest in his acting career.\n\n2000s \n\nIn 2000, Willis won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Friends (in which he played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). He was also nominated for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series category) for his work on Friends. Also in 2000, Willis played Jimmy \"The Tulip\" Tudeski in The Whole Nine Yards alongside Matthew Perry. Willis was originally cast as Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out to work on recording an album. In Ocean's Twelve (2004), he makes a cameo appearance as himself. In 2005, he appeared in the film adaptation of Sin City. In 2007, he appeared in the Planet Terror half of the double feature Grindhouse as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marked Willis's second collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following Sin City.\n\nWillis has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman several times throughout his career. He filled in for an ill David Letterman on his show February 26, 2003, when he was supposed to be a guest. On many of his appearances on the show, Willis stages elaborate jokes, such as wearing a day-glo orange suit in honor of the Central Park gates, having one side of his face made up with simulated buckshot wounds after the Harry Whittington shooting, or trying to break a record (parody of David Blaine) of staying underwater for only twenty seconds.\n\nOn April 12, 2007, he appeared again, this time wearing a Sanjaya Malakar wig. On his June 25, 2007, appearance, he wore a mini-turban on his head to accompany a joke about his own fictional documentary titled An Unappealing Hunch (a wordplay on An Inconvenient Truth). Willis also appeared in Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials. Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys, badged \"Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce\", in honor of Willis.\n\nWillis has appeared in four films with Samuel L. Jackson (National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Unbreakable) and both actors were slated to work together in Black Water Transit, before dropping out. Willis also worked with his eldest daughter, Rumer, in the 2005 film Hostage. In 2007, he appeared in the thriller Perfect Stranger, opposite Halle Berry, the crime/drama film Alpha Dog, opposite Sharon Stone, and reprised his role as John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard. Subsequently, he appeared in the films What Just Happened and Surrogates, based on the comic book of the same name. \n\nWillis was slated to play U.S. Army general William R. Peers in director Oliver Stone's Pinkville, a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. However, due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, the film was cancelled. Willis appeared on the 2008 Blues Traveler album North Hollywood Shootout, giving a spoken word performance over an instrumental blues rock jam on the track \"Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)\". In early 2009, he appeared in an advertising campaign to publicize the insurance company Norwich Union's change of name to Aviva. \n\n2010s \n\nWillis starred with Tracy Morgan in the comedy Cop Out, directed by Kevin Smith and about two police detectives investigating the theft of a baseball card. The film was released in February 2010. Willis appeared in the music video for the song \"Stylo\" by Gorillaz. Also in 2010, he appeared in a cameo with former Planet Hollywood co-owners and '80s action stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film The Expendables. Willis played the role of generic bald man \"Mr. Church\". This was the first time these three legendary action stars appeared on screen together. Although the scene featuring the three was short, it was one of the most highly anticipated scenes in the film. The trio filmed their scene in an empty church on October 24, 2009. Willis next starred in RED, an adaptation of the comic book mini-series of the same name, in which he portrayed Frank Moses. The film was released on October 15, 2010. \n\nWillis starred alongside Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Frances McDormand in Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Filming took place in Rhode Island under the direction of Wes Anderson, in 2011. Willis returned, in an expanded role, in The Expendables 2 (2012). He appeared alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the sci-fi action film, Looper (2012), as the older version of Gordon-Levitt's character, Joe.\n\nWillis teamed up with 50 Cent in a film directed by David Barrett called Fire with Fire, starring opposite Josh Duhamel and Rosario Dawson, about a fireman who must save the love of his life. Willis also joined Vince Vaughn and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Lay the Favorite, directed by Stephen Frears, about a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who becomes an elite professional gambler. The two films were distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment.\n\nWillis reprised his most famous role, John McClane, for a fifth time, starring in A Good Day to Die Hard, which was released on February 14, 2013. In an interview, Willis said, \"I have a warm spot in my heart for Die Hard..... it's just the sheer novelty of being able to play the same character over 25 years and still be asked back is fun. It's much more challenging to have to do a film again and try to compete with myself, which is what I do in Die Hard. I try to improve my work every time.\" \n\nOn October 12, 2013, Willis hosted Saturday Night Live with Katy Perry as a musical guest.\n\nWillis will star in the movie adaptation of the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, named Kane & Lynch. \n\nIn 2015, Willis made his Broadway debut in William Goldman's adaptation of Stephen King's novel Misery opposite Laurie Metcalf at the Broadhurst Theatre. \n\nBusiness activities \n\nFilms featuring Willis have grossed between US$2.64 billion and $3.05 billion at the North American box offices, making him in 2010 the eighth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and 12th-highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Golden Globe Award winner, and has been nominated for a Saturn Award four times.\n\nWillis owns property in Los Angeles and in Penns Grove, New Jersey; rents apartments at Trump Tower and in Riverside South, Manhattan, both in New York City; has a home in Malibu, California; a ranch in Montana; a beach home on Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos; and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho.\n\nIn 2000, Willis, with his business partner Arnold Rifkin, started a motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises. He left the company to be run solely by Rifkin in 2007 after Live Free or Die Hard. He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho, including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood, with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. In 2009 Willis signed a contract to become the international face of Belvedere SA's Sobieski Vodka in exchange for 3.3% ownership in the company. \n\nPersonal life \n\nWillis' acting role models are Gary Cooper, Robert De Niro, Steve McQueen and John Wayne. Willis is left handed. \n\nRelationships and children \n\nAt the premiere for the film Stakeout, Willis met actress Demi Moore. They married on November 21, 1987, and had three daughters: Rumer Willis (born August 16, 1988), Scout (born July 20, 1991), and Tallulah (born 1994). They announced their separation on June 24, 1998, and filed for divorce on October 18, 2000. \n Regarding the divorce, Willis stated, \"I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work.\" He credited actor Will Smith for helping him cope with the situation. Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Moore and her third husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, and attended their wedding.\n\nWillis was engaged to actress Brooke Burns until they broke up in 2004 after ten months together. He married model Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009; guests included his three daughters, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills, six days later. The couple has two daughters: Mabel Ray Willis (b. 2012) and Evelyn Penn Willis (b. 2014). \n\nReligious views \n\nWillis was, at one point, Lutheran (specifically Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod), but no longer practices. In a July 1998 interview with George magazine, he stated:\n\nPolitical views \n\nIn 1988, Willis and then-wife Demi Moore campaigned for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis's Presidential bid. Four years later, he supported President George H. W. Bush for reelection and was an outspoken critic of Bill Clinton. However, in 1996, he declined to endorse Clinton's Republican opponent Bob Dole, because Dole had criticized Demi Moore for her role in the film Striptease. Willis was an invited speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention, and supported George W. Bush that year. He did not make any contributions or public endorsements in the 2008 presidential campaign. In several June 2007 interviews, he declared that he maintains some Republican ideologies.\n\nIn 2006, he said that the United States should intervene more into Colombia, in order to end the drug trafficking. In several interviews Willis has said that he supports large salaries for teachers and police officers, and said he is disappointed in the United States foster care system as well as treatment of Native Americans. Willis also stated that he is a supporter of gun rights, stating, \"Everyone has a right to bear arms. If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who have guns are the bad guys.\" \n\nIn February 2006, Willis appeared in Manhattan to talk about his film 16 Blocks with reporters. One reporter attempted to ask Willis about his opinion on the current government, but was interrupted by Willis in mid-sentence: \"I'm sick of answering this fucking question. I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop shitting on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican. I hate the government, OK? I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican.\" \n\nWillis' name was in an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times on August 17, 2006, that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. \n\nMilitary interests \n\nThroughout his film career, Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as The Siege, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, Grindhouse and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Growing up in a military family, Willis has publicly sold Girl Scout cookies for the United States armed forces. In 2002, Willis's then 8-year-old daughter, Tallulah, suggested that he purchase Girl Scout cookies to send to troops. Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of cookies, and they were distributed to sailors aboard USS John F. Kennedy and other troops stationed throughout the Middle East at the time. In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his band, The Accelerators. Willis considered joining the military to help fight the second Iraq war, but was deterred by his age. It was believed he offered $1 million to any noncombatant who turns in terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; in the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, however, he clarified that the statement was made hypothetically and not meant to be taken literally. Willis has also criticized the media for its coverage of the war, complaining that the press were more likely to focus on the negative aspects of the war:\n\nI went to Iraq because what I saw when I was over there was soldiers—young kids for the most part—helping people in Iraq; helping getting the power turned back on, helping get hospitals open, helping get the water turned back on and you don't hear any of that on the news. You hear, 'X number of people were killed today,' which I think does a huge disservice. It's like spitting on these young men and women who are over there fighting to help this country. \n\nWillis stated in 2005 that he wanted to \"make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.\" The film would follow members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, who spent considerable time in Mosul and were decorated heavily for it. The film is to be based on the writings of blogger Michael Yon, a former United States Army Special Forces soldier who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their activities. Willis described the plot of the film as \"these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom.\" \n\nCultural references \n\nIn 1996, Roger Director, a writer and producer from Moonlighting, wrote a roman à clef on Willis titled A Place to Fall. Cybill Shepherd wrote in her 2000 autobiography, Cybill Disobedience, that Willis was angry at Director, because the character was written as a \"neurotic, petulant actor.\" In 1998, Willis participated in Apocalypse, a PlayStation video game. The game was originally announced to feature Willis as a sidekick, not as the main character. The company reworked the game using Willis's likeness and voice and changed the game to use him as the main character. In Quebec, Canada, Willis' voice has been overdubbed in French, in 28 of his films, by Jean-Luc Montminy. \n\nFilmography \n\nDiscography \n\nSolo albums\n*1987: The Return of Bruno (Motown, )\n*1989: If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger (Motown/Pgd, )\n*2001: Classic Bruce Willis: The Universal Masters Collection (Polygram Int'l, )\n\nCompilations/Guest appearances\n*1986: Moonlighting soundtrack; track \"Good Lovin'\"\n*1991: Hudson Hawk soundtrack; tracks \"Swinging on a Star\" and \"Side by Side\", both duets with Danny Aiello\n*2003: Rugrats Go Wild soundtrack; \"Big Bad Cat\" with Chrissie Hynde and \"Lust for Life\"\n*2008: North Hollywood Shootout, Blues Traveler; track \"Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)\"\n\nAwards and honors \n\nWillis has won a variety of awards and has received various honors throughout his career in television and film.\n*1986/87: Emmy (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series) and Golden Globe (Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series – Comedy/Musical) Awards for Moonlighting (also received four nominations for the show) \n*1986: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for In Country\n*1994: Maxim magazine ranked his sex scene in Color of Night the #1 sex scene in film history \n*1998: Golden Raspberry Award (Worst Actor) for Armageddon, Mercury Rising and The Siege\n*2000: Blockbuster Entertainment Award (\"Favorite Actor – Suspense\") and the People's Choice Award (\"Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Drama\") for The Sixth Sense (also nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actor and received two nominations for the MTV Movie Awards for \"Best Male Performance\" and \"Best On-Screen Duo\")\n*2000: Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Friends\n*2002: The Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals – given to performers who give a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment \n*2002: Appointed as national spokesman for Children in Foster Care by President George W. Bush; Willis wrote online: \"I saw Foster Care as a way for me to serve my country in a system by which shining a little bit of light could benefit a great deal by helping kids who were literally wards of the government.\"\n*2006: Honored by French government for his contributions to the film industry; appointed an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters in a ceremony in Paris; the French Prime Minister stated, \"This is France's way of paying tribute to an actor who epitomizes the strength of American cinema, the power of the emotions that he invites us to share on the world's screens and the sturdy personalities of his legendary characters.\" \n*2006: Honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 16; located at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard and it was the 2,321st star awarded in its history; at the reception, he stated, \"I used to come down here and look at these stars and I could never quite figure out what you were supposed to do to get one...time has passed and now here I am doing this, and I'm still excited. I'm still excited to be an actor.\" \n*2011: Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame \n*2013: Promoted to the dignity of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters on February 11 by French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti"
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Which William wrote the novel Lord Of The Flies?
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tc_17
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 68 on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1900–1999.\n\nPublished in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding’s first novel. Although it was not a great success at the time—selling fewer than 3,000 copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print—it soon went on to become a best-seller. It has been adapted to film twice in English, in 1963 by Peter Brook and 1990 by Harry Hook, and once in Filipino (1976).\n\nIn 2005 the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It was awarded a place on both lists of Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 41 on the editor's list, and 25 on the reader's list. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 70 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. \n\nBackground \n\nThe book indicates that it takes place in the midst of an unspecified nuclear war. Some of the marooned characters are ordinary students, while others arrive as a musical choir under an established leader. Most (with the exception of the choirboys and Sam and Eric) appear never to have encountered one another before. The book portrays their descent into savagery; left to themselves in a paradisiacal country, far from modern civilisation, the well-educated children regress to a primitive state.\n\nAt an allegorical level, the central theme is the conflicting human impulses toward civilization and social organization—living by rules, peacefully and in harmony—and toward the will to power. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality. How these play out, and how different people feel the influences of these, form a major subtext of Lord of the Flies. The name \"Lord of the Flies\" is a literal translation of Beelzebub, from .\n\nThe novel is a reaction to the youth novel The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne.\n\nPlot \n\nIn the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence. Two boys—the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy nicknamed \"Piggy\"—find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to call all the survivors to one area. Due largely to the fact that Ralph appears responsible for bringing all the survivors together, he is quickly elected their \"chief\", though he does not receive the votes of the members of a boys' choir, led by the red-headed Jack Merridew. Ralph asserts three primary goals: to have fun, survive, and to maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships to their presence on the island. The boys declare that whoever holds the conch shall also be able to speak at their formal gatherings and receive the attentive silence of the larger group.\n\nJack organises his choir group into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source. Ralph, Jack, and a quiet, dreamy boy named Simon soon form a loose triumvirate of leaders. Though he is Ralph's only confidant, Piggy is quickly made into an outcast by his fellow \"biguns\" (older boys) and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the \"littluns\" (younger boys).\n\nThe semblance of order quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle, giving little aid in building shelters, and begin to develop paranoias about the island, referring to a supposed monster, the \"beast\", which they believe to exist on the island. Ralph insists that no such beast exists, but Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains control of the discussion by boldly promising to kill the beast. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. A ship travels by the island, but without the boys' smoke signal to alert the ship's crew, the ship continues by without stopping. Angered by the failure of the boys to attract potential rescuers, Ralph considers relinquishing his position, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy.\n\nOne night, an aerial battle occurs over the island while the boys sleep, during which a fighter pilot ejects from his plane and dies during the descent. His body drifts down to the island in his parachute; both get tangled in a tree near the top of the mountain. Later on, while Jack schemes against Ralph, twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of the fighter pilot and his parachute in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected and warn the others. This unexpected meeting again raises tensions between Jack and Ralph. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a mountain of stones, later called Castle Rock, forms a place where he claims the beast resides. Only Ralph and Jack's sadistic supporter Roger agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking for them to remove him from his position. Receiving little support, Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. This tribe lures in recruits from the main group by providing a feast of cooked pig and its members begin to paint their faces and enact bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast.\n\nSimon, who faints frequently and is likely an epileptic, has a secret hideaway where he goes to be alone. One day while he is there, Jack and his followers erect a faux sacrifice to the beast nearby: a severed pig's head, mounted on a sharpened stick, and soon swarming with scavenging flies. Simon conducts an imaginary dialog with the head, which he dubs the \"Lord of the Flies\". The head mocks Simon's notion that the beast is a real entity, \"something you could hunt and kill\", and reveals the truth: They, the boys, are the beast; it is inside them all. The Lord of the Flies also warns Simon that he is in danger, because he represents the soul and spirit of man, and predicts that the others will kill him. Sure enough, during a ritual dance, the frenzied boys mistake Simon for the beast, attack him, and beat him to death.\n\nJack and his rebel band decide that the real symbol of power on the island is not the conch, but Piggy's glasses—the only means the boys have of starting a fire. They raid Ralph's camp, confiscate the glasses, and return to their abode on Castle Rock. Ralph, now deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph finds the tribe and demands that they return the valuable object. Turning against Ralph, the tribe captures Sam and Eric while Roger drops a boulder from his vantage point above, killing Piggy and shattering the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but Sam and Eric are tortured until they agree to join Jack's tribe.\n\nThe following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a manhunt for Ralph. Jack's savages set fire to the forest while Ralph desperately weighs his options for survival. Following a long chase, most of the island is consumed in flames. With the hunters closely behind him Ralph trips and falls. He looks up at a uniformed adult – a naval officer whose party has landed from a passing warship to investigate the fire. Ralph bursts into tears over the death of Piggy and the \"end of innocence\". Jack and the other children, filthy and unkempt, also revert to their true ages and erupt into sobs. The officer expresses his disappointment at seeing British boys exhibiting such feral, warlike behavior; then turns to stare awkwardly at his own warship.\n\nAdaptations \n\nThere have been these film adaptations:\n\n* Lord of the Flies (1963), directed by Peter Brook\n* Alkitrang dugo (1976), a Filipino film, with female cast members\n* Lord of the Flies (1990), directed by Harry Hook\n\nNigel Williams adapted the text for the stage.\nIt was debuted by the Royal Shakespeare Company in July 1996.\nThe Pilot Theatre Company has toured it extensively in the United Kingdom and abroad.\n\nIn October 2014 it was announced that the 2011 production of Lord of the Flies would return to conclude the 2015 season at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ahead of a major UK tour. The production is to be directed by the Artistic Director Timothy Sheader who won the 2014 Whatsonstage.com Awards Best Play Revival for To Kill A Mockingbird.\n\nIn June 2013, BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a dramatization by Judith Adams in four 30-minute episodes directed by Sasha Yevtushenko. The cast included Ruth Wilson as \"The Narrator\", Finn Bennett as \"Ralph\", Richard Linnel as \"Jack\", Caspar Hilton-Hilley as \"Piggy\" and Jack Caine as \"Simon\".\n\n# Fire on the Mountain\n# Painted Faces\n# Beast from the Air\n# Gift for Darkness\n\nInfluence \n\nMany writers have borrowed plot elements from Lord of the Flies. By the early 1960s, it was required reading in many schools and colleges.\n\nFilm\n\nStephen King's fictional town of Castle Rock, inspired by the fictional mountain fort of the same name in Lord of the Flies, in turn inspired the name of Rob Reiner's production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, which produced the film Lord of the Flies (1990). \n\nLiterature\n\nStephen King got the name Castle Rock from the fictional mountain fort of the same name in Lord of the Flies and used the name to refer to a fictional town that has appeared in a number of his novels. The book itself appears prominently in his novels Hearts in Atlantis (1999), Misery (1987), and Cujo (1981).\n\nStephen King wrote an introduction for a new edition of Lord of the Flies (2011) to mark the centenary of William Golding's birth in 2011.\n\nThe novel Garden Lakes by Jaime Clarke is an homage to Lord of the Flies.\n\nMusic\n\nThe final song on U2's debut album Boy (1980) takes its title, \"Shadows and Tall Trees\", from Chapter 7 in the book.\n\nIron Maiden wrote a song inspired by the book, included in their 1995 album The X Factor."
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How is Joan Molinsky better known?
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tc_21
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), better known as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, writer, producer, and television host noted for her often controversial comedic persona—where she was alternately self-deprecating or sharply acerbic, especially toward celebrities and politicians.\n\nRivers came to prominence in 1965 as a guest on The Tonight Show. Hosted by her mentor, Johnny Carson, the show established Rivers' comedic style. In 1986, with her own rival program, The Late Show with Joan Rivers, Rivers became the first woman to host a late night network television talk show. She subsequently hosted The Joan Rivers Show (1989–1993), winning a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Having become widely known for her comedic red carpet awards show celebrity interviews, Rivers co-hosted the E! celebrity fashion show Fashion Police from 2010 to 2014 and starred in reality series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? (2011–2014) with daughter Melissa Rivers. She was the subject of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010).\n\nIn addition to marketing a line of jewelry and apparel on the QVC shopping channel, Rivers authored 12 best-selling books and released numerous comedy albums. She was nominated in 1984 for a Grammy Award for her album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?; and was nominated in 1994 for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance of the title role in Sally Marr...and Her Escorts. In 2015, Rivers posthumously received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for her book, Diary of a Mad Diva. \n\nIn 1968, The New York Times television critic Jack Gould called Rivers \"quite possibly the most intuitively funny woman alive\". \n\nEarly life\n\nRivers was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky on June 8, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman; January 6, 1906 – October 1975) and Dr. Meyer C. Molinsky (December 7, 1900 – January 1985), who graduated from Long Island College of Medicine. Her elder sister, Barbara Waxler, died on June 3, 2013 at the age of 82. Rivers was raised in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights in Brooklyn, where she attended the progressive and now-defunct Brooklyn Ethical Culture School and [http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2014/06/17/brooklyn-prep-school-enters-chapter-11-bankruptcy/ Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn] - a college preparatory day school. Her family later moved to Larchmont.\n\nShe attended Connecticut College between 1950 and 1952, and graduated from Barnard College in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and anthropology; she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.Rivers, Joan (1986). Autobiography: Enter Talking. New York: Delacorte Press, First Printing. Before entering show business, Rivers worked at various jobs such as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center,Autobiography: Bouncing Back (1997), HarperCollins, pp. 74–75. a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency and a fashion consultant at Bond Clothing Stores. During this period, agent Tony Rivers advised her to change her name, so she chose Joan Rivers as her stage name. \n\nCareer\n\n1950s–1960s\n\nDuring the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short-run play, Driftwood, playing a lesbian with a crush on a character played by a then-unknown Barbra Streisand. The play ran for six weeks. Rivers performed in numerous comedy clubs in the Greenwich Village area of New York City in the early 1960s, including The Bitter End and The Gaslight Cafe, before making her first appearances as a guest on the TV program The Tonight Show originating from New York, hosted at the time by Jack Paar. \n\nBy 1965, Rivers had a stint on Candid Camera as a gag writer and participant; she was \"the bait\" to lure people into ridiculous situations for the show. She also made her first appearance on The Tonight Show with new host Johnny Carson, on February 17, 1965. During the same decade, Rivers made other appearances on The Tonight Show as well as The Ed Sullivan Show, while hosting the first of several talk shows. She wrote material for the puppet Topo Gigio. She had a brief role in The Swimmer (1968), starring Burt Lancaster. A year later, she had a short-lived syndicated daytime talk show, That Show with Joan Rivers; Johnny Carson was her first guest. In the middle of the 1960s, she released at least two comedy albums, The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album and Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories. \n\n1970s\n\nBy the 1970s, Rivers was appearing on various television comedy and variety shows, including The Carol Burnett Show and a semi-regular stint on Hollywood Squares. From 1972 to 1976, she narrated The Adventures of Letterman, an animated segment for The Electric Company. In 1973, Rivers wrote the TV movie The Girl Most Likely to..., a black comedy starring Stockard Channing. In 1978, Rivers wrote and directed the film Rabbit Test, starring her friend Billy Crystal. During the same decade, she was the opening act for singers Helen Reddy, Robert Goulet, Mac Davis and Sergio Franchi on the Las Vegas Strip. \n\n1980s–1990s\n\nRivers spoke of her primary Tonight Show life as having been \"Johnny Carson's daughter\", a reference to his longtime mentoring of her and, during the 1980s, establishing her as his regular guest host by August 1983. She also hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, on April 9, 1983. In the same period, she released a best-selling comedy album on Geffen Records, What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? The album reached No. 22 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.\n\nDuring the 1980s, she continued doing stand-up shows along with appearing on various television shows. In February 1983, she performed at Carnegie Hall and the following year, she did stand-up on the United Kingdom's TV show An Audience With Joan Rivers. \n\nA friend of Nancy and President Ronald Reagan, Rivers attended a state dinner in 1983, and later, at the invitation of Nancy, spoke at luncheon at the 1984 Republican National Convention.\n\nIn 1984, Rivers published a best-selling humor book, The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz, a mock memoir of her brassy, loose comedy character. A television special based on the character, a mock tribute called Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abramowitz, was not successful with the public.\n\nThe decade was controversial for Rivers. She sued female impersonator Frank Marino for $5,000,000 in 1986, after discovering he was using her real stand-up material in the impersonation of her that he included in his popular Las Vegas act. The two comics reconciled and even appeared together on television in later years. \n\nIn 1986 came the move that ended Rivers' longtime friendship with Johnny Carson, who had first hired her as a Tonight Show writer. The soon-to-launch Fox Television Network announced that it was giving her a late night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, making Rivers the first woman to have her own late night talk show on a major network. King, Norman (1993). Arsenio Hall. New York: William Morrow & Co., pp. 47–48.\n\nThe new network planned to broadcast the show 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern Time, making her a Carson competitor. Carson learned of the show from Fox and not from Rivers. In the documentary, Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, Rivers said she only called Carson to discuss the matter after learning he may have already heard about it and that he immediately hung up on her. In the same interview, she said that she later came to believe that maybe she should have asked for his blessing before taking the job. Rivers was banned from appearing on the Tonight Show, a decision respected by Carson's first two successors Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. After the release of his 2013 biography on Johnny Carson, Carson's attorney Henry Bushkin revealed that he never received a call from Rivers' husband Edgar concerning the move to Fox, contrary to what Edgar had told Rivers. Rivers did not appear on the Tonight Show again until February 17, 2014, when she made a brief appearance on new host Jimmy Fallon's first episode. On March 27, 2014, Rivers returned for an interview.\n\nShortly after Carson's death in 2005, Rivers said that he had never spoken to her again. In 2008, during an interview with Dr. Pamela Connolly on television's Shrink Rap, Rivers claimed she did call Carson, but he hung up on her at once and repeated the gesture when she called again.\n\nThe Late Show Starring Joan Rivers turned out to be flecked by tragedy. When Rivers challenged FOX executives, who wanted to fire her husband Edgar Rosenberg as the show's producer, the network fired them both on May 15, 1987. Three months later, on August 14, 1987, Rosenberg committed suicide in Philadelphia; Rivers blamed the tragedy on his \"humiliation\" by Fox. Rivers credited Nancy Reagan with helping her after the 1987 suicide of her second husband. Fox attempted to continue the show with a new name (The Late Show) and rotating guest hosts.\n\nRivers subsequently appeared on various TV shows, including The David Letterman Show and Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. By 1989, she tried another daytime TV talk show, The Joan Rivers Show, which ran for five years and won her a Daytime Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Talk Show Host. In 1994, Rivers and daughter Melissa first hosted the E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the Golden Globe Awards,Bouncing Back!, p. 207. and beginning in 1995, E!'s annual Academy Awards pre-awards show as well. Beginning in 1997, Rivers hosted her own radio show on WOR in New York City. Rivers also appeared as one of the center square occupants on the 1986–89 version of The Hollywood Squares, hosted by John Davidson.\n\nIn 1994, influenced by the stand-up comedy of Lenny Bruce, Rivers co-wrote and starred in a play about Bruce's mother Sally Marr, who was also a stand-up comic and influenced her son's development as a comic. After 27 previews, \"Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts,\" a play \"suggested by the life of Sally Marr\" ran on Broadway for 50 performances in May and June 1994. Rivers was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Play and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Sally Marr. \n\n2000s–2010s\n\nBy 2003, Rivers had left her E! red-carpet show for a three-year contract (valued at $6–8 million) to cover award shows' red carpet events for the TV Guide Channel. \n\nRivers appeared in three episodes of the TV show Nip/Tuck during its second, third and sixth seasons, playing herself. Rivers appeared regularly on television's The Shopping Channel (in Canada) and QVC (in both the United States and the UK), promoting her own line of jewelry under the brand name \"The Joan Rivers Collection\". She was also a guest speaker at the opening of the American Operating Room Nurses' 2000 San Francisco Conference. Both Joan and Melissa Rivers were frequent guests on Howard Stern's radio show, and Joan Rivers often appeared as a guest on UK panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats.\n\nIn 2004, Rivers was part of the formal receiving party when Ronald Reagan was placed in state at the United States Capitol. Rivers was one of only four Americans invited to the Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles on April 9, 2005. \nOn August 16, 2007, Rivers began a two-week workshop of her new play, with the working title \"The Joan Rivers Theatre Project\", at The Magic Theatre in San Francisco. On December 3, 2007, Rivers performed in the Royal Variety Show 2007 at the Liverpool Empire Theatre, England, with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip present. \n\nIn January 2008, Rivers became one of 20 hijackers to take control of the Big Brother house in the UK for one day in spin-off TV show Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack. On June 24, 2008, Rivers appeared on NBC-TV's show Celebrity Family Feud and competed with her daughter against Ice-T and Coco.\n\nRivers and daughter Melissa were contestants in 2009 on the second Celebrity Apprentice. Throughout the season, each celebrity raised money for a charity of his or her choice; Rivers selected God's Love We Deliver. After a falling out with poker player Annie Duke, following Melissa's on-air firing (elimination) by Donald Trump, Rivers left the green room telling Clint Black and Jesse James that she would not be in the next morning. Rivers later returned to the show and on May 3, 2009, she became a finalist in the series. The other finalist was Duke. On the season finale, which aired live on May 10, Rivers was announced the winner and hired to be the 2009 Celebrity Apprentice.\n\nRivers was featured on the show Z Rock as herself; she was also a special \"pink-carpet\" presenter for the 2009 broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. She was also roasted in a Comedy Central special, taped on July 26, 2009, and aired on August 9, 2009. From August 2009, Rivers began starring in the new reality TV series How'd You Get So Rich? on TV Land. A documentary film about Rivers, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro Theatre on May 6, 2010.\n\nIn 2011, Rivers appeared in a commercial for Go Daddy, which debuted during the broadcast of Super Bowl XLV. She made two appearances on It's Showtime at the Apollo, once as a comedian and once as a guest host.\n\nJoan and her daughter premiered the new show Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? on WE tv. The series follows Joan moving to California to be closer to her family. She moves in with daughter Melissa while searching for a home of her own. WE tv then ordered a new season consisting of 10 episodes, which premiered in January 2012. In 2011, Rivers was featured as herself in Season 2 of Louis C.K.'s self-titled show Louie, where she performed on-stage. Beginning September 10, 2010, Rivers co-hosted the E! show Fashion Police, along with Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne, and George Kotsiopoulos commenting on the dos and don'ts of celebrity fashion. The show started as a half-hour program but expanded to one hour on March 9, 2012. On August 7, 2012, Rivers showed up in Burbank, California to protest that the warehouse club Costco would not sell her New York Times best-selling book, I Hate Everyone ... Starting with Me. She handcuffed herself to a shopping cart and shouted through a megaphone. The police were called to the scene and she left without incident; no arrests were made. On March 5, 2013, she launched a new online talk show on YouTube, called In Bed with Joan.\n\nOn August 26, 2014, Rivers hosted a taping of Fashion Police with Kelly Osbourne, Giuliana Rancic and George Kotsiopoulos about the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards and the 2014 MTV Movie Awards. (This was her last television appearance before her death.) \n\nThe day before her throat surgery, Joan released her most recent podcast of In Bed with Joan, with LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian. \n\nShe appeared posthumously with other female comedians in the documentary MAKERS: Women in Comedy, which premiered on PBS in October 2014. \n\nComedic style\n\nDuring her 55-year career as a comedian, her tough-talking style of satirical humor was both praised and criticized as truthful, yet too personal, too gossipy, and very often abrasive. Nonetheless, with her ability to \"tell it like it is,\" she became a pioneer of contemporary stand-up comedy. Commenting about her style, she told biographer Gerald Nachman, \"Maybe I started it. We're a very gossipy culture. All we want to know now is private lives.\"\n\nHowever, her style of humor, which often relied on making jokes about her own life and satirizing the lives of celebrities and public figures, was sometimes criticized as insensitive. Her jokes about Elizabeth Taylor and Adele's weight, for instance, were often commented on, although Rivers would never apologize for her humor. Rivers, who was Jewish, was also criticized for making jokes about the Holocaust and later explained, \"This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humor\", adding, \"my husband lost his entire family in the Holocaust.\" Her joke about the victims of the Ariel Castro kidnappings similarly came under criticism, but she again refused to apologize, stating, \"I know what those girls went through. It was a little stupid joke.\" \n\nRivers accepted such criticism as part of her using social satire as a form of humor: \"I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done ... You can tune me out, you can click me off, it's OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness. But you do have to learn, if you want to be a satirist, you can't be part of the party.\" \n\nRivers states that seeing Lenny Bruce perform at a local club while she was in college influenced her developing style:\n\nAs an unknown stand-up comedian out of college, she struggled for many years before finding her comic style. She did stints in the Catskills and found that she disliked the older style of comedy at the time, such as Phyllis Diller's, whom she felt was a pioneer female comedian.Leonard Jay Greenspoon, ed. Jews and Humor, Purdue University Press (2011) p. 163 Her breakthrough came at The Second City in Chicago in 1961, where she was dubbed \"the best girl since Elaine May,\" who also got her start there. But May became her and fellow comedian Treva Silverman's role model, as Rivers saw her as \"an assertive woman with a marvelous, fast mind and, at the same time, pretty and feminine.\" It was also there that she learned \"self reliance,\" she said, \"that I didn't have to talk down in my humor\" and could still earn an income by making intelligent people laugh. \"I was really born as a comedian at Second City. I owe it my career.\"\n\nIn early 1965, at the suggestion of comedian Bill Cosby, Johnny Carson gave Rivers, whom he billed as a comedy writer, her debut appearance on his show.Zoglin, Richard. Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America, Bloomsbury Publishing (2008) e-book Cosby, who knew Rivers from their early stand-up days, described her as \"an intelligent girl without being a weirdo ... a human being, not a kook.\" Sitting alongside Johnny after her monologue, she displayed an intimate, conversational style which he appreciated, and she was invited back eight more times that year.\n\nTime magazine compared her humor to that of Woody Allen, by expressing \"how to be neurotic about practically everything,\" but noting that \"her style and femininity make her something special.\" Rivers also compared herself to Allen, stating: \"He was a writer, which I basically was ... and talking about things that affected our generation that nobody else talked about.\" The New York Times critic Charles L. Mee likewise compared her to Allen, explaining that her \"style was personal, an autobiographical stream-of-consciousness.\"\n\nRivers' image contrasted starkly with Carson's stage demeanor, which was one of the reasons he made her co-host according to critic Michael Pollan, who compared their style of humor:\n\nIn her personal life, she had fewer of those neurotic or intense character traits, according to Ralph Schoenstein, who dated her and worked with her on her humor books. He said, \"She has no airs. She doesn't stand on ceremony. The woman has absolutely no pretense. She'll tell you everything immediately. Joan isn't cool—she's completely open. It's all grist. It's her old thing—'Can we talk?'\"\n\nAccording to biographer Victoria Price, Rivers' humor was notable for taking aim at and overturning what had been considered acceptable female behavior. By her bravura she broke through long-standing taboos in humor, which paved the way for other women, including Roseanne Barr, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell.Price, Victoria, ed. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, vol. 4, St. James Press (2000) pp. 219–220.\n\nPersonal life\n\nRivers was a member of the Reform synagogue Temple Emanu-El in New York and said she \"loved Israel.\" \n\nRivers' first marriage was in 1955 to James Sanger, the son of a Bond Clothing Stores merchandise manager. The marriage lasted six months and was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not informed Rivers before the wedding. \n\nRivers married Edgar Rosenberg on July 15, 1965.Enter Talking epilogue, p. 375. Their only child, Melissa Warburg Rosenberg, who goes by the name Melissa Rivers, was born on January 20, 1968. Joan Rivers had one grandson, Cooper, born Edgar Cooper Endicott in 2000. Along with his mother and grandmother, Cooper was featured in the WE tv series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? Rosenberg committed suicide in 1987, shortly after Rivers announced her intention to separate. Rivers would later describe her marriage to Rosenberg as a \"total sham\", complaining bitterly about his treatment of her during their 22-year marriage. In a 2012 interview with Howard Stern, Rivers said she had several extramarital affairs when married to Rosenberg, including a one-night affair with actor Robert Mitchum in the 1960s and an affair with actor Gabriel Dell.\n\nIn her book Bouncing Back (1997) Rivers described how she developed bulimia nervosa and contemplated suicide. Eventually she recovered with counseling and the support of her family. \n\nIn 2002, Rivers told the Montreal Mirror that she was a Republican. On January 28, 2014, during a conversation between Rivers and Reza Farahan of the Shahs of Sunset, Melissa Rivers interjected to clarify that she and her mother were \"fiscally conservative, socially liberal\" Republicans. \n\nRivers was open about her multiple cosmetic surgeries and was a patient of plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin, beginning in 1983. She had her nose thinned while still at college; her next procedure, an eye lift, was performed in 1965 (when she was in her thirties) as an attempt to further her career. When promoting her book, Men Are Stupid ... And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery, described by The New York Times Magazine as \"a detailed and mostly serious guide to eye lifts,[tummy tucks and other forms of plastic surgery\", she quipped: \"I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.\" \n\nPhilanthropy\n\nAs a philanthropist, Rivers supported causes including HIV/AIDS activism, and in May 1985, she appeared along with Nichols and May at a Comic Relief benefit for the new AIDS Medical Foundation in New York City, where tickets at the Shubert Theatre sold for as much as $500. She supported the Elton John AIDS Foundation[https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/joan-rivers \"Joan Rivers Charity Work, Events and Causes\"], Look to the Stars and God's Love We Deliver, which delivers meals to HIV/AIDS patients in New York City. In 2008, she was commended by the City of San Diego, California for her philanthropic work regarding HIV/AIDS, where the HIV/AIDS community called her their \"Joan of Arc.\" \n\nAdditionally, she served as an Honorary Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She also supported Guide Dogs for the Blind, a non-profit organization which provides guide dogs to blind people. She donated to Jewish charities, animal welfare efforts, and suicide prevention causes. Among the other non-profit organizations she helped were Rosie's Theater Kids, Habitat for Humanity, Human Rights Campaign and the Boy Scouts of America. \n\nDeath\n\nOn August 28, 2014, Rivers experienced serious complications and stopped breathing while undergoing what was scheduled as a minor throat procedure at an outpatient clinic in Yorkville, Manhattan. Resuscitated an hour later, Rivers was transferred to the hospital and later put on life support. She died on September 4 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, having never awoken from a medically induced coma. The New York City Medical Examiner's Office said she died from brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen, and the details of her surgery would be investigated by officials. Rivers was 81 years old.\n\nAfter nearly two months of investigations, federal officials said on November 10 that the clinic made a number of mistakes both before and during the procedure. Among those were the clinic's failure to respond to Rivers' deteriorating vital signs, including a severe drop in her blood pressure, possibly administering an incorrect anesthetic dosage, performing a surgical procedure without her consent, and other medical-clinic irregularities. \n\nOn September 7, after Rivers' cremation, a private memorial service took place at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. The service was attended by an estimated 1,500 people. The guest list included Rivers' many celebrity friends, public figures and the New York City Gay Men's Chorus singing old show tunes. Talk show host Howard Stern, delivering the eulogy, described Rivers as \"brassy in public [and] classy in private ... a troublemaker, trail blazer, pioneer for comics everywhere, ... [who] fought the stereotypes that women can't be funny.\" Daughter Melissa read a comedic note to her mother as part of her eulogy. \n\nOn January 26, 2015, Melissa Rivers filed a malpractice lawsuit against the clinic and doctors performing surgery on her mother. The suit was settled for an undisclosed amount in May 2016, with the doctors accepting responsibility. \n\nReactions and tributes\n\nUpon Rivers' death, friends, fans, family and celebrities paid tribute. Numerous comedians recognized Rivers influence on their career, including Kathy Griffin, who considered Rivers her \"mentor,\" noting, \"She brought a fearlessness and a brand of humor into our homes that we really need.\" Chris Rock felt \"she was the hippest comedian from the time she started to the day she died.\" Describing her as a force in comedy, he added, \"No man ever said, 'Yeah, I want to go on after Joan.' No, Joan Rivers closed the show every night.\" Other comedians recalled working with her on stage and television decades earlier: stand-up performer Don Rickles said \"working with her and enjoying the fun times of life with her was special.\" While Carol Burnett calls Rivers \"the poster child for the Energizer Bunny.\" \n\nNumerous talk show hosts, including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and David Letterman, paid tribute to Rivers, often including video clips of her appearances. Letterman called her a \"real pioneer for other women looking for careers in stand-up comedy. And talk about guts.\" Conan O'Brien discussed Rivers' legacy with fellow comedian Chris Hardwick on Conan, while Seth Meyers recalled Rivers' appearance on his talk show, saying, \"I have not sat next to anyone who told more jokes faster than Joan Rivers did when she was here.\"[http://www.today.com/popculture/can-we-talk-joan-rivers-gets-all-due-respect-late-1D80128332 \"Can we talk? Jimmy Fallon and more late-night hosts pay tribute to Joan Rivers\"], Today, September 5, 2014 And on The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart noted her contributions: \"There are very few people in my business that you can say are, or were, actually groundbreaking talents. Joan Rivers was one of them.\" Radio host Howard Stern, who delivered her funeral eulogy, devoted an entire one-hour show to Rivers. Sarah Silverman paid tribute to Rivers while hosting Saturday Night Live. \n\nPolitical figures giving tribute to Rivers included former first lady Nancy Reagan, who had helped Rivers after the death of her husband, Edgar Rosenberg. As a friend of Prince Charles, and one of only four Americans invited to his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. Upon hearing of her death, they said she was \"utterly irreplaceable.\" While Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that besides bringing laughter to millions of people around the world, she was \"proud of her Jewish heritage.\" After her mother's death, Melissa Rivers said she received a letter from President Barack Obama in which he wrote, despite being a frequent target of Rivers' jokes: \"not only did she make us laugh, she made us think\". \n\nComedian Amy Schumer, speaking at the 2014 Glamour magazine \"Woman of the Year Awards\" ceremony in Carnegie Hall, devoted her talk to paying tribute to Rivers, comparing her to other famous woman comedians by calling her \"the bravest of them all.\" The speculations that Fashion Police would continue to air, with Rivers' close friend Kathy Griffin as her replacement, were influenced by what many felt Rivers would have wanted. \n\nBooks\n\n* (Self-Help/Humor)\n* (Humor)\n* (Autobiography)\n* (Autobiography)\n* (Non-Fiction)\n*\n* (Self-Help)\n* (Self-Help)\n* (Fiction)\n* (Non-Fiction)\n* (Humor)\n* (Humor)\n\nFilmography\n\nFilms\n\nTelevision\n\nTheater work\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nNote: Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing – Special Class shared with Toem Perew and Hester Mundis.\n\nHonors\n\n*On July 26, 1989, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard. \n*On March 1, 2013, Rivers and her daughter, Melissa Rivers, were honored by the Ride of Fame and a double decker tour bus was dedicated to them in New York City."
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In which branch of the arts is Patricia Neary famous?
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tc_22
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Patricia Neary (born October 27, 1942) is an American ballerina, choreographer and ballet director, who has been particularly active in Switzerland. She has also been a highly successful ambassador for the Balanchine Trust, bringing George Balanchine's ballets to some 60 cities around the globe.\n\nBiography\n\nBorn in Miami, Florida, she first studied there under George Milenoff and Thomas Armour until she attended the School of American Ballet in New York. \n\nAt the age of 14, she joined the National Ballet of Canada as the youngest dancer in the company. In 1960, she became a member of the New York City Ballet where she performed almost all the ballerina roles in George Balanchine's major works, including two roles he created specially for her in Raymonda Variations (1961) and Jewels (1967). She also performed leading roles in ballets by Jerome Robbins, Antony Tudor, John Taras and Merce Cunningham.\n\nIn 1968, she joined the Geneva Ballet where she performed in and staged Balanchine's ballets. She also made guest appearances in Stuttgart, Hamburg and Hannover. She worked as assistant ballet mistress with the ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1970 to 1973. With Balachine acting as artistic advisor, she was appointed director of ballet at the Grand Théâtre de Genève (1973–78). From 1978 to 1985, she served as ballet director of the Zurich Ballet, then of La Scala in Milan (1986–87). As artistic director of Ballet British Columbia (1989–90), she choreographed Variations Concertantes with music by Alberto Ginastera.\n\nSince 1988, she has worked as an ambassador for the Balanchine Trust, bringing his works to some 60 cities in Europe, the Far East and across the United States."
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Which country is Europe's largest silk producer?
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tc_23
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. To the east and southeast, Europe is generally considered as separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary; the primarily physiographic term \"continent\" as applied to Europe also incorporates cultural and political elements whose discontinuities are not always reflected by the continent's current boundaries.\n\nEurope is the world's second-smallest continent by surface area, covering about or 2% of the Earth's surface and about 6.8% of its land area. Of Europe's approximately 50 countries, Russia is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population, while Vatican City is the smallest both in terms of area and population. Europe is the third-most populous continent after Asia and Africa, with a population of 739–743 million or about 11% of the world's population. Europe has a climate heavily affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent, even at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the Atlantic, seasonal differences are mildly greater than close to the coast.\n\nEurope, in particular ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the migration period, marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of an era known as the \"Middle Ages\". The Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led the \"old continent\", and eventually the rest of the world, to the modern era. From this period onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European nations controlled at various times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania, and the majority of Asia.\n\nThe Industrial Revolution, which began in the United Kingdom at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe, and eventually the wider world. Both world wars were largely focused upon Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the United States and Soviet Union took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall.\n\nEuropean integration led to the formation of the European Union, a political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation. The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the Euro, is the most commonly used among Europeans and the EU's Schengen Area abolishes border and immigration controls among most of its member states.\n\nDefinition\n\nClickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia;\ngreen: states not geographically in Europe, but closely associated with the continent\n\nThe use of the term \"Europe\" has developed gradually throughout history. In antiquity, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the River Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia. Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don. The Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from North Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia. \n\nA cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy. The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: \"Europa\" often figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin. This division—as much cultural as geographical—was used until the Late Middle Ages, when it was challenged by the Age of Discovery. The problem of redefining Europe was finally resolved in 1730 when, instead of waterways, the Swedish geographer and cartographer von Strahlenberg proposed the Ural Mountains as the most significant eastern boundary, a suggestion that found favour in Russia and throughout Europe. \n\nEurope is now generally defined by geographers as the western part of Eurasia, with its boundaries marked by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the far east are usually taken to be the Urals, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, including the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. \n\nIslands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is generally considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is usually considered part of Europe both culturally and politically and currently is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of North Africa for centuries. \n\nThe geographic boundary drawn between Europe and Asia in 1730 follows no international boundaries. As a result, attempts to organise Europe along political or economic lines have resulted in uses of the name in a geopolitically limiting way to refer only to the 28 member states of the European Union. Conversely, Europe has also been used in a very expansive way by the Council of Europe which has 47 member countries, some of which territorially over-reach the Ural and Bosphorus lines to include all of Russia and Turkey. In addition, people in the British Isles may refer to \"continental\" or \"mainland\" Europe as Europe. \n\nEtymology\n\nIn classical Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull. He took her to the island of Crete where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (, Eurṓpē; see also List of Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation.\n\nThe etymology of Europe is uncertain. One theory suggests that it is derived from the Greek εὐρύς (eurus), meaning \"wide, broad\" and ὤψ/ὠπ-/ὀπτ- (ōps/ōp-/opt-), meaning \"eye, face, countenance\", hence Eurṓpē, \"wide-gazing\", \"broad of aspect\" (compare with glaukōpis (γλαυκῶπις 'grey-eyed') Athena or boōpis (βοὠπις 'ox-eyed') Hera). Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion. Another theory suggests that it is based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning \"to go down, set\" (in reference to the sun), cognate to Phoenician 'ereb \"evening; west\" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma'arav (see also Erebus, PIE *h1regʷos, \"darkness\"). Martin Litchfield West states that \"phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor\". However, Michael A. Barry, professor in Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department, finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of \"night\", \"[the country of] sunset\", in opposition to Asu \"[the country of] sunrise\", i.e. Asia (Anatolia coming equally from Ἀνατολή, \"(sun)rise\", \"east\"). In the Homeric Hymns written in the seventh century BC, Eurôpè still represents, the western shore of the Aegean Sea.\n\nWhatever the origin of the name of the mythological figure, Εὐρώπη is first used as a geographical term in the 6th century BC, by Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC. But the convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius, Strabo and Ptolemy, \nwho took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary.\n\nThe term \"Europe\" is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world. The modern convention, enlarging the area of \"Europe\" somewhat to the east and the southeast, develops in the 19th century.\n\nMost major world languages use words derived from \"Europa\" to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲/欧洲); a similar Chinese-derived term is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, , despite the katakana being more commonly used. However, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan (land of the Franks) is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa. \n\nHistory\n\nPrehistory\n\nHomo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe. Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6256356.stm The million year old tooth from ]Atapuerca, Spain, found in June 2007 Neanderthal man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago and disappeared from the fossil record about 28,000 BC, with this extinction probably due to climate change, and their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 43 to 40 thousand years ago. \n\nThe European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East. It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artefacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs. The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge, were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe. \n\nThe European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece with the Minoan civilization on Crete, the first advanced civilization in Europe. The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans, who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC, ushering the European Iron Age. Iron Age colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BC, the year the first Olympic Games. \n\nClassical antiquity\n\nAncient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greeks city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens. The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes. In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history, as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization.\n\nGreece was followed by Rome, which left its mark on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more key aspects in western civilisation. Expanding from their base in Italy beginning in the 3rd century BC, the Romans gradually expanded to eventually rule the entire Mediterranean basin and western Europe by the turn of the millennium. The Roman Republic ended in 27 BC, when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire. The two centuries that followed are known as the pax romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe. \n\nThe empire continued to expand under emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who all spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes. The Empire began to decline in the 3rd century, particularly in the west. Christianity was legalised by Constantine I in 313 AD after three centuries of imperial persecution. Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour (modern-day Istanbul) in 330 AD. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 AD, and in 391-392 AD, the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions. This is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529 AD; or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD.\n\nEarly Middle Ages\n\nDuring the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the \"Age of Migrations\". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars. Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the \"Dark Ages\". Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire. \n\nWhile the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and brought the Christian church under state control. \n\nFrom the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor. In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region. Over the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern Italy. Between 711 and 720, most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Muslim rule — save for small areas in the northwest (Asturias) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees. This territory, under the Arabic name Al-Andalus, became part of the expanding Umayyad Caliphate. The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance.\n\nDuring the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively. Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed \"Holy Roman Emperor\" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe. \n\nEast Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted Christianity: the First Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia). To the East, the Kievan Rus expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the religion of state. Further East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later. \n\nHigh and Late Middle Ages\n\nThe period between the year 1000 and 1300 is known as the High Middle Ages, during which the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the Renaissance of the 12th century. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene.\n\nThe Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe. A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament. The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.\n\nThe Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. In Spain, the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492, ending over seven centuries of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula. \n\nIn the east a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims and reconquered the Balkans. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000. The Empire was weakened following the defeat at Manzikert and was weakened considerably by the sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade. Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Empire. \n\nIn the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols. The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries. After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480 and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. The state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible, steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries.\n\nThe Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half. Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines, and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time. \n\nThe plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. \n\nEarly modern period\n\nThe Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin. The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class. Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. \n\nPolitical intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly. \n\nThe Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648), initially sparked by the works of German theologian Martin Luther, an attempt to start a reform within the Church. The Reformation also damaged the Holy Roman Emperor's influence, as German princes became divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. This eventually led to the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe. \n\nThe 17th century in southern, central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline. Central and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 and 1700. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves. Further east, the Nogai Horde and Kazakh Khanate frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine and Poland for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia). Meanwhile, in the south, the Ottomans had conquered the Balkans by the 15th century, laying siege to Vienna in 1529. In the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Holy League checked Ottoman power in the Mediterranean. The Ottomans again laid siege to Vienna in 1683, but the Battle of Vienna permanently ended their advance into Europe, and marked the political hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty in central Europe.\n\nThe Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development. Among the great figures of the Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton. According to Peter Barrett, \"It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world.\" In the 15th century, Portugal and Spain, two of the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492 and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East in 1498, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing colonial empires in the Americas and Asia. France, the Netherlands and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.\n\n18th and 19th centuries\n\nThe Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts. Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of Europe before collapsing in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law, and education. The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five \"Great Powers\": the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted. The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities. \n\nIn parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution (1804) and Greek War of Independence (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, which ended with the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913. Formal recognition of the de facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.\n\nThe Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class. Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions, and the abolition of slavery. In Britain, the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities. Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900. The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people. In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States. Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe's share of the world's population was 25%. \n\n20th century to the present\n\nTwo World Wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The War left more than 16 million civilians and military dead. Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.\n\nRussia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions. \n\nExcess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million. In 1932–1933, under Stalin's leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people; millions of people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. \n\nEconomic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in power. \n\nIn 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy of appeasement.\n\nWith tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II. The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark. The Phoney War continued.\n\nIn May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June 1940. By August Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the Operation Barbarossa. On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces. \n\nAfter the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the D-Day landings, opening a new front against Germany. Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world. More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of World War II, including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people (mostly civilians) during the war, about half of all World War II casualties. By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees. Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people. \n\nWorld War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an \"Iron Curtain\". The United States and Western Europe\nestablished the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact. \n\nThe two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year-long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.\nIn the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.\n\nEuropean integration also grew after World War II. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market. In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency. In 2004 and 2007, more Central and Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to its current size of 28 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power. \n\nGeography\n\nEurope makes up the western fifth of the Eurasian landmass. It has a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent. Its maritime borders consist of the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south. \nLand relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway.\n\nThis description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain, and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.\n\nClimate\n\nEurope lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies. The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed \"Europe's central heating\", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream not only carries warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nTherefore, the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (60.8 °F), while it is only 12 °C (53.6 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk. Similarly, northern parts of Scotland have a tempertate marine climate. The yearly average temperature in city of Inverness is 9.05 degrees Celsius (48.3 degrees Fahrenheit). However, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, is on roughly the same latitude and has an average temperature of -6.5 degrees Celsius (20.3 degrees Fahrenheit), giving it a nearly subarctic climate.\n\nGeology\n\nThe geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo–Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago. \n\nThe geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary. Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea.\n\nThe northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the \"main continent\", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.\n\nFlora\n\nHaving lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.\n\nThe main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.\n\nProbably 80 to 90 percent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the broadlef and mixed forests, taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%). \n\nIn temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.\n\nFauna\n\nGlaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.).\n\nEuropean wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).\n\nImportant European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others. A number of insects, such as the small tortoiseshell butterfly, add to the biodiversity. \n\nThe extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean. \n\nSea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.\n\nBiodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.\n\nPolitics\n\nThe list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographic or political. The data displayed are per sources in cross-referenced articles.\n\nWithin the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:\n\nSeveral dependencies and similar territories with broad autonomy are also found within or in close proximity to Europe. This includes Åland (a region of Finland), two constituent countries of the Kingdom Denmark (other than Denmark itself), three Crown dependencies, and two British Overseas Territories. Not included are the three countries of the United Kingdom with devolved powers and the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, which despite having a unique degree of autonomy, are not largely self-governing in matters other than international affairs. Areas with little more than a unique tax status, such as Svalbard, Heligoland and the Canary Islands, are also not included for this reason.\n\nIntegration\n\nEuropean integration is the process of political, legal, economic (and in some cases social and cultural) integration of states wholly or partially in Europe. While the Council of Europe—which includes almost all European states—has promoted pan-Europe cooperation, the European Union has been the focus of economic integration on the continent. More recently, the Eurasian Economic Union has been established as a counterpart comprising former Soviet states.\n\n28 European states are members of the politico-economic European Union, 26 of the border-free Schengen Area and 19 of the monetary union Eurozone. Among the smaller European organizations are the Nordic Council, the Benelux, the Baltic Assembly and the Visegrád Group.\n\nEconomy\n\nAs a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America's $27.1 trillion in 2008. In 2009 Europe remained the wealthiest region. Its $37.1 trillion in assets under management represented one-third of the world's wealth. It was one of several regions where wealth surpassed its precrisis year-end peak. As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Central and Eastern European economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.\n\nThe European Union, a political entity composed of 28 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. 18 EU countries share the euro as a common currency.\nFive European countries rank in the top ten of the world's largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (5), the UK (6), Russia (7), France (8), and Italy (10). \n\nThere is huge disparity between many European countries in terms of their income. The richest in terms of GDP per capita is Monaco with its US$172,676 per capita (2009) and the poorest is Moldova with its GDP per capita of US$1,631 (2010). Monaco is the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in the world according to the World Bank report.\n\nHistory\n\n;Industrial growth (1760–1945)\n\nCapitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism. From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe. The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century, and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries.\n\n;Cold War (1945–1991)\n\nAfter World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin, and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades. Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s. France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle. The majority of Central and Eastern European states came under the control of the Soviet Union and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). \n\nThe states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan.\n The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy.\n\n;Reunification (1991–2016)\n\nWith the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1991, the post-socialist states began free market reforms: Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia adopted them reasonably quickly, while Ukraine and Russia are still in the process of doing so.\n\nAfter East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany.\nBy the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999, 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden.\nThe European Union is now the largest economy in the world. \n\nFigures released by Eurostat in 2009 confirmed that the Eurozone had gone into recession in 2008. It impacted much of the region. In 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed concerning some countries in Europe, especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. As a result, measures were taken, especially for Greece, by the leading countries of the Eurozone. The EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.3% in 2012. For those aged 15–24 it was 22.4%. \n\nDemographics\n\nSince the Renaissance, Europe has had a major influence in culture, economics and social movements in the world. The most significant inventions had their origins in the Western world, primarily Europe and the United States. Approximately 70 million Europeans died through war, violence and famine between 1914 and 1945. Some current and past issues in European demographics have included religious emigration, race relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an ageing population.\n\nIn some countries, such as Ireland and Poland, access to abortion is limited. It remains illegal on the island of Malta. Furthermore, three European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland) and the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain) have allowed a limited form of voluntary euthanasia for some terminally ill people.\n\nIn 2005, the population of Europe was estimated to be 731 million according to the United Nations, which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population. The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly. Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second only to Asia. The most densely populated country in Europe (and in the world) is Monaco. Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct \"peoples of Europe\", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. \nAccording to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively). Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child bearing age is 1.52. According to some sources, this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts a steady population decline in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of emigration and low birth rates. \n\nEurope is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM's report said. In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth. The European Union plans to open the job centres for legal migrant workers from Africa. In 2008, 696,000 persons were given citizenship of an EU27 member state, a decrease from 707,000 the previous year. \n\nEmigration from Europe began with Spanish and Portuguese settlers in the 16th century, and French and English settlers in the 17th century. But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe. \n\nToday, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, while most of the other Latin American countries also have a considerable population of European origins). Australia and New Zealand have large European derived populations. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans. In Asia, European-derived populations predominate in Northern Asia (specifically Russians), some parts of Northern Kazakhstan and Israel. \n\nLanguages\n\nEuropean languages mostly fall within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.\n\nSlavic languages are most spoken by the number of native speakers in Europe, they are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as in Romania and Moldova, in Central or Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Northern Europe, the British Isles and some parts of Central Europe.\n\nMany other languages outside the three main groups exist in Europe. Other Indo-European languages include the Baltic group (that is, Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (that is, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian. In addition, a distinct group of Uralic languages (Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian) is spoken mainly in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary, while Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Mingrelian, and Svan), are spoken primarily in Georgia, and two other language families reside in the North Caucasus (termed Northeast Caucasian, most notably including Chechen, Avar and Lezgin and Northwest Caucasian, notably including Adyghe). Maltese is the only Semitic language that is official within the EU, while Basque is the only European language isolate. Turkic languages include Azerbaijani and Turkish, in addition to the languages of minority nations in Russia.\n\nMultilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.\n\nReligion\n\nHistorically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians, including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and various Protestant denominations (especially historically state-supported European ones such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism and the Reformed faith). The notion of \"Europe\" and the \"Western World\" has been intimately connected with the concept of \"Christianity and Christendom\" many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity. \n\nChristianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization since at least the 4th century. and for at least a millennium and a half, Europe has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, even though the religion was inherited from the Middle East. Christian culture was the predominant force in western civilization, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science. \n\nThe second most popular religion is Islam (6%) concentrated mainly in the Balkans and eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region). Other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are minority religions (though Tibetan Buddhism is the majority religion of Russia's Republic of Kalmykia). The 20th century saw the revival of Neopaganism through movements such as Wicca and Druidry.\n\nEurope has become a relatively secular continent, with an increasing number and proportion of irreligious, atheist and agnostic people which make up about 18.2% of Europeans population, actually the largest secular in the Western world. There are a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, former East Germany, and France. \n\nCulture\n\nThe culture of Europe can be described as a series of overlapping cultures; cultural mixes exist across the continent. Scholar Andreas Kaplan describes Europe as \"embracing maximum cultural diversity at minimal geographical distances\". There are cultural innovations and movements, sometimes at odds with each other. Thus, the question of \"common culture\" or \"common values\" is complex.\n\nAccording to historian Hilaire Belloc, for several centuries the peoples of Europe based their self-identification on the remaining traces of the Roman culture and on the concept of Christendom, because many European-wide military alliances were of religious nature: the Crusades (1095–1291), the Reconquista (711–1492), the Battle of Lepanto (1571)."
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The VS-300 was a type of what?
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tc_24
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 (or S-46) was a single-engine helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky. It had a single three-blade rotor originally powered by a 75 horsepower (56 kW) engine. The first \"free\" flight of the VS-300 was on 13 May 1940. The VS-300 was the first successful single lifting rotor helicopter in the United States and the first successful helicopter to use a single vertical-plane tail rotor configuration for antitorque. With floats attached, it became the first practical amphibious helicopter.\n\nDesign and development\n\nIgor Sikorsky's quest for a practical helicopter began in 1938, when as the Engineering Manager of the Vought-Sikorsky Division of United Aircraft Corporation, he was able to convince the directors of United Aircraft that his years of study and research into rotary-wing flight problems would lead to a breakthrough. His first experimental machine, the VS-300, was test flown by Sikorsky on 14 September 1939 tethered by cables. In developing the concept of rotary-wing flight, Sikorsky was the first to introduce a single engine to power both the main and tail rotor systems. The only previous successful attempt at a single-lift rotor helicopter, the Yuriev-Cheremukhin TsAGI-1EA in 1931 in the Soviet Union, used a pair of uprated, Russian-built Gnome Monosoupape rotary engines of 120 hp each for its power. For later flights of his VS-300, Sikorsky also added a vertical aerofoil surface to the end of the tail to assist anti-torque but this was later removed when it proved to be ineffective.\n\nThe cyclic control was found to be difficult to perfect, and led to Sikorsky locking the cyclic and adding two smaller vertical-axis lifting rotors to either side aft of the tail boom. By varying pitch of these rotors simultaneously, fore and aft control was provided. Roll control was provided by differential pitching of the blades. In this configuration, it was found that the VS-300 could not fly forward easily and Sikorsky joked about turning the pilot's seat around. \n\nOperational history\n\nSikorsky fitted utility floats (also called pontoons) to the VS-300 and performed a water landing and takeoff on 17 April 1941, making it the first practical amphibious helicopter.[http://www.sikorsky.com/vgn-ext-templating-SIK/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid\n208ae39d40a78110VgnVCM1000001382000aRCRD \"Timeline.\"] Sikorsky.com. Retrieved: 22 September 2009. On 6 May 1941, the VS-300 beat the world endurance record held by the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, by staying aloft for 1 hour 32 minutes and 26.1 seconds.\n\nThe final variant of the VS-300 was powered by a 150 hp Franklin engine. The VS-300 was one of the first helicopters capable of carrying cargo. The VS-300 was modified over a two-year period, including removal of the two vertical tail rotors, until 1941 when a new cyclic control system gave it much improved flight behavior.Chiles 2008, p. 104.\n\nSurvivor\n\nIn 1943, the VS-300 was retired to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. It has been on display there ever since, except for a trip back to the Sikorsky Aircraft plant for restoration in 1985.\n\nSpecifications (VS-300)"
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At which university did Joseph Goebbels become a doctor of philosophy?
|
tc_25
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. One of Adolf Hitler's close associates and most devoted followers, he was known for his skills in public speaking and his deep and virulent antisemitism, which led to his supporting the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.\n\nGoebbels, who aspired to be an author, obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. He joined the Nazi Party in 1924, and worked with Gregor Strasser in their northern branch. He was appointed as Gauleiter (district leader) for Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazi Seizure of Power in 1933, Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry quickly gained and exerted controlling supervision over the news media, arts, and information in Germany. He was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes. Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on the Christian churches, and (after the start of the Second World War) attempting to shape morale.\n\nIn 1943, Goebbels began to pressure Hitler to introduce measures that would produce \"total war\", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht. Hitler finally appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Goebbels undertook largely unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments production and the Wehrmacht.\n\nAs the war drew to a close and Nazi Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined him in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitler's underground bunker complex, on 22 April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitler's will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; he served one day in this post. The following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, after poisoning their six children with cyanide.\n\nEarly life\n\nPaul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Mönchengladbach near Düsseldorf. Both of his parents were Catholics and from humble beginnings. His father Fritz was a factory clerk; his mother Katharina (née Odenhausen) was ethnically Dutch. Goebbels had five siblings: Konrad (1893–1947), Hans (1895–1949), Maria (1896–1896), Elisabeth (1901–1915), and Maria (1910–1949), who married the German filmmaker Max W. Kimmich in 1938. In 1932, Goebbels published a pamphlet of his family tree to refute the rumors that his grandmother was of Jewish ancestry.\n\nDuring childhood, Goebbels suffered from ill health which included a long bout of inflammation of the lungs. He had a deformed right foot which turned inwards, due to a congenital deformity. It was thicker and shorter than his left foot. He underwent a failed operation to correct it just prior to starting grammar school. Goebbels wore a metal brace and special shoe because of his shortened leg, and walked with a limp. He was rejected for military service in World War I due to his deformity.\n\nGoebbels was educated at a Christian Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur (university entrance examination) in 1917. He was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honor to speak at the awards ceremony. His parents initially hoped that he would become a Catholic priest, and Goebbels seriously considered it. He studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg, and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society. By this time Goebbels had begun to distance himself from the church.\n\nHistorians, including Richard J. Evans and Roger Manvell, speculate that Goebbels' lifelong pursuit of women may have been in compensation for his physical disabilities. At Freiburg, he met and fell in love with Anka Stalherm, who was three years his senior. She went on to Würzburg to continue school, as did Goebbels. In 1921 he wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, a three-part work of which only Parts I and III have survived. Goebbels felt he was writing his \"own story\". Antisemitic content and material about a charismatic leader may have been added by Goebbels shortly before the book was published in 1929 by Eher-Verlag, the publishing house of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party; NSDAP). By 1920, the relationship with Anka was over. The break-up filled Goebbels with thoughts of suicide.\n\nAt the University of Heidelberg, Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz, a minor 19th century romantic dramatist. He had hoped to write his thesis under the supervision of Friedrich Gundolf, who at that time was a well known literary historian. It did not seem to bother Goebbels that Gundolf was Jewish. However, Gundolf was no longer performing teaching duties, so he directed Goebbels to associate professor Max Freiherr von Waldberg. Waldberg was also Jewish. It was Waldberg who recommended Goebbels write his thesis on Wilhelm von Schütz. After submitting the thesis and passing his oral examination, Goebbels earned his PhD in 1921.\n\nGoebbels then returned home and worked as a private tutor. He also found work as a journalist and was published in the local newspaper. His writing during that time reflected his growing antisemitism and dislike for modern culture. In the summer of 1922, he met and began a love affair with Else Janke, a schoolteacher. After she revealed to him that she was half-Jewish, Goebbels stated the \"enchantment [was] ruined\". Nevertheless, he continued to see her on and off until 1927.\n\nHe continued for several years to try to become a published author. His diaries, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of his life, provided an outlet for his desire to write. The lack of income from his literary works (he wrote two plays in 1923, neither of which sold) forced him to take jobs as a caller on the stock exchange and as a bank clerk in Cologne, a job which he detested. He was dismissed from the bank in August 1923 and returned to Rheydt. During this period, he read avidly and was influenced by the works of Oswald Spengler, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the British-born German writer whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) was one of the standard works of the extreme right in Germany. He also began to study the \"social question\", and read the works of Marx and Engels. According to biographer Peter Longerich, Goebbels' diary entries from late 1923 to early 1924 reflected the writings of a man who was isolated, preoccupied by \"religious-philosophical\" issues, and lacked a sense of direction. Diary entries of mid-December 1923 forward show Goebbels was moving towards the völkisch nationalist movement.\n\nNazi activist\n\nGoebbels first took an interest in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1924. In February 1924, Hitler's trial for treason began in the wake of his failed attempt to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8–9, 1923. The trial attracted widespread press coverage and gave Hitler a platform for propaganda. Hitler was sentenced to five years prison, but was released on 20 December 1924, after serving just over a year. Goebbels was drawn to the NSDAP mostly because of Hitler's charisma and commitment to his beliefs. He joined the NSDAP around this time, becoming member number 8762. In late 1924, Goebbels offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter (NSDAP district leader) for the Rhine-Ruhr District. Kaufmann put him in touch with Gregor Strasser, a leading Nazi organizer in northern Germany, who hired him to work on their weekly newspaper and to do secretarial work for the regional party offices. He was also put to work as party speaker and representative for Rhineland-Westphalia. Members of Strasser's northern branch of the NSDAP, including Goebbels, had a more socialist outlook than the rival Hitler group in Munich. Strasser disagreed with Hitler on many parts of the party platform, and in November 1926 began working on a revision.\n\nHitler viewed Strasser's actions as a threat to his authority, and summoned 60 Gauleiters and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a special conference in Bamberg, in Streicher's Gau of Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating Strasser's new political programme. Hitler was opposed to the socialist leanings of the northern wing, stating it would mean \"political bolshevization of Germany\". Further, there would be \"no princes, only Germans\", and a legal system with no \"... Jewish system of exploitation ... for plundering of our people\". The future would be secured by acquiring land, not through expropriation of the estates of the former nobility, but through colonization of territories to the east. Goebbels was horrified by Hitler's characterisation of socialism as \"a Jewish creation\", and his assertion that private property would not be expropriated by a Nazi government. \"I no longer fully believe in Hitler. That's the terrible thing: my inner support has been taken away\", he wrote in his diary.\n\nIn hopes of winning over the opposition, Hitler arranged meetings in Munich with the three Greater Ruhr Gau leaders, including Goebbels. Goebbels was impressed when Hitler sent his own car to meet them at the railway station. That evening Hitler and Goebbels both gave speeches at a beer hall rally. The following day, Hitler offered his hand in reconciliation to the three men, encouraging them to put their differences behind them. Hitler also gave Goebbels \"new insight\" into the \"social question\". Goebbels capitulated completely, offering Hitler his total loyalty – a pledge that was clearly sincere, and that he adhered to until the end of his life. \"I love him ... He has thought through everything,\" Goebbels wrote. \"Such a sparkling mind can be my leader. I bow to the greater one, the political genius\". Later he wrote: \"Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time. What one calls a genius.\" As a result of the Bamberg and Munich meetings, Strasser's new draft of the party programme was discarded. The original National Socialist Program of 1920 was retained unchanged, and Hitler's position as party leader was greatly strengthened.\n\nPropagandist in Berlin\n\nAt Hitler's invitation, Goebbels spoke at party meetings in Munich and at the annual Party Congress, held in Weimar in 1926. For the following year's event, Goebbels was involved in the planning for the first time. He and Hitler arranged for the rally to be filmed. Receiving praise for doing well at these events led Goebbels to shape his political ideas to match Hitler's, and to admire and idolize him even more.\n\nGoebbels was first offered the position of party Gauleiter for the Berlin section in August 1926. He travelled to Berlin in mid-September and by the middle of October accepted the position. Thus Hitler's plan to divide and dissolve the northwestern Gauleiters group that Goebbels had served in under Strasser was successful. Hitler gave Goebbels great authority over the area, allowing him to determine the course for organisation and leadership for the Gau. Goebbels was given control over the local Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) and answered only to Hitler. The party membership numbered about 1,000 when Goebbels arrived, and he reduced it to a core of 600 of the most active and promising members. To raise money, he instituted membership fees and began charging admission to party meetings. Aware of the value of publicity (both positive and negative), he deliberately provoked beer-hall battles and street brawls, including violent attacks on the Communist Party of Germany. Goebbels adapted recent developments in commercial advertising to the political sphere, including the use of catchy slogans and subliminal cues. His new ideas for poster design included using large type, red ink, and cryptic headers that encouraged the reader to examine the fine print to determine the meaning.\n\nLike Hitler, Goebbels practiced his public speaking skills in front of a mirror. Meetings were preceded by ceremonial marches and singing, and the venues were decorated with party banners. His entrance (almost always late) was timed for maximum emotional impact. He usually meticulously planned his speeches ahead of time, using pre-planned and choreographed inflection and gestures, but he was also able to improvise and adapt his presentation to make a good connection with his audience.\n\nGoebbels' tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the NSDAP, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the NSDAP from the city on 5 May 1927. Violent incidents continued, including young Nazis randomly attacking Jews in the streets. Goebbels was subjected to a public speaking ban until the end of October. During this period, he founded the newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) as a propaganda vehicle for the Berlin area. It was a modern-style newspaper which took an aggressive tone. To Goebbels' disappointment, circulation was initially small, only 2,000. Material in the paper was highly anti-communist and antisemitic. Among the paper's favourite targets was the Jewish Deputy Chief of the Berlin Police Bernhard Weiß. Goebbels gave him the derogatory nickname \"Isidore\" and subjected him to a relentless campaign of Jew-baiting in the hope of provoking a crackdown he could then exploit. Goebbels continued to try to break into the literary world, with a revised version of his book Michael finally being published, and the unsuccessful production of two of his plays (Der Wanderer and Die Saat (The Seed)). The latter was his final attempt at playwriting. During this period in Berlin he had relationships with many women, including his old flame Anka Stalherm, who was now married and had a small child. He was quick to fall in love, but easily tired of a relationship and moved on to someone new. He worried too about how a committed personal relationship might interfere with his career.\n\nThe ban on the NSDAP was lifted in early 1928, in time for the Reichstag elections, held on 20 May. Results were poor, with the NSDAP losing nearly 100,000 voters and earning only 2.6 per cent of the vote nationwide. Results in Berlin were even worse, where they attained only 1.4 per cent of the vote. Goebbels was one of twelve NSDAP members to gain election to the Reichstag. This gave him immunity from prosecution for a long list of outstanding charges, including a three-week jail sentence he received in April for insulting the deputy police chief Weiß. The Reichstag changed the immunity regulations in February 1931, and Goebbels was forced to pay fines for libellous material he had placed in Der Angriff over the course of the previous year.\n\nIn his newspaper Berliner Arbeiterzeitung (Berlin Workers Newspaper), Gregor Strasser was highly critical of Goebbels' failure to attract the urban vote. However, the party as a whole did much better in rural areas, attracting as much as 18 per cent of the vote in some regions. This was partly because Hitler had publicly stated just prior to the election that Point 17 of the party programme, which mandated the expropriation of land without compensation, would apply only to Jewish speculators and not private landholders. After the election, the party refocused their efforts to try to attract still more votes in the agricultural sector. In May, shortly after the election, Hitler considered appointing Goebbels as party propaganda chief. But he hesitated, as he worried that the removal of Gregor Strasser from the post would lead to a split in the party. Goebbels considered himself well suited to the position, and began to formulate ideas about how propaganda could be used in schools and the media.\n\nBy 1930, the violence between the Nazis and communists led to local SA troop leader Horst Wessel being shot by two members of the Communist Party of Germany. He later died in hospital. Exploiting Wessel's death, Goebbels turned him into a martyr for the Nazi movement. He officially declared Wessel's march Die Fahne hoch (Raise the flag), renamed as the Horst-Wessel-Lied, to be the NSDAP anthem.\n\nThe Great Depression greatly impacted Germany and by 1930 there was a dramatic increase in unemployment. During this time, the Strasser brothers started publishing a new daily newspaper in Berlin, the Nationaler Sozialist. Like their other publications, it conveyed the brothers' own brand of Nazism, including nationalism, anti-capitalism, social reform, and anti-Westernism. Goebbels complained vehemently about the rival Strasser newspapers to Hitler, and admitted that their success was causing his own Berlin newspapers to be \"pushed to the wall\". In late April 1930, Hitler publicly and firmly announced his opposition to Gregor Strasser and appointed Goebbels to replace him as Reich leader of NSDAP propaganda. One of Goebbels' first acts was to ban the evening edition of the Nationaler Sozialist. Goebbels was also given control of other Nazi papers across the country, including the party's national newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer). He still had to wait until 3 July for Otto Strasser and his supporters to announce they were leaving the NSDAP. Upon receiving the news, Goebbels was relieved the \"crisis\" with the Strassers was finally over and glad that Otto Strasser had lost all power.\n\nThe rapid deterioration of the economy led to the resignation on 27 March 1930 of the coalition government that had been elected in 1928. A new cabinet was formed, and Paul von Hindenburg used his power as president to govern via emergency decrees. He appointed Heinrich Brüning as chancellor. Goebbels took charge of the NSDAP's national campaign for Reichstag elections called for 14 September 1930. Campaigning was undertaken on a huge scale, with thousands of meetings and speeches held all over the country. Hitler's speeches focused on blaming the country's economic woes on the Weimar Republic, particularly its adherence to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which called for war reparations that had proven devastating to the German economy. He proposed a new German society based on race and national unity. The resulting success took even Hitler and Goebbels by surprise: the party received 6.5 million votes nationwide and took 107 seats in the Reichstag, making it the second largest party in the country.\n\nIn late 1930 Goebbels met Magda Quandt, a divorcée who had joined the party a few months earlier. She worked as a volunteer in the party offices in Berlin, helping Goebbels organize his private papers. Her flat on the Reichkanzlerplatz soon became a favourite meeting place for Hitler and other NSDAP officials. Goebbels and Quandt married on 19 December 1931.\n\nFor two further elections held in 1932, Goebbels organized massive campaigns that included rallies, parades, speeches, and Hitler travelling around the country by airplane with the slogan \"the Führer over Germany\". Goebbels also undertook numerous speaking tours during these election campaigns. Goebbels had some of their speeches published on gramophone records and as pamphlets. He was also involved in the production of a small collection of silent films that could be shown at party meetings, though they did not yet have enough equipment to widely use this medium. Many of Goebbels' campaign posters used violent imagery such as a giant half-clad male destroying political opponents or other perceived enemies such as \"International High Finance\". His propaganda characterized the opposition as \"November criminals\", \"Jewish wire-pullers\", or a communist threat. Support for the party continued to grow, but neither of these elections led to a majority government. In an effort to stabilize the country and improve economic conditions, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Reich chancellor on 30 January 1933.\n\nPropaganda Minister\n\nTo celebrate Hitler's appointment as chancellor, Goebbels organized a torchlit parade in Berlin on the night of 30 January of an estimated 60,000 men, many in the uniforms of the SA and SS. The spectacle was covered by a live state radio broadcast, with commentary by longtime party member and future Minister of Aviation Hermann Göring. Goebbels was disappointed to not be given a post in Hitler's new cabinet. Bernhard Rust was appointed as Minister of Culture, the post Goebbels was expecting to receive. Like other NSDAP officials, Goebbels had to deal with Hitler's leadership style of giving contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped. In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power. The NSDAP took advantage of the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933, with Hindenburg passing the Reichstag Fire Decree the following day at Hitler's urging. This was the first of several pieces of legislation that dismantled democracy in Germany and put a totalitarian dictatorship—headed by Hitler—in its place. On 5 March, yet another Reichstag election took place, the last to be held before the defeat of the Nazis at the end of the Second World War. While the NSDAP increased their number of seats and percentage of the vote, it was not the landslide expected by the party leadership. Goebbels finally received Hitler's appointment to the cabinet, officially becoming head of the newly created Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 14 March.\n\nThe role of the new ministry, which set up its offices in the 18th-century Ordenspalais across from the Reich Chancellery, was to centralise Nazi control of all aspects of German cultural and intellectual life. Goebbels hoped to increase popular support of the party from the 37 per cent achieved at the last free election held in Germany on 25 March 1933 to 100 per cent support. An unstated goal was to present to other nations the impression that the NSDAP had the full and enthusiastic backing of the entire population. One of Goebbels' first productions was staging the Day of Potsdam, a ceremonial passing of power from Hindenburg to Hitler, held in Potsdam on 21 March. He composed the text of Hitler's decree authorizing the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, held on 1 April. Later that month, Goebbels travelled back to Rheydt, where he was given a triumphal reception. The townsfolk lined the main street, which had been renamed in his honour. On the following day, Goebbels was declared a local hero.\n\nGoebbels converted the 1 May holiday from a celebration of workers' rights (observed as such especially by the communists) into a day celebrating the NSDAP. In place of the usual ad hoc labour celebrations, he organized a huge party rally held at Tempelhof Field in Berlin. The following day, all trade union offices in the country were forcibly disbanded by the SA and SS, and the Nazi-run German Labour Front was created to take their place. \"We are the masters of Germany\", he commented in his diary entry of 3 May. Less than two weeks later, he gave a speech at the Nazi book burning in Berlin on 10 May.\n\nMeanwhile, the NSDAP began passing laws to marginalize Jews and remove them from German society. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933, forced all non-Aryans to retire from the legal profession and civil service. Similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of their right to practise. The first Nazi concentration camps (initially created to house political dissenters) were founded shortly after Hitler seized power. In a process termed Gleichschaltung (co-ordination), the NSDAP proceeded to rapidly bring all aspects of life under control of the party. All civilian organisations, including agricultural groups, volunteer organisations, and sports clubs, had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members. By June 1933, virtually the only organisations not in the control of the NSDAP were the army and the churches. In a move to manipulate Germany's middle class and shape popular opinion, the regime passed on 4 October 1933 the Schriftleitergesetz (Editor's Law), which became the cornerstone of the Nazi Party's control of the popular press. Modeled to some extent on the system in Benito Mussolini's Italy, the law defined a Schriftleiter as anyone who wrote, edited, or selected texts and/or illustrated material for serial publication. Individuals selected for this position were chosen based on experiential, educational, and racial criteria. The law required journalists to \"regulate their work in accordance with National Socialism as a philosophy of life and as a conception of government.\"\n\nAt the end of June 1934, top officials of the SA and opponents of the regime, including Gregor Strasser, were arrested and killed in a purge later called the Night of Long Knives. Goebbels was present at the arrest of SA leader Ernst Röhm in Munich. On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. In a radio broadcast, Goebbels announced that the offices of president and chancellor had been combined, and Hitler had been formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).\n\nWorkings of the Ministry\n\nThe propaganda ministry was organized into seven departments: administration and legal; mass rallies, public health, youth, and race; radio; national and foreign press; films and film censorship; art, music, and theatre; and protection against counter-propaganda, both foreign and domestic. Goebbels style of leadership was tempestuous and unpredictable. He would suddenly change direction and shift his support between senior associates; he was a difficult boss and liked to berate his staff in public. Goebbels was successful at his job, however; Life wrote in 1938 that \"[p]ersonally he likes nobody, is liked by nobody, and runs the most efficient Nazi department.\"\n\nThe Reich Film Chamber, which all members of the film industry were required to join, was created in June 1933. Goebbels promoted the development of films with a Nazi slant, and ones that contained subliminal or overt propaganda messages. Under the auspices of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture), created in September, Goebbels added additional sub-chambers for the fields of broadcasting, fine arts, literature, music, the press, and the theatre. As in the film industry, anyone wishing to pursue a career in these fields had to be a member of the corresponding chamber. In this way anyone whose views were contrary to the regime could be excluded from working in their chosen field and thus silenced. In addition, journalists (now considered employees of the state) were required to prove Aryan descent back to the year 1800, and if married, the same requirement applied to the spouse. Members of any chamber were not allowed to leave the country for their work without prior permission of their chamber. A committee was established to censor books, and works could not be re-published unless they were on the list of approved works. Similar regulations applied to other fine arts and entertainment; even cabaret performances were censored. Many German artists and intellectuals left Germany in the pre-war years rather than work under these restrictions.\n\nGoebbels was particularly interested in controlling radio, which was then still a fairly new mass medium. Sometimes under protest from individual states (particularly Prussia, headed by Göring), Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide, and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (German National Broadcasting Corporation) in July 1934. Manufacturers were urged by Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger (people's receiver), and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold. Loudspeakers were placed in public areas, factories, and schools, so that important party broadcasts would be heard live by nearly all Germans. On 2 September 1939 (the day after the start of the war), Goebbels and the Council of Ministers proclaimed it illegal to listen to foreign radio stations. Disseminating news from foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty. Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later Minister for Armaments and War Production, later said the regime \"made the complete use of all technical means for domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought.\"\n\nA major focus of Nazi propaganda was Hitler himself, who was glorified as a heroic and infallible leader and became the focus of a cult of personality. Much of this was spontaneous, but some was stage-managed as part of Goebbels' propaganda work. Adulation of Hitler was the focus of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, where his moves were carefully choreographed. The rally was the subject of the film Triumph of the Will, one of several Nazi propaganda films directed by Leni Riefenstahl. It won the Gold Medal at the 1935 Venice Film Festival. At the 1935 Nazi party congress rally at Nuremberg, Goebbels declared that \"Bolshevism is the declaration of war by Jewish-led international subhumans against culture itself.\"\n\nGoebbels was involved in planning the staging of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin. It was around this time that he met and started having an affair with the actress Lída Baarová, whom he continued to see until 1938. A major project in 1937 was the Degenerate Art Exhibition, organised by Goebbels, which ran in Munich from July to November. The exhibition proved wildly popular, attracting over two million visitors. A degenerate music exhibition took place the following year. Meanwhile, Goebbels was disappointed by the lack of quality in the National Socialist artwork, films, and literature.\n\nChurch struggle\n\nIn 1933, Hitler signed the Reichskonkordat (Reich Concordat), a treaty with the Vatican that required the regime to honour the independence of Catholic institutions and prohibited clergy from involvement in politics. However, the regime continued to target the Christian churches and to try to weaken their influence. Throughout 1935 and 1936, hundreds of clergy, nuns, and lay leaders were arrested, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or sexual offences. Goebbels widely publicised the trials in his propaganda campaigns, showing the cases in the worst possible light. Restrictions were placed on public meetings, and Catholic publications faced censorship. Catholic schools were required to reduce religious instruction and crucifixes were removed from state buildings. Hitler often vacillated on whether or not the Kirchenkampf (church struggle) should be a priority, but his frequent inflammatory comments on the issue were enough to convince Goebbels to intensify his work on the issue in the first half of 1937.\n\nIn response to the persecution, Pope Pius XI had the \"Mit brennender Sorge\" (\"With Burning Concern\") Encyclical smuggled into Germany for Passion Sunday 1937 and read from every pulpit. It denounced the systematic hostility of the regime toward the church. In response, Goebbels renewed the regime's crackdown and propaganda against Catholics. His speech of 28 May in Berlin in front of 20,000 party members, which was also broadcast on the radio, attacked the Catholic church as morally corrupt. As a result of the propaganda campaign, enrolment in denominational schools dropped sharply, and by 1939 all such schools were disbanded or converted to public facilities. Harassment and threats of imprisonment led the clergy to be much more cautious in their criticism of the regime. Partly out of foreign policy concerns, Hitler ordered a scaling back the church struggle by the end of July 1937.\n\nGoebbels at war\n\nAs early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must be undertaken, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. A year later he told his military leaders that 1942 was the target date for going to war in the east. Goebbels was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hitler aggressively pursuing Germany's expansionist policies sooner rather than later. At the time of the Reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936, Goebbels summed up his general attitude in his diary: \"[N]ow is the time for action. Fortune favors the brave! He who dares nothing wins nothing.\" In the lead-up to the Sudetenland crisis in 1938, Goebbels took the initiative time and again to use propaganda to whip up sympathy for the Sudeten Germans while campaigning against the Czech government. Still, Goebbels was well aware there was a growing \"war panic\" in Germany and so by July had the press conduct propaganda efforts at a lower level of intensity. After the western powers acceded to Hitler's demands concerning Czechoslovakia in 1938, Goebbels soon redirected his propaganda machine against Poland. From May onwards, he orchestrated a campaign against Poland, fabricating stories about atrocities against ethnic Germans in Danzig and other cities. Even so, he was unable to persuade the majority of Germans to welcome the prospect of war. He privately held doubts about the wisdom of risking a protracted war against Britain and France by attacking Poland.\n\nAfter the Invasion of Poland in 1939, Goebbels used his propaganda ministry and the Reich chambers to control access to information domestically. To his chagrin, his rival Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, continually challenged Goebbels' jurisdiction over the dissemination of international propaganda. Hitler declined to make a firm ruling on the subject, so the two men remained rivals for the remainder of the Nazi era. Goebbels did not participate in the military decision making process, nor was he made privy to diplomatic negotiations until after the fact.\n\nThe Propaganda Ministry took over the broadcasting facilities of conquered countries immediately after surrender, and began broadcasting prepared material using the existing announcers as a way to gain the trust of the citizens. Most aspects of the media, both domestically and in the conquered countries, were controlled by Goebbels and his department. The German Home Service, the Armed Forces Programme, and the German European Service were all rigorously controlled in everything from the information they were permitted to disseminate to the music they were allowed to play. Party rallies, speeches, and demonstrations continued; speeches were broadcast on the radio and short propaganda films were exhibited using 1,500 mobile film vans. Hitler made fewer public appearances and broadcasts as the war progressed, so Goebbels increasingly became the voice of the Nazi regime for the German people. From May 1940 he wrote frequent editorials that were published in Das Reich which were later read aloud over the radio. He found films to be his most effective propaganda medium, after radio. At his insistence, initially half the films made in wartime Germany were propaganda films (particularly on antisemitism) and war propaganda films (recounting both historical wars and current exploits of the Wehrmacht).\n\nGoebbels became preoccupied with morale and the efforts of the people on the home front. He believed that the more the people at home were involved in the war effort, the better their morale would be. For example, he initiated a programme for the collection of winter clothing and ski equipment for troops on the eastern front. At the same time, Goebbels implemented changes to have more \"entertaining material\" in radio and film produced for the public, decreeing in late 1942 that 20 per cent of the films should be propaganda and 80 per cent light entertainment. As Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels dealt with increasingly serious shortages of necessities such as food and clothing, as well as the need to ration beer and tobacco, which were important for morale. Hitler suggested watering the beer and degrading the quality of the cigarettes so that more could be produced, but Goebbels refused, saying the cigarettes were already of such low quality that it was impossible to make them any worse. Through his propaganda campaigns, he worked hard to maintain an appropriate level of morale among the public about the military situation, neither too optimistic nor too grim. The series of military setbacks the Germans suffered in this period – the thousand-bomber raid on Cologne (May 1942), the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein (November 1942), and especially the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad (February 1943) – were difficult matters to present to the German public, who were increasingly weary of the war and sceptical that it could be won. On 15 January 1943, Hitler appointed Goebbels as head of the newly created Air Raid Damage committee, which meant Goebbels was nominally in charge of nationwide civil air defenses and shelters as well as the assessment and repair of damaged buildings. In actuality, the defence of areas other than Berlin remained in the hands of the local Gauleiters, and his main tasks were limited to providing immediate aid to the affected civilians and using propaganda to improve their morale.\n\nBy early 1943, the war produced a labour crisis for the regime. Hitler created a three-man committee with representatives of the State, the army, and the Party in an attempt to centralise control of the war economy. The committee members were Hans Lammers (head of the Reich Chancellery), Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command; OKW), and Martin Bormann, who controlled the Party. The committee was intended to independently propose measures regardless of the wishes of various ministries, with Hitler reserving most final decisions to himself. The committee, soon known as the Dreierausschuß (Committee of Three), met eleven times between January and August 1943. However, they ran up against resistance from Hitler's cabinet ministers, who headed deeply entrenched spheres of influence and were excluded from the committee. Seeing it as a threat to their power, Goebbels, Göring, and Speer worked together to bring it down. The result was that nothing changed, and the Committee of Three declined into irrelevance by September 1943.\n\nPartly in response to being excluded from the Committee of Three, Goebbels pressured Hitler to introduce measures that would produce \"total war\", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht. Some of these measures were implemented in an edict of 13 January, but to Goebbels' dismay, Göring demanded that his favourite restaurants in Berlin should remain open, and Lammers successfully lobbied Hitler to have women with children exempted from conscription, even if they had child care available. After receiving an enthusiastic response to his speech of 30 January 1943 on the topic, Goebbels believed he had the support of the German people in his call for total war. His next speech, the Sportpalast speech of 18 February 1943, was a passionate demand for his audience to commit to total war, which he presented as the only way to stop the Bolshevik onslaught and save the German people from destruction. The speech also had a strong antisemitic element and hinted at the extermination of the Jewish people that was already underway. The speech was presented live on radio and was filmed as well. Goebbels' efforts had little impact for the time being, as while Hitler was in principle in favour of total war, he was not prepared to implement changes over the objections of his ministers. The discovery around this time of a mass grave of Polish officers that had been killed by the Red Army in the 1940 Katyn massacre was made use of by Goebbels in his propaganda in an attempt to drive a wedge between the Soviets and the other western allies.\n\nPlenipotentiary for total war\n\nAfter the Allied invasion of Sicily (July 1943) and the strategic Soviet victory in the Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943), Goebbels began to recognize that the war could no longer be won. Following the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall of Mussolini in September, he raised with Hitler the possibility of a separate peace, either with the Soviets or with Britain. Hitler rejected both of these proposals.\n\nAs Germany's military and economic situation grew steadily worse, on 25 August 1943 Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler took over the post of interior minister, replacing Wilhelm Frick. (H. R. Knickerbocker had written in 1941 that Goebbels and Himmler were \"rivals in unpopularity\", and that Goebbels \"would be lucky to remain alive twenty-four hours after Hitler's protective hand was removed\". ) Intensive air raids on Berlin and other cities took the lives of thousands of people. Göring's Luftwaffe attempted to retaliate with air raids on London in early 1944, but they no longer had sufficient aircraft to make much of an impact. While Goebbels' propaganda in this period indicated that a huge retaliation was in the offing, the V-1 flying bombs, launched on British targets beginning in mid-June 1944, had little effect, with only around 20 per cent reaching their intended targets. To boost morale, Goebbels continued to publish propaganda to the effect that further improvements to these weapons would have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, in the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, the Allies successfully gained a foothold in France.\n\nThroughout July, Goebbels and Speer continued to press Hitler to bring the economy to a total war footing. The 20 July plot, where Hitler was almost killed by a bomb at his field headquarters in East Prussia, played into the hands of those who had been pushing for change: Bormann, Goebbels, Himmler, and Speer. Over the objections of Göring, Goebbels was appointed on 23 July as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War, charged with maximising the manpower for the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry at the expense of sectors of the economy not critical to the war effort. Through these efforts, he was able to free up an additional half a million men for military service. However, as many of these new recruits came from the armaments industry, the move put him in conflict with armaments minister Speer. Untrained workers from elsewhere were not readily absorbed into the armaments industry, and likewise the new Wehrmacht recruits waited in barracks for their turn to be trained.\n\nAt Hitler's behest, the Volkssturm (People's Storm) – a nationwide militia of men previously considered unsuitable for military service – was formed on 18 October 1944. Goebbels recorded in his diary that 100,000 recruits were sworn in from his Gau alone. However, the men, mostly age 45 to 60, received only rudimentary training and many were not properly armed. Goebbels' notion that these men could effectively serve on the front lines against Soviet tanks and artillery was unrealistic at best. The programme was deeply unpopular.\n\nDefeat and death\n\nIn the last months of the war, Goebbels' speeches and articles took on an increasingly apocalyptic tone. By the beginning of 1945, with the Soviets on the Oder River and the Western Allies preparing to cross the Rhine, he could no longer disguise the fact that defeat was inevitable. Berlin had little in the way of fortifications or artillery (or even Volkssturm units), as almost everything had been sent to the front. Goebbels noted in his diary on 21 January that millions of Germans were fleeing westward. He tentatively discussed with Hitler the issue of making peace overtures to the western allies, but Hitler again refused. Privately, Goebbels was conflicted at pushing the case with Hitler since he did not want to lose the confidence of his Führer.\n\nWhen other Nazi leaders urged Hitler to leave Berlin and establish a new centre of resistance in the National Redoubt in Bavaria, Goebbels opposed this, arguing for a last heroic stand in Berlin. His family (except for Magda's son Harald, who had served in the Luftwaffe and been captured by the Allies) moved into their house in Berlin to await the end. He and Magda may have discussed suicide and the fate of their young children in a long meeting on the night of 27 January. He knew how the outside world would view the criminal acts committed by the regime, and had no desire to subject himself to the \"debacle\" of a trial. He burned his private papers on the night of 18 April.\n\nGoebbels knew how to play on Hitler's fantasies, encouraging him to see the hand of providence in the death of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April. Whether Hitler really saw this event as a turning point as Goebbels proclaimed is not known. By this time, Goebbels had gained the position he had wanted so long – at the side of Hitler. Göring was utterly discredited, although he was not stripped of his offices until 23 April. Himmler, whose appointment as commander of Army Group Vistula had led to disaster on the Oder, was also in disgrace with Hitler. Most of Hitler's inner circle, including Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, and Speer, prepared to leave Berlin immediately after Hitler's birthday celebration on 20 April. Even Bormann was \"not anxious\" to meet his end at Hitler's side. On 22 April, Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself. Goebbels moved with his family into the Vorbunker, connected to the lower Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery garden in central Berlin, that same day. He told Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss that he would not entertain the idea of either surrender or escape. On 23 April, Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:\n\nAfter midnight on 29 April, with the Soviets advancing ever closer to the bunker complex, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony within the Führerbunker. Afterwards Hitler hosted a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife. Hitler then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. Goebbels and Bormann were two of the witnesses.\n\nIn his last will and testament, Hitler named no successor as Führer or leader of the Nazi Party. Instead, he appointed Goebbels as Reich Chancellor; Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who was at Flensburg near the Danish border, Reich President; and Bormann as Party Minister. Goebbels wrote a postscript to the will stating that he would disobey Hitler's order to leave Berlin: \"For reasons of humanity and personal loyalty\" he had to stay. Further, his wife and children would be staying, as well. They would end their lives \"side by side with the Führer\".\n\nIn the mid-afternoon of 30 April, Hitler shot himself. After Hitler's suicide, Goebbels was depressed. Voss later recounted Goebbels said: \"It is a great pity that such a man is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way out left for us is the one which Hitler chose. I shall follow his example.\"\n\nOn 1 May, Goebbels completed his sole official act as Chancellor. He dictated a letter to General Vasily Chuikov and ordered German General Hans Krebs to deliver it under a white flag. Chuikov, as commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, commanded the Soviet forces in central Berlin. Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire. After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.\n\nLater on 1 May, Vice-Admiral Voss saw Goebbels for the last time: \"... While saying goodbye I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: 'The captain must not leave his sinking ship. I have thought about it all and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go because with little children I will not be able to make it, especially with a leg like mine...' \"\n\nOn the evening of 1 May 1945, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to inject his six children with morphine so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of cyanide could be then crushed in each of their mouths. According to Kunz's later testimony, he gave the children morphine injections but it was Magda Goebbels and SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler's personal doctor, who administered the cyanide.\n\nAt around 20:30, Goebbels and Magda left the bunker and walked up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they committed suicide. There are several different accounts of this event. According to one account, Goebbels shot Magda and then himself. Another account was that they each bit on a cyanide ampule and were given a coup de grâce immediately afterwards. Goebbels' SS adjutant Günther Schwägermann testified in 1948 that they walked ahead of him up the stairs and out into the Chancellery garden. He waited in the stairwell and heard the shots sound. Schwägermann then walked up the remaining stairs and once outside he saw their lifeless bodies. Following Goebbels' prior order, Schwägermann had an SS soldier fire several shots into his body, which did not move.\n\nThe bodies were then doused with petrol, but they were only partially burned and not buried. A few days later, Voss was brought back to the bunker by the Soviets to identify the partly burned bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their children. The remains of the Goebbels' family, Hitler, Braun, General Krebs, and Hitler's dogs were repeatedly buried and exhumed. The last burial was at the SMERSH facility in Magdeburg on 21 February 1946. In 1970, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorised an operation to destroy the remains. On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team used detailed burial charts to exhume five wooden boxes at the Magdeburg SMERSH facility. Those were burned, crushed, and scattered into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.\n\nAntisemitism and the Holocaust\n\nLike many Germans of that time, Goebbels was antisemitic from a young age. After joining the NSDAP and meeting Hitler, his antisemitism grew and became more radical. He began to see the Jews as a destructive force with a negative impact on German society. After the Nazis seized power, he repeatedly urged Hitler to take action against the Jews. The party's goal was to remove them from German cultural and economic life, and eventually to remove them from the country altogether. In addition to his propaganda efforts, Goebbels actively promoted the persecution of the Jews through pogroms, legislation, and other actions. Discriminatory measures he instituted in Berlin in the early years of the regime included bans against their using public transport and requiring that Jewish shops be marked as such.\n\nIn November 1938, the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath was killed in Paris by a young Jewish man. In response, Goebbels arranged for inflammatory antisemitic material to be released by the press, and the result was the start of a pogrom. Jews were attacked and synagogues destroyed all over Germany. The situation was further inflamed by a speech Goebbels gave at a party meeting on the night of 8 November, where he obliquely called for party members to incite further violence against Jews while making it appear to be a spontaneous series of acts by the German people. At least a hundred Jews were killed, several hundred synagogues were damaged or destroyed, and thousands of Jewish shops were vandalized in an event called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). Around 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. The destruction stopped after a conference held on 12 November, where Göring pointed out that the destruction of Jewish property was in effect the destruction of German property, since the intention was that it would all eventually be confiscated. Goebbels continued his intensive antisemitic propaganda campaign that culminated in Hitler's 30 January 1939 Reichstag speech, which Goebbels helped to write:\n\nWhile Goebbels had been pressing for expulsion of the Berlin Jews since 1935, there were still 62,000 living in the city in 1940. Part of the delay in their deportation was that they were needed as workers in the armaments industry. Deportations of German Jews began in October 1941, with the first transport from Berlin leaving on 18 October. Some Jews were shot immediately on arrival in destinations such as Riga and Kaunas. In preparation for the deportations, Goebbels ordered that all German Jews were required by law to wear an identifying yellow badge as of 5 September 1941. On 6 March 1942, Goebbels received a copy of the minutes of the Wannsee Conference. The document made the Nazi policy clear: the Jewish population of Europe was to be sent to extermination camps in occupied areas of Poland and killed. His diary entries of the period show that he was well aware of the fate of the Jews. \"In general, it can probably be established that 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work. ... A judgment is being carried out on the Jews which is barbaric but thoroughly deserved,\" he wrote on 27 March 1942.\n\nGoebbels had frequent discussions with Hitler about the fate of the Jews, a subject which they discussed almost every time they met. He was aware throughout that the Jews were being exterminated, and completely supported this decision. He was one of the few top NSDAP officials to do so publicly.\n\nFamily life\n\nHitler was very fond of Magda Goebbels and the children. He enjoyed staying at the Goebbels' Berlin apartment, where he could relax. Magda had a close relationship with Hitler, and became a member of his small coterie of female friends. She also became an unofficial representative of the regime, receiving letters from all over Germany from women with questions about domestic matters or child custody issues.\n\nIn 1936, Goebbels met the Czech actress Lída Baarová and by the winter of 1937 began an intense affair with her. Magda had a long conversation with Hitler about it on 15 August 1938. Unwilling to put up with a scandal involving one of his top ministers, Hitler demanded that Goebbels break off the relationship. Thereafter, Joseph and Magda seemed to reach a truce until the end of September. The couple had another falling out at that point, and once again Hitler became involved, insisting the couple stay together. Hitler arranged for publicity photos to be taken of himself with the reconciled couple in October. Magda too had affairs, including a relationship with Kurt Ludecke in 1933 and Karl Hanke in 1938.\n\nThe Goebbels family included Harald Quandt (Magda's son from her first marriage; born 1921), plus Helga (1932), Hilde (1934), Helmuth (1935), Holde (1937), Hedda (1938), and Heide (1940). Harald was the only member of the family to survive the war."
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Which prince is Queen Elizabeth II's youngest son?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948), is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Known alternatively in Scotland as Duke of Rothesay and in South West England as Duke of Cornwall, he is the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, having held the position since 1952. He is also the oldest person to be next in line to the throne since Sophia of Hanover (the heir presumptive to Queen Anne), who died in 1714 at the age of 83.\n\nCharles was born at Buckingham Palace as the first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun Schools, which his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had attended as a child, as well as the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976.\n\nIn 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer and they had two sons: Prince William (born 1982) later to become Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced, following well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died in a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who uses the title Duchess of Cornwall.\n\nCharles's interests encompass a range of humanitarian and social issues: he founded The Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince's Charities, and is patron of numerous other charitable and arts organisations. Charles has long championed organic farming for which he established the Duchy Home Farm, run by the Duchy of Cornwall, which produces ingredients for the Duchy Originals brand which he founded in 1990. Charles has sought to raise world awareness of the dangers facing the natural environment, such as climate change. As an environmentalist, he has received numerous awards and recognition from environmental groups around the world. His support for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, has been criticised by some in the medical community. He has been outspoken on the role of architecture in society and the conservation of historic buildings. Subsequently, Charles created Poundbury, an experimental new town based on his theories, in Dorset in 1993. He has authored a number of books, including A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture in 1989 and the children's book The Old Man of Lochnagar in 1980.\n\nEarly life\n\nCharles was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 November 1948, at 9.14 pm (GMT), the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, baptised him in the palace's Music Room on 15 December 1948, using water from the River Jordan. The Prince's godparents were: the King (his maternal grandfather); the King of Norway (his cousin, for whom the Earl of Athlone stood proxy); Queen Mary (his maternal great-grandmother); Princess Margaret (his maternal aunt); Prince George of Greece and Denmark (his paternal great-uncle, for whom the Duke of Edinburgh stood proxy); the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven (his paternal great-grandmother); the Lady Brabourne (his cousin); and the Hon David Bowes-Lyon (his maternal great-uncle). As the child of a daughter of the sovereign, Charles would not usually have been accorded the titles of a British prince or the style Royal Highness. Instead, he would have taken his father's secondary title, Earl of Merioneth, as a courtesy title. However, on 22 October 1948, George VI had issued letters patent granting a royal and princely status to any children of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, making Charles a royal prince from birth. \n\nWhen Charles was aged three his mother's accession as Queen Elizabeth II made him her heir apparent. As the sovereign's eldest son, he automatically took the titles Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, in addition to being a prince of the United Kingdom. Charles attended his mother's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953, seated alongside his grandmother and aunt. As was customary for royal offspring, a governess, Catherine Peebles, was appointed and undertook his education between the ages of five and eight. Buckingham Palace announced in 1955 that Charles would attend school rather than have a private tutor, making him the first heir apparent ever to be educated in that manner. \n\nYouth\n\nEducation\n\nCharles first attended Hill House School in west London, receiving non-preferential treatment from the school's founder and then head, Stuart Townend, who advised the Queen to have Charles train in football because the boys were never deferential to anyone on the football field. Charles then attended two of his father's former schools, Cheam Preparatory School in Berkshire, England, followed by Gordonstoun in the north-east of Scotland. He reportedly despised the latter school, which he described as \"Colditz in kilts\". He spent two terms in 1966 at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia, during which time he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. Upon his return to Gordonstoun, Charles emulated his father in becoming Head Boy. He left in 1967, with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C, respectively. \n\nTradition was broken again when Charles proceeded straight from secondary school into university, as opposed to joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, the Prince was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read anthropology, archaeology, and history. During his second year, Charles attended the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and language for a term. He graduated from Cambridge with a 2:2 Bachelor of Arts on 23 June 1970, the first heir apparent to earn a university degree. On 2 August 1975, he was subsequently awarded a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge, per the university's tradition.\n\nCreated Prince of Wales\n\nCharles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 26 July 1958, though his investiture as such was not conducted until 1 July 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony held at Caernarfon Castle, and gave his replies and speech in both Welsh and English. The following year he took his seat in the House of Lords, and later in the decade became the first member of the Royal Family since King George I to attend a British Cabinet meeting, having been invited by Prime Minister James Callaghan so that the Prince might see the workings of the British government and Cabinet at first hand. Charles also began to take on more public duties, founding The Prince's Trust in 1976, and travelling to the United States in 1981. \n\nIn the mid-1970s, the Prince expressed an interest in serving as Governor-General of Australia; Commander Michael Parker explained: \"The idea behind the appointment was for him to put a foot on the ladder of monarchy, or being the future King and start learning the trade.\" However, because of a combination of nationalist feeling in Australia and the dismissal of the government by the Governor-General in 1975, nothing came of the proposal. Charles accepted the decision of the Australian ministers, if not without some regret; he reportedly stated: \"What are you supposed to think when you are prepared to do something to help and you are told you are not wanted?\" \n\nCharles is the oldest heir apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales, and the second-longest serving Prince of Wales, behind Edward VII, whose record he would surpass on 9 September 2017. If he became monarch at present he would be the oldest person to do so; the current record holder is William IV, who was 64 when he became king in 1830.\n\nMilitary training and career\n\nFollowing royal tradition, Charles served in the navy and air force. After requesting and receiving Royal Air Force training during his second year at Cambridge, on 8 March 1971, he flew himself to the Royal Air Force College Cranwell to train as a jet pilot. Following the passing-out parade that September, he embarked on a naval career, enrolling in a six-week course at the Royal Naval College Dartmouth and then serving on the guided missile destroyer (1971–1972) and the frigates (1972–1973) and (1974). He also qualified as a helicopter pilot at RNAS Yeovilton in 1974, just prior to joining 845 Naval Air Squadron, operating from .\n\nOn 9 February 1976, he took command of the coastal minehunter for his last ten months serving actively in the navy. He learned to fly on a Chipmunk basic pilot trainer, a BAC Jet Provost jet trainer, and a Beagle Basset multi-engine trainer; he then regularly flew the Hawker Siddeley Andover, Westland Wessex and BAe 146 aircraft of The Queen's Flight. \n\nEarly romances\n\nIn his youth, Charles was linked to a number of women. His great-uncle Lord Mountbatten advised him: \"In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for ... It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage.\"\n\nCharles's female friends included Georgiana Russell, daughter of the British Ambassador to Spain; Lady Jane Wellesley, daughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington; Davina Sheffield; Lady Sarah Spencer; and Camilla Shand, who later became his second wife and Duchess of Cornwall.\n\nEarly in 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to Amanda Knatchbull, Mountbatten's granddaughter. Charles wrote to Amanda's mother, Lady Brabourne (who was also his godmother), expressing interest in her daughter, to which she replied approvingly, though suggesting that a courtship with the not yet 16-year-old girl was premature. Four years later Mountbatten arranged for himself and Amanda to accompany Charles on his 1980 tour of India. Both fathers, however, objected; Philip feared that Charles would be eclipsed by his famous uncle (who had served as the last British Viceroy and first Governor-General of India), while Lord Brabourne warned that a joint visit would concentrate media attention on the cousins before they could decide on becoming a couple. However, in August 1979, before Charles would depart alone for India, Mountbatten was killed by the IRA. When Charles returned, he proposed to Amanda, but in addition to her grandfather, she had lost her paternal grandmother and youngest brother Nicholas in the bomb attack and was now reluctant to join the Royal Family. In June 1980, Charles officially turned down Chevening House, placed at his disposal since 1974, as his future residence. Chevening, a stately home in Kent, was bequeathed, along with an endowment, to the Crown by the last Earl Stanhope, Amanda's childless great-uncle, in the hope that Charles would eventually occupy it. In 1977, a newspaper report mistakenly announced his engagement to Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg.\n\nFirst marriage\n\nAlthough Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977—while visiting her home, Althorp, as the companion of her elder sister, Sarah—he did not consider her romantically until mid-1980. While sitting together on a bale of hay at a friend's barbecue in July, he mentioned Mountbatten's death, to which Diana replied that Charles had looked forlorn and in need of care during his uncle's funeral. Soon, according to Charles's chosen biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, \"without any apparent surge in feeling, he began to think seriously of her as a potential bride\", and she accompanied Charles on visits to Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House.\n\nCharles's cousin, Norton Knatchbull (Amanda's eldest brother), and his wife told Charles that Diana appeared awestruck by his position and that he did not seem to be in love with her. Meanwhile, the couple's continued courtship attracted intense press and paparazzi attention. When Prince Philip told him that the media speculation would injure Diana's reputation if Charles did not come to a decision about marrying her soon, and realizing that she was a suitable royal bride (according to Mountbatten's criteria), Charles construed his father's advice as a warning to proceed without further delay.\n\nPrince Charles proposed to Diana in February 1981 and they married in St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July. Upon his marriage, Charles reduced his voluntary tax contribution from the profits generated by the Duchy of Cornwall from 50% to 25%. The couple made their homes at Kensington Palace and at Highgrove House, near Tetbury, and had two children: Princes William (born 21 June 1982) and Henry (known as \"Harry\") (born 15 September 1984). Charles set precedent by being the first royal father to be present at his children's births. Persistent suggestions that Harry's father is not Charles but James Hewitt, with whom Diana had an affair, have been based on a physical similarity between Hewitt and Harry. However, Harry had already been born by the time the affair between Hewitt and Diana began. \n\nSeparation and divorce\n\nWithin five years, the couple's incompatibility and near thirteen-year age difference, as well as Diana's concern about Charles's previous girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles, became visible and damaging to their marriage. Their evident discomfort in each other's company led to them being dubbed \"The Glums\" in the press. Diana exposed Charles's affair with Camilla in a book by Andrew Morton, Diana, Her True Story. Tapes of her own extramarital flirtations also surfaced.\n\nIn December 1992, the British Prime Minister, John Major, announced their formal separation in Parliament. That same year, the British press published bugged recordings of a passionate private 1989 telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996. When Diana died in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, Charles flew there, with Diana's sisters, to accompany her body back to Britain. \n\nSecond marriage\n\nThe engagement of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles was announced on 10 February 2005; he presented her with an engagement ring which had belonged to his grandmother. The Queen's consent to the marriage (as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772) was recorded in a Privy Council meeting on 2 March. In Canada, the Department of Justice announced its decision that the Queen's Privy Council for Canada was not required to meet to give its consent to the marriage, as the union would not result in offspring and would have no impact on the succession to the Canadian throne. \n\nCharles is the first member of the Royal Family to have a civil, rather than religious, wedding in England. Government documents from the 1950s and 1960s, published by the BBC, stated that such a marriage was illegal, though these were dismissed by Charles's spokesman, and explained to be obsolete by the sitting government. \n\nThe marriage was to take place in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, with a subsequent religious blessing at St George's Chapel. However, because a civil marriage at Windsor Castle would oblige the venue to be available to anyone wishing to be married there, the location was changed to Windsor Guildhall. On 4 April the originally scheduled date of 8 April was postponed by one day, to allow Charles and some of the invited dignitaries to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. \n\nCharles's parents did not attend the civil marriage ceremony; the Queen's reluctance to attend perhaps arising from her position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh did attend the service of blessing, and held a reception for the newlyweds at Windsor Castle afterwards. The blessing, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, was televised. \n\nSocial interests\n\nPhilanthropy and charity\n\nSince founding The Prince's Trust in 1976, Charles has established sixteen more charitable organisations, and now serves as president of all of those. Together, these form a loose alliance called The Prince's Charities, which describes itself as \"the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the United Kingdom, raising over £100million annually ... [and is] active across a broad range of areas including education and young people, environmental sustainability, the built environment, responsible business and enterprise and international.\"\n\nIn 2010, The Prince's Charities Canada was established in a similar fashion to its namesake in the UK. Charles is also patron of over 350 other charities and organisations, and carries out duties related to these throughout the Commonwealth realms; for example, he uses his tours of Canada as a way to help draw attention to youth, the disabled, the environment, the arts, medicine, the elderly, heritage conservation, and education. In Canada, Charles has supported humanitarian projects, for example taking part, along with his two sons, in the ceremonies marking the 1998 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Charles has also set up The Prince's Charities Australia, which is based in Melbourne, Victoria. The Prince's Charities Australia is to provide a coordinating presence for the Prince of Wales’s Australian and international charitable endeavors. \n\nCharles was one of the first world leaders to express strong concerns about the human rights record of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, initiating objections in the international arena, and subsequently supported the FARA Foundation, a charity for Romanian orphans and abandoned children. \n\nIn 2013, Charles donated an unspecified sum of money to the British Red Cross Syria Crisis appeal and DEC Syria appeal, which is run by 14 British charities to help victims of the Syrian civil war. According to The Guardian, It is believed that after turning 65 years old in 2013, Charles donated his state pension to an unnamed charity which supports elderly people. In March 2014, Charles arranged for five million measles-rubella vaccinations for children in the Philippines on the outbreak of measles in South-East Asia. According to Clarence House, Charles was affected by news of the damage caused by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. International Health Partners, of which he has been Patron since 2004, sent the vaccines, which are believed to protect five million children below the age of five from measles. \n\nBuilt environment\n\nThe Prince of Wales has openly expressed his views on architecture and urban planning, fostering the advancement of New Classical Architecture, and asserting that he \"care[s] deeply about issues such as the environment, architecture, inner-city renewal, and the quality of life.\" In a speech given for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on 30 May 1984, he memorably described a proposed extension to the National Gallery in London as a \"monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend\" and deplored the \"glass stumps and concrete towers\" of modern architecture. He asserted that \"it is possible, and important in human terms, to respect old buildings, street plans and traditional scales and at the same time not to feel guilty about a preference for facades, ornaments and soft materials,\" called for local community involvement in architectural choices, and asked: \n\nHis book and BBC documentary A Vision of Britain (1987) was also critical of modern architecture, and he has continued to campaign for traditional urbanism, human scale, restoration of historic buildings, and sustainable design, despite criticism in the press. Two of his charities (The Prince's Regeneration Trust and The Prince's Foundation for Building Community) promote his views, and the village of Poundbury was built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall to a master plan by Léon Krier under the guidance of Prince Charles and in line with his philosophy.\n\nCharles helped establish a national trust for the built environment in Canada after lamenting, in 1996, the unbridled destruction of many of the country's historic urban cores. He offered his assistance to the Department of Canadian Heritage in creating a trust modelled on Britain's National Trust, a plan that was implemented with the passage of the 2007 Canadian federal budget. In 1999, the Prince agreed to the use of his title for the Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership, awarded by the Heritage Canada Foundation to municipal governments that have shown sustained commitment to the conservation of historic places. While visiting the United States and surveying the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, Charles received the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize in 2005, for his efforts in regard to architecture; he donated $25,000 of the prize money towards restoring storm-damaged communities. \n\nFrom 1997, the Prince of Wales has visited Romania to view and highlight the destruction of Orthodox monasteries and Transylvanian Saxon villages during the Communist rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Charles is patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, a Romanian conservation and regeneration organisation, and has purchased a house in Romania. Historian Tom Gallagher wrote in the Romanian newspaper România Liberă in 2006 that Charles had been offered the Romanian throne by monarchists in that country; an offer that was reportedly turned down, but Buckingham Palace denied the reports. Charles also has \"a deep understanding of Islamic art and architecture\", and has been involved in the construction of a building and garden at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies that combine Islamic and Oxford architectural styles.\n\nCharles has occasionally intervened in projects that employ architectural styles such as modernism and functionalism. In 2009, Charles wrote to the Qatari royal family, the developers of the Chelsea Barracks site, labelling Lord Rogers's design for the site \"unsuitable\". Subsequently, Rogers was removed from the project and The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment was appointed to propose an alternative. Rogers claimed the Prince had also intervened to block his designs for the Royal Opera House and Paternoster Square, and condemned Charles's actions as \"an abuse of power\" and \"unconstitutional\". Lord Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jacques Herzog, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, and Frank Gehry, among others, wrote a letter to The Sunday Times complaining that the Prince's \"private comments\" and \"behind-the-scenes lobbying\" subverted the \"open and democratic planning process\". Piers Gough and other architects condemned Charles's views as \"elitist\" in a letter encouraging colleagues to boycott a speech given by Charles to RIBA in 2009.\n\nIn 2010, The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment decided to help reconstruct and redesign buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the capital was destroyed by the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The foundation is known for refurbishing historic buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan and in Kingston, Jamaica. The project has been called the \"biggest challenge yet\" for the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. \n\nLivery company commitments\n\nThe Worshipful Company of Carpenters installed Charles as an Honorary Liveryman \"in recognition of his interest in London's architecture.\" The Prince of Wales is also Permanent Master of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, an Honorary Member of the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, and a Royal Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. \n\nNatural environment\n\nSince the early 1980s, Charles has promoted environmental awareness. Upon moving into Highgrove House, he developed an interest in organic farming, which culminated in the 1990 launch of his own organic brand, Duchy Originals, which now sells more than 200 different sustainably produced products, from food to garden furniture; the profits (over £6 million by 2010) are donated to The Prince's Charities. Documenting work on his estate, Charles co-authored (with Charles Clover, environment editor of The Daily Telegraph) Highgrove: An Experiment in Organic Gardening and Farming, published in 1993, and offers his patronage to Garden Organic. Along similar lines, the Prince of Wales became involved with farming and various industries within it, regularly meeting with farmers to discuss their trade. Although the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic in England prevented Charles from visiting organic farms in Saskatchewan, he met the farmers at Assiniboia town hall. In 2004, he founded the Mutton Renaissance Campaign, which aims to support British sheep farmers and make mutton more attractive to Britons. His organic farming has attracted media criticism: According to The Independent in October 2006, \"the story of Duchy Originals has involved compromises and ethical blips, wedded to a determined merchandising programme.\" \n\nIn 2007, he received the 10th annual Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, the director of which, Eric Chivian, stated: \"For decades the Prince of Wales has been a champion of the natural world ... He has been a world leader in efforts to improve energy efficiency and in reducing the discharge of toxic substances on land, and into the air and the oceans\". Charles's travels by private jet drew criticism from Plane Stupid's Joss Garman. \n\nIn 2007, Charles launched The Prince's May Day Network, which encourages businesses to take action on climate change. Speaking to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, he called for European Union leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), remained seated and went on to describe Charles's advisers as \"naive and foolish at best.\" In a speech to the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit in a European Parliament chamber on 9 February 2011, Charles said that climate change sceptics are playing \"a reckless game of roulette\" with the planet's future and are having a \"corrosive effect\" on public opinion. He also articulated the need to protect fisheries and the Amazon rain forest, and to make low-carbon emissions affordable and competitive. \n\nIn 2011, Charles received the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Medal for his engagement with the environment, such as the conservation of rainforests. \n\nOn 27 August 2012, the Prince of Wales addressed the International Union for Conservation of Nature - World Conservation Congress, supporting the view that grazing animals are needed to keep soils and grassland productive:\n\n\"I have been particularly fascinated, for example, by the work of a remarkable man called Allan Savory, in Zimbabwe and other semi arid areas, who has argued for years against the prevailing expert view that is the simple numbers of cattle that drive overgrazing and cause fertile land to become desert. On the contrary, as he has since shown so graphically, the land needs the presence of feeding animals and their droppings for the cycle to be complete, so that soils and grassland areas stay productive. Such that, if you take grazers off the land and lock them away in vast feedlots, the land dies.\" \n\nIn February 2014, Charles visited Somerset levels to meet residents affected by winter flooding. During his visit, Charles remarked that, \"There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something. The tragedy is that nothing happened for so long.\" He pledged a £50,000 donation, provided by the Prince's Countryside Fund, to help families and their businesses. \n\nAlternative medicine\n\nCharles has controversially championed alternative medicine. The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health attracted opposition from the scientific and medical community over its campaign encouraging general practitioners to offer herbal and other alternative treatments to National Health Service patients, and in May 2006, Charles made a speech at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, urging the integration of conventional and alternative medicine and arguing for homeopathy. \n\nIn April 2008, The Times published a letter from Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, which asked the Prince's Foundation to recall two guides promoting alternative medicine, saying \"the majority of alternative therapies appear to be clinically ineffective, and many are downright dangerous.\" A speaker for the foundation countered the criticism by stating: \"We entirely reject the accusation that our online publication Complementary Healthcare: A Guide contains any misleading or inaccurate claims about the benefits of complementary therapies. On the contrary, it treats people as adults and takes a responsible approach by encouraging people to look at reliable sources of information ... so that they can make informed decisions. The foundation does not promote complementary therapies.\" That year, Ernst published a book with Simon Singh, mockingly dedicated to \"HRH the Prince of Wales\" called Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial. The last chapter is highly critical of Charles's advocacy of complementary and alternative treatments. \n\nThe Prince's Duchy Originals produce a variety of complementary medicinal products including a \"Detox Tincture\" that Edzard Ernst has denounced as \"financially exploiting the vulnerable\" and \"outright quackery\". In 2009, the Advertising Standards Authority criticised an email that Duchy Originals had sent out to advertise its Echina-Relief, Hyperi-Lift and Detox Tinctures products saying that it was misleading. The Prince personally wrote at least seven letters to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) shortly before they relaxed the rules governing labelling of such herbal products, a move that has been widely condemned by scientists and medical bodies. In October 2009, it was reported that Charles had personally lobbied the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, regarding greater provision of alternative treatments in the NHS. In 2016 Charles said in a speech that he used homeopathic veterinary medicines to reduce antibiotic use at his farm. \n\nIn April 2010, following accounting irregularities, a former official at the foundation and his wife were arrested for fraud believed to total £300,000. Four days later, the foundation announced its closure, claiming that it \"has achieved its key objective of promoting the use of integrated health.\" The charity's finance director, accountant George Gray, was convicted of theft totalling £253,000 and sentenced to three years in prison. The Prince's Foundation was re-branded and re-launched later in 2010 as The College of Medicine. \n\nReligious and philosophical interests\n\nThe Prince of Wales was confirmed at age 16 by Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey at Easter 1965, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He attends services at various Anglican churches close to Highgrove, and attends the Church of Scotland's Crathie Kirk with the rest of the royal family when staying at Balmoral Castle. In 2000, he was appointed as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Prince of Wales has visited (amid some secrecy) Orthodox monasteries several times on Mount Athos as well as in Romania. Charles is also patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. \n\nSir Laurens van der Post became a friend of Charles in 1977; he was dubbed his \"spiritual guru\" and was godfather to Charles's son, Prince William. From van der Post, the Prince of Wales developed a focus on philosophy, especially that of Asian and Middle Eastern nations. He has praised Kabbalistic artworks, and wrote a memorial for Kathleen Raine, the Neoplatonist poet who died in 2003. \n\nCharles expressed his philosophical views in his 2010 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, which won the Nautilus Book Award. Although it had been rumoured that Charles would vow to be \"Defender of the Faiths\" or \"Defender of Faith\" as king, he stated in 2015 that he will retain the monarch's traditional title of \"Defender of the Faith\", whilst \"ensuring that other people's faiths can also be practised\", which he sees as a duty of the Church of England. \n\nOfficial duties\n\nIn 2008, The Daily Telegraph declared Charles the \"hardest-working member of the royal family.\" He carried out 560 official engagements in 2008, 499 in 2010, and over 600 in 2011.\n\nAs Prince of Wales, Charles undertakes official duties on behalf of his mother and the Commonwealth realms. He officiates at investitures and attends the funerals of foreign dignitaries. At the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Charles unintentionally caused controversy when he shook hands with Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, who had been seated next to him. Charles's office subsequently released a statement saying: \"The Prince of Wales was caught by surprise and not in a position to avoid shaking Mr Mugabe's hand. The Prince finds the current Zimbabwean regime abhorrent. He has supported the Zimbabwe Defence and Aid Fund which works with those being oppressed by the regime. The Prince also recently met Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, an outspoken critic of the government.\" \n\nPrince Charles makes regular tours of Wales, fulfilling a week of engagements in the principality each summer, and attending important national occasions, such as opening the Senedd. The six Trustees of the Royal Collection Trust meet three times a year under his chairmanship. \n\nThe Prince of Wales travels abroad on behalf of the United Kingdom. The Prince has been regarded as an effective advocate of the country, with his visit to the Republic of Ireland in 1995, he delivered a personally researched and written speech on Anglo-Irish affairs that was warmly received by Irish politicians and the media, being cited as an example.\nIn 2000, Charles revived the tradition of the Prince of Wales having an official harpist, in order to foster Welsh talent at playing the harp, the national instrument of Wales. He and the Duchess of Cornwall also spend one week each year in Scotland, where the Prince is patron of several Scottish organisations. His service to the Canadian Armed Forces permits him to be informed of troop activities, and allows him to visit these troops while in Canada or overseas, taking part in ceremonial occasions. For instance, in 2001, the Prince placed a specially commissioned wreath, made from vegetation taken from French battlefields, at the Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and in 1981 he became the patron of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. \n\nIn 2010, he represented the Queen at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. He attends official events in the United Kingdom in support of Commonwealth countries, such as the Christchurch earthquake memorial service at Westminster Abbey in 2011. From 15 to 17 November 2013, he represented the Queen for the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. \n\nLetters sent by the Prince of Wales to government ministers—the so-called black spider memos—during 2004 and 2005 have presented potential embarrassment following a challenge by The Guardian newspaper to release the letters under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In March 2015, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided that the Prince's letters must be released. The letters were published by the Cabinet Office on 13 May 2015. The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall made their first joint trip to the Republic of Ireland in May 2015. The trip was called an important step in \"promoting peace and reconciliation\" by the British Embassy. During the trip, Charles shook hands with Sinn Féin and supposed IRA leader Gerry Adams in Galway which was described by the media as a \"historic handshake\" and a \"significant moment for Anglo-Irish relations\". \n\nHobbies and personal interests\n\nSports\n\nFrom his youth the Prince was an avid player of competitive polo until 1992. He continued to play informally, including for charity, until 2005. Charles also frequently took part in fox hunting, before the sport was banned in the United Kingdom in 2005. By the late 1990s, as opposition to the activity was growing, the Prince's participation was viewed as a \"political statement\" by those opposed to it, such as the League Against Cruel Sports, which launched an attack against Charles after he took his sons on the Beaufort Hunt in 1999, when the government was trying to ban hunting with hounds. \n\nCharles has been a keen salmon angler since youth, and supports Orri Vigfússon's efforts to protect the North Atlantic salmon. He frequently fishes the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, while he claims his most special angling memories are from his time in Vopnafjörður, Iceland. Charles is a supporter of Burnley Football Club. \n\nVisual, performing and contemporary arts\n\nThe Prince is President or Patron of more than 20 performing arts organisations, including the Royal College of Music, the Royal Opera, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, and the Purcell School. In 2000, he revived the tradition of appointing harpists to the Royal Court, by appointing an Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales. As an undergraduate at Cambridge he played cello, and has sung with the Bach Choir twice.\n\nHe founded The Prince's Foundation for Children and The Arts in 2002, to help more children experience the arts first-hand. He is President of the Royal Shakespeare Company and attends performances in Stratford-Upon-Avon, supports fundraising events and attends the company's annual general meeting. He enjoys comedy, and is interested in illusionism, becoming a member of The Magic Circle after passing his audition in 1975 by performing the \"cups and balls\" effect. \n\nA keen and accomplished watercolourist, Charles has exhibited and sold a number of his works, and published books on the subject. In 2001, 20 lithographs of his watercolour paintings illustrating his country estates were exhibited at the Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art. Charles was awarded the 2011 Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award by the Montblanc Cultural Foundation for his support and commitment to the arts, particularly in regard to young people. \n\nOn 23 April 2016, the Prince appeared in a comedy sketch for the Royal Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare Live! at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 1616. Attended by the Prince with the Duchess of Cornwall, the gala was televised live by the BBC. Like Paapa Essiedu, Tim Minchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, Rory Kinnear, Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench the Prince made a surprise entrance to settle the disputed delivery of Hamlet's celebrated line, \"To be or not to be, that is the question\". \n\nPublications\n\nThe Prince of Wales is an author of several books reflecting his own interests. He has also contributed a foreword or preface to books by other writers and has also written, presented and has been featured in documentary films. \n\nMedia image\n\nSince his birth, Prince Charles has undergone close media attention, which increased as he matured. It has been an ambivalent relationship, largely impacted by his marriages to Diana and Camilla and its aftermath, but also centred on his future conduct as king, such as the 2014 play King Charles III. \n\nImpact of marriage to Diana\n\nDescribed as the \"world's most eligible bachelor\" in the late 1970s, Prince Charles was subsequently overshadowed by Diana. After her death, the media regularly breached Charles's privacy and printed exposés.\n\nIn 2006, the Prince filed a court case against the Mail on Sunday, after excerpts of his personal journals were published, revealing his opinions on matters such as the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997, in which Charles described the Chinese government officials as \"appalling old waxworks\". Mark Bolland, his ex-private secretary, declared in a statement to the High Court that Charles \"would readily embrace the political aspects of any contentious issue he was interested in ... He carried it out in a very considered, thoughtful and researched way. He often referred to himself as a 'dissident' working against the prevailing political consensus.\" Jonathan Dimbleby reported that the Prince \"has accumulated a number of certainties about the state of the world and does not relish contradiction.\" \n\nOthers formerly connected with the Prince have betrayed his confidence. An ex-member of his household handed the press an internal memo in which Charles commented on ambition and opportunity, and which was widely interpreted as blaming meritocracy for creating a combative atmosphere in society. Charles responded: \"In my view, it is just as great an achievement to be a plumber or a bricklayer as it is to be a lawyer or a doctor\". \n\nReaction to press treatment\n\nCharles's anguish was recorded in his private comments to Prince William, caught on a microphone during a press photo-call in 2005 and published in the national press. After a question from the BBC's royal reporter, Nicholas Witchell, Charles muttered: \"These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is.\" \n\nIn 2002, Charles, \"so often a target of the Press, got his chance to return fire\" when addressing \"scores of editors, publishers and other media executives\" gathered at St Bride's Fleet Street to celebrate 300 years of journalism. Defending public servants from \"the corrosive drip of constant criticism\", he noted that the press had been \"awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions.\" But, he concluded, regarding his own relations with the press, \"from time to time we are probably both a bit hard on each other, exaggerating the downsides and ignoring the good points in each.\"\n\nGuest appearances on television\n\nThe Prince of Wales has occasionally appeared on television. In 1984, he read his children's book The Old Man of Lochnagar for the BBC's Jackanory series. The UK soap opera Coronation Street featured an appearance by Charles during the show's 40th anniversary in 2000, as did the New Zealand young adult cartoon series bro'Town (2005), after he attended a performance by the show's creators during a tour of the country. \n\nCharles was interviewed with Princes William and Harry by Ant & Dec to mark the 30th anniversary of The Prince's Trust in 2006 and in 2016 was interviewed by them again along with his sons and the Duchess of Cornwall to mark the 40th anniversary. \n\nHis saving of the Scottish stately home Dumfries House was the subject of Alan Titchmarsh's documentary Royal Restoration, which aired on TV in May 2012. Also in May 2012, Charles tried his hand at being a weather presenter for the BBC, reporting the forecast for Scotland as part of their annual week at Holyrood Palace alongside Christopher Blanchett. He injected humour in his report, asking, \"Who the hell wrote this script?\" as references were made to royal residences. \n\nIn December 2015 Channel 4 News revealed that interviews with Charles were subject to a contract that restricts questions to those previously approved, and gives his staff oversight of editing and the right to \"remove the contribution in its entirety from the programme\". Channel 4 News decided not to proceed with an interview on this basis, which some journalists believed would put them at risk of breaching the Ofcom Broadcasting Code on editorial independence and transparency.\n\nResidences and finance\n\nClarence House in London is the Prince of Wales's current official residence. Previously, he had an apartment at St James's Palace. Charles also has two private homes: Highgrove House in Gloucestershire and Birkhall near Balmoral Castle. Both Clarence House and Birkhall were previously the residences of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. His primary source of income is generated from the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns 133,658 acres of land (around 54,090 hectares), including farming, residential, and commercial properties, as well as an investment portfolio. Highgrove is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, having been purchased for his use in 1980, and which Prince Charles rents for £336,000 per annum. The Public Accounts Committee published its 25th report into the Duchy of Cornwall accounts in November 2013 noting that the Duchy performed well in 2012–13, increasing its total income and producing an overall surplus of £19.1 million. \n\nIn 2007 the Prince purchased a 192-acre property (150 acres of grazing and parkland, and 40 acres of woodland) in Carmarthenshire, and applied for permission to convert the farm into a Welsh home for him and the Duchess of Cornwall, to be rented out as holiday flats when the royal couple is not in residence. A neighbouring family said the proposals flouted local planning regulations, and the application was put on hold temporarily while a report was drafted on how the alterations would affect the local bat population. Charles and Camilla first stayed at the new property, called Llwynywermod, in June 2008. \n\nStarting in 1993, the Prince of Wales has paid tax voluntarily under the Memorandum of Understanding on Royal Taxation, updated 2013. In December 2012, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs were asked to investigate alleged tax avoidance by the Duchy of Cornwall. \n\nTitles, styles, honours and arms\n\nTitles and styles\n\nCharles has held titles throughout his life, as the grandson of the monarch, the son of the monarch and in his own right. There has been speculation as to what regnal name the Prince will choose upon his succession to the throne. If he keeps his current first name, he will be known as Charles III. However, it was reported in 2005 that Charles has suggested he may choose to reign as George VII in honour of his maternal grandfather, and to avoid association with the Stuart kings Charles I (who was beheaded) and Charles II (who was known for his playboy lifestyle), as well as to be sensitive to the memory of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was called \"Charles III\" by his supporters. Charles's office responded that \"no decision has been made\". \n\nHonours and military appointments\n\nCharles has held substantive ranks in the armed forces of a number of countries since he was made a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force in 1972. Charles's first honorary appointment in the armed forces was as Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Wales in 1969; since then, the Prince has also been installed as Colonel-in-Chief, Colonel, Honorary Air Commodore, Air Commodore-in-Chief, Deputy Colonel-in-Chief, Royal Honorary Colonel, Royal Colonel, and Honorary Commodore of at least 32 military formations throughout the Commonwealth, including the Royal Gurkha Rifles, which is the only foreign regiment in the British army. Since 2009, Charles holds the second-highest ranks in all three branches of the Canadian Forces and, on 16 June 2012, the Queen awarded the Prince of Wales honorary five-star rank in all three branches of the British Armed Forces, \"to acknowledge his support in her role as Commander-in-Chief\", installing him as Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of the Royal Air Force. \n\nHe has been inducted into seven orders and received eight decorations from the Commonwealth realms, and has been the recipient of 20 different honours from foreign states, as well as nine honorary degrees from universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.\n\nArms\n\nIssue\n\nAncestry\n\nNotes\n\nFootnotes\n\nCitations",
"Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is, and has been since her accession in 1952, Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Head of the Commonwealth. She is also Queen of 12 countries that have become independent since her accession: Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.\n\nElizabeth was born in London to the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and was the elder of their two daughters. She was educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1947, she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.\n\nElizabeth's many historic visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and reciprocal visits to and from the Pope. She has seen major constitutional changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation, and the decolonisation of Africa. She has also reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms. She is the world's oldest reigning monarch as well as Britain's longest-lived. In 2015, she surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant and female head of state in world history.\n\nTimes of personal significance have included the births and marriages of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, her coronation in 1953, and the celebration of milestones such as her Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, and 2012, respectively. Moments of sadness for her include the death of her father, aged 56; the assassination of Prince Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten; the breakdown of her children's marriages in 1992 (her annus horribilis); the death in 1997 of her son's ex-wife, Diana, Princess of Wales; and the deaths of her mother and sister in 2002. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and severe press criticism of the royal family but support for the monarchy remains high, as does her personal popularity. \n\nEarly life\n\nElizabeth was born at 02:40 (GMT) on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather, King George V. Her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth), was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfather's London house: 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. She was baptised by the Anglican Archbishop of York, Cosmo Gordon Lang, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on 29 May, and named Elizabeth after her mother, Alexandra after George V's mother, who had died six months earlier, and Mary after her paternal grandmother. Called \"Lilibet\" by her close family, based on what she called herself at first, she was cherished by her grandfather George V, and during his serious illness in 1929 her regular visits were credited in the popular press and by later biographers with raising his spirits and aiding his recovery. \n\nElizabeth's only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930. The two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as \"Crawfie\". Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music. Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margaret's childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeth's love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, and her attitude of responsibility. Others echoed such observations: Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as \"a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.\" Her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as \"a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved\". \n\nHeir presumptive\n\nDuring her grandfather's reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, as the Prince of Wales was still young. Many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, after her father. Later that year Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeth's father became king, and she became heir presumptive. If her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession. \n\nElizabeth received private tuition in constitutional history from Henry Marten, Vice-Provost of Eton College, and learned French from a succession of native-speaking governesses. A Girl Guides company, the 1st Buckingham Palace Company, was formed specifically so that she could socialise with girls her own age. Later, she was enrolled as a Sea Ranger.\n\nIn 1939, Elizabeth's parents toured Canada and the United States. As in 1927, when her parents had toured Australia and New Zealand, Elizabeth remained in Britain, since her father thought her too young to undertake public tours.Pimlott, p. 54 Elizabeth \"looked tearful\" as her parents departed.Pimlott, p. 55 They corresponded regularly, and she and her parents made the first royal transatlantic telephone call on 18 May.\n\nSecond World War\n\nIn September 1939, Britain entered the Second World War, which lasted until 1945. During the war, many of London's children were evacuated to avoid the frequent aerial bombing. The suggestion by senior politician Lord Hailsham that the two princesses should be evacuated to Canada was rejected by Elizabeth's mother, who declared, \"The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never leave.\" Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret stayed at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, until Christmas 1939, when they moved to Sandringham House, Norfolk. From February to May 1940, they lived at Royal Lodge, Windsor, until moving to Windsor Castle, where they lived for most of the next five years. At Windsor, the princesses staged pantomimes at Christmas in aid of the Queen's Wool Fund, which bought yarn to knit into military garments. In 1940, the 14-year-old Elizabeth made her first radio broadcast during the BBC's Children's Hour, addressing other children who had been evacuated from the cities. She stated: \"We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well.\"\n\nIn 1943, at the age of 16, Elizabeth undertook her first solo public appearance on a visit to the Grenadier Guards, of which she had been appointed colonel the previous year. As she approached her 18th birthday, parliament changed the law so that she could act as one of five Counsellors of State in the event of her father's incapacity or absence abroad, such as his visit to Italy in July 1944. In February 1945, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service as an honorary second subaltern with the service number of 230873. She trained as a driver and mechanic and was promoted to honorary junior commander five months later. \n\nAt the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret mingled anonymously with the celebratory crowds in the streets of London. Elizabeth later said in a rare interview, \"We asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were terrified of being recognised ... I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief.\" \n\nDuring the war, plans were drawn up to quell Welsh nationalism by affiliating Elizabeth more closely with Wales. Proposals, such as appointing her Constable of Caernarfon Castle or a patron of Urdd Gobaith Cymru (the Welsh League of Youth), were abandoned for various reasons, which included a fear of associating Elizabeth with conscientious objectors in the Urdd, at a time when Britain was at war. Welsh politicians suggested that she be made Princess of Wales on her 18th birthday. Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison supported the idea, but the King rejected it because he felt such a title belonged solely to the wife of a Prince of Wales and the Prince of Wales had always been the heir apparent. In 1946, she was inducted into the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. \n\nIn 1947, Princess Elizabeth went on her first overseas tour, accompanying her parents through southern Africa. During the tour, in a broadcast to the British Commonwealth on her 21st birthday, she made the following pledge: \"I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.\" \n\nMarriage and family\n\nElizabeth met her future husband, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, in 1934 and 1937. They are second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark and third cousins through Queen Victoria. After another meeting at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in July 1939, Elizabeth – though only 13 years old – said she fell in love with Philip and they began to exchange letters. She was 21 when their engagement was officially announced on 9 July 1947. \n\nThe engagement was not without controversy: Philip had no financial standing, was foreign-born (though a British subject who had served in the Royal Navy throughout the Second World War), and had sisters who had married German noblemen with Nazi links. Marion Crawford wrote, \"Some of the King's advisors did not think him good enough for her. He was a prince without a home or kingdom. Some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of Philip's foreign origin.\" Later biographies reported that Elizabeth's mother initially opposed the union, dubbing Philip \"The Hun\". In later life, however, the Queen Mother told biographer Tim Heald that Philip was \"an English gentleman\". \n\nBefore the marriage, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and adopted the style Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, taking the surname of his mother's British family. Just before the wedding, he was created Duke of Edinburgh and granted the style His Royal Highness. \n\nElizabeth and Philip were married on 20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey. They received 2500 wedding gifts from around the world. Because Britain had not yet completely recovered from the devastation of the war, Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy the material for her gown, which was designed by Norman Hartnell. In post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for the Duke of Edinburgh's German relations, including his three surviving sisters, to be invited to the wedding. The Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, was not invited, either. \n\nElizabeth gave birth to her first child, Prince Charles, on 14 November 1948. One month earlier, the King had issued letters patent allowing her children to use the style and title of a royal prince or princess, to which they otherwise would not have been entitled as their father was no longer a royal prince. A second child, Princess Anne, was born in 1950. \n\nFollowing their wedding, the couple leased Windlesham Moor, near Windsor Castle, until July 1949, when they took up residence at Clarence House in London. At various times between 1949 and 1951, the Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in the British Crown Colony of Malta as a serving Royal Navy officer. He and Elizabeth lived intermittently, for several months at a time, in the hamlet of Gwardamanġa, at Villa Guardamangia, the rented home of Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten. The children remained in Britain. \n\nReign\n\nAccession and coronation\n\nDuring 1951, George VI's health declined and Elizabeth frequently stood in for him at public events. When she toured Canada and visited President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., in October 1951, her private secretary, Martin Charteris, carried a draft accession declaration in case the King died while she was on tour. In early 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand by way of Kenya. On 6 February 1952, they had just returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death of the King and consequently Elizabeth's immediate accession to the throne. Philip broke the news to the new Queen. Martin Charteris asked her to choose a regnal name; she chose to remain Elizabeth, \"of course\". She was proclaimed queen throughout her realms and the royal party hastily returned to the United Kingdom. She and the Duke of Edinburgh moved into Buckingham Palace. \n\nWith Elizabeth's accession, it seemed probable that the royal house would bear her husband's name, becoming the House of Mountbatten, in line with the custom of a wife taking her husband's surname on marriage. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and Elizabeth's grandmother, Queen Mary, favoured the retention of the House of Windsor, and so on 9 April 1952 Elizabeth issued a declaration that Windsor would continue to be the name of the royal house. The Duke complained, \"I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.\" In 1960, after the death of Queen Mary in 1953 and the resignation of Churchill in 1955, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for Philip and Elizabeth's male-line descendants who do not carry royal titles. \n\nAmid preparations for the coronation, Princess Margaret informed her sister that she wished to marry Peter Townsend, a divorcé‚ 16 years Margaret's senior, with two sons from his previous marriage. The Queen asked them to wait for a year; in the words of Martin Charteris, \"the Queen was naturally sympathetic towards the Princess, but I think she thought—she hoped—given time, the affair would peter out.\" Senior politicians were against the match and the Church of England did not permit remarriage after divorce. If Margaret had contracted a civil marriage, she would have been expected to renounce her right of succession. Eventually, she decided to abandon her plans with Townsend. In 1960, she married Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon the following year. They divorced in 1978; she did not remarry. \n\nDespite the death of Queen Mary on 24 March, the coronation on 2 June 1953 went ahead as planned, as Mary had asked before she died. The ceremony in Westminster Abbey, with the exception of the anointing and communion, was televised for the first time. Elizabeth's coronation gown was embroidered on her instructions with the floral emblems of Commonwealth countries: English Tudor rose; Scots thistle; Welsh leek; Irish shamrock; Australian wattle; Canadian maple leaf; New Zealand silver fern; South African protea; lotus flowers for India and Ceylon; and Pakistan's wheat, cotton, and jute. \n\nContinuing evolution of the Commonwealth\n\nFrom Elizabeth's birth onwards, the British Empire continued its transformation into the Commonwealth of Nations. By the time of her accession in 1952, her role as head of multiple independent states was already established. In 1953, the Queen and her husband embarked on a seven-month round-the-world tour, visiting 13 countries and covering more than 40,000 miles by land, sea and air. She became the first reigning monarch of Australia and New Zealand to visit those nations.Marr, p. 126 During the tour, crowds were immense; three-quarters of the population of Australia were estimated to have seen her. Throughout her reign, the Queen has made hundreds of state visits to other countries and tours of the Commonwealth; she is the most widely travelled head of state. \n\nIn 1956, the British and French prime ministers, Sir Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet, discussed the possibility of France joining the Commonwealth. The proposal was never accepted and the following year France signed the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union. In November 1956, Britain and France invaded Egypt in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to capture the Suez Canal. Lord Mountbatten claimed the Queen was opposed to the invasion, though Eden denied it. Eden resigned two months later. \n\nThe absence of a formal mechanism within the Conservative Party for choosing a leader meant that, following Eden's resignation, it fell to the Queen to decide whom to commission to form a government. Eden recommended that she consult Lord Salisbury, the Lord President of the Council. Lord Salisbury and Lord Kilmuir, the Lord Chancellor, consulted the British Cabinet, Winston Churchill, and the Chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, resulting in the Queen appointing their recommended candidate: Harold Macmillan. \n\nThe Suez crisis and the choice of Eden's successor led in 1957 to the first major personal criticism of the Queen. In a magazine, which he owned and edited, Lord Altrincham accused her of being \"out of touch\". Altrincham was denounced by public figures and slapped by a member of the public appalled by his comments. Six years later, in 1963, Macmillan resigned and advised the Queen to appoint the Earl of Home as prime minister, advice that she followed.Hardman, p. 22; Pimlott, pp. 324–335; Roberts, p. 84 The Queen again came under criticism for appointing the prime minister on the advice of a small number of ministers or a single minister. In 1965, the Conservatives adopted a formal mechanism for electing a leader, thus relieving her of involvement. \n\nIn 1957, she made a state visit to the United States, where she addressed the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of the Commonwealth. On the same tour, she opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, becoming the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session. Two years later, solely in her capacity as Queen of Canada, she revisited the United States and toured Canada. In 1961, she toured Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Iran. On a visit to Ghana the same year, she dismissed fears for her safety, even though her host, President Kwame Nkrumah, who had replaced her as head of state, was a target for assassins. Harold Macmillan wrote, \"The Queen has been absolutely determined all through ... She is impatient of the attitude towards her to treat her as ... a film star ... She has indeed 'the heart and stomach of a man' ... She loves her duty and means to be a Queen.\"Macmillan, pp. 466–472 Before her tour through parts of Quebec in 1964, the press reported that extremists within the Quebec separatist movement were plotting Elizabeth's assassination. No attempt was made, but a riot did break out while she was in Montreal; the Queen's \"calmness and courage in the face of the violence\" was noted. \n\nElizabeth's pregnancies with Princes Andrew and Edward, in 1959 and 1963, mark the only times she has not performed the State Opening of the British parliament during her reign. In addition to performing traditional ceremonies, she also instituted new practices. Her first royal walkabout, meeting ordinary members of the public, took place during a tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1970. \n\nAcceleration of decolonisation\n\nThe 1960s and 1970s saw an acceleration in the decolonisation of Africa and the Caribbean. Over 20 countries gained independence from Britain as part of a planned transition to self-government. In 1965, however, the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Smith, in opposition to moves toward majority rule, declared unilateral independence from Britain while still expressing \"loyalty and devotion\" to Elizabeth. Although the Queen dismissed him in a formal declaration, and the international community applied sanctions against Rhodesia, his regime survived for over a decade. As Britain's ties to its former empire weakened, the British government sought entry to the European Community, a goal it achieved in 1973. \n\nIn February 1974, the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, advised the Queen to call a general election in the middle of her tour of the Austronesian Pacific Rim, requiring her to fly back to Britain. The election resulted in a hung parliament; Heath's Conservatives were not the largest party, but could stay in office if they formed a coalition with the Liberals. Heath only resigned when discussions on forming a coalition foundered, after which the Queen asked the Leader of the Opposition, Labour's Harold Wilson, to form a government. \n\nA year later, at the height of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, was dismissed from his post by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, after the Opposition-controlled Senate rejected Whitlam's budget proposals.Bond, p. 96; Marr, p. 257; Pimlott, p. 427; Shawcross, p. 110 As Whitlam had a majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker Gordon Scholes appealed to the Queen to reverse Kerr's decision. She declined, stating that she would not interfere in decisions reserved by the Constitution of Australia for the governor-general. The crisis fuelled Australian republicanism.\n\nSilver Jubilee\n\nIn 1977, Elizabeth marked the Silver Jubilee of her accession. Parties and events took place throughout the Commonwealth, many coinciding with her associated national and Commonwealth tours. The celebrations re-affirmed the Queen's popularity, despite virtually coincident negative press coverage of Princess Margaret's separation from her husband. In 1978, the Queen endured a state visit to the United Kingdom by Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena, though privately she thought they had \"blood on their hands\". The following year brought two blows: one was the unmasking of Anthony Blunt, former Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, as a communist spy; the other was the assassination of her relative and in-law Lord Mountbatten by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. \n\nAccording to Paul Martin, Sr., by the end of the 1970s the Queen was worried that the Crown \"had little meaning for\" Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister. Tony Benn said that the Queen found Trudeau \"rather disappointing\". Trudeau's supposed republicanism seemed to be confirmed by his antics, such as sliding down banisters at Buckingham Palace and pirouetting behind the Queen's back in 1977, and the removal of various Canadian royal symbols during his term of office. In 1980, Canadian politicians sent to London to discuss the patriation of the Canadian constitution found the Queen \"better informed ... than any of the British politicians or bureaucrats\". She was particularly interested after the failure of Bill C-60, which would have affected her role as head of state. Patriation removed the role of the British parliament from the Canadian constitution, but the monarchy was retained. Trudeau said in his memoirs that the Queen favoured his attempt to reform the constitution and that he was impressed by \"the grace she displayed in public\" and \"the wisdom she showed in private\". \n\n1980s\n\nDuring the 1981 Trooping the Colour ceremony, six weeks before the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer, six shots were fired at the Queen from close range as she rode down The Mall on her horse, Burmese. Police later discovered that the shots were blanks. The 17-year-old assailant, Marcus Sarjeant, was sentenced to five years in prison and released after three. The Queen's composure and skill in controlling her mount were widely praised. \n\nFrom April to September 1982, the Queen was anxious but proud of her son, Prince Andrew, who was serving with British forces during the Falklands War. On 9 July, the Queen awoke in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace to find an intruder, Michael Fagan, in the room with her. Remaining calm and through two calls to the Palace police switchboard, she spoke to Fagan while he sat at the foot of her bed until assistance arrived seven minutes later. After hosting US President Ronald Reagan at Windsor Castle in 1982 and visiting his California ranch in 1983, the Queen was angered when his administration ordered the invasion of Grenada, one of her Caribbean realms, without informing her. \n\nIntense media interest in the opinions and private lives of the royal family during the 1980s led to a series of sensational stories in the press, not all of which were entirely true. As Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, told his staff: \"Give me a Sunday for Monday splash on the Royals. Don't worry if it's not true—so long as there's not too much of a fuss about it afterwards.\" Newspaper editor Donald Trelford wrote in The Observer of 21 September 1986: \"The royal soap opera has now reached such a pitch of public interest that the boundary between fact and fiction has been lost sight of ... it is not just that some papers don't check their facts or accept denials: they don't care if the stories are true or not.\" It was reported, most notably in The Sunday Times of 20 July 1986, that the Queen was worried that Margaret Thatcher's economic policies fostered social divisions and was alarmed by high unemployment, a series of riots, the violence of a miners' strike, and Thatcher's refusal to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The sources of the rumours included royal aide Michael Shea and Commonwealth Secretary-General Shridath Ramphal, but Shea claimed his remarks were taken out of context and embellished by speculation. Thatcher reputedly said the Queen would vote for the Social Democratic Party – Thatcher's political opponents. Thatcher's biographer John Campbell claimed \"the report was a piece of journalistic mischief-making\". Belying reports of acrimony between them, Thatcher later conveyed her personal admiration for the Queen, and the Queen gave two honours in her personal gift – membership in the Order of Merit and the Order of the Garter – to Thatcher after her replacement as prime minister by John Major. Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Elizabeth was a \"behind the scenes force\" in ending apartheid.\n\nIn 1987, in Canada, Elizabeth publicly supported politically divisive constitutional amendments, prompting criticism from opponents of the proposed changes, including Pierre Trudeau. The same year, the elected Fijian government was deposed in a military coup. As monarch of Fiji, Elizabeth supported the attempts of the Governor-General, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, to assert executive power and negotiate a settlement. Coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka deposed Ganilau and declared Fiji a republic. By the start of 1991, republican feeling in Britain had risen because of press estimates of the Queen's private wealth – which were contradicted by the Palace – and reports of affairs and strained marriages among her extended family. The involvement of younger members of the royal family in the charity game show It's a Royal Knockout was ridiculed, and the Queen was the target of satire. \n\n1990s\n\nIn 1991, in the wake of coalition victory in the Gulf War, the Queen became the first British monarch to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress. \n\nIn a speech on 24 November 1992, to mark the 40th anniversary of her accession, Elizabeth called 1992 her annus horribilis, meaning horrible year. In March, her second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and his wife, Sarah, separated; in April, her daughter, Princess Anne, divorced Captain Mark Phillips; during a state visit to Germany in October, angry demonstrators in Dresden threw eggs at her; and, in November, a large fire broke out at Windsor Castle, one of her official residences. The monarchy came under increased criticism and public scrutiny. In an unusually personal speech, the Queen said that any institution must expect criticism, but suggested it be done with \"a touch of humour, gentleness and understanding\". Two days later, the Prime Minister, John Major, announced reforms to the royal finances planned since the previous year, including the Queen paying income tax from 1993 onwards, and a reduction in the civil list. In December, Prince Charles and his wife, Diana, formally separated. The year ended with a lawsuit as the Queen sued The Sun newspaper for breach of copyright when it published the text of her annual Christmas message two days before it was broadcast. The newspaper was forced to pay her legal fees and donated £200,000 to charity. \n\nIn the years to follow, public revelations on the state of Charles and Diana's marriage continued. Even though support for republicanism in Britain seemed higher than at any time in living memory, republicanism was still a minority viewpoint, and the Queen herself had high approval ratings. Criticism was focused on the institution of the monarchy itself and the Queen's wider family rather than her own behaviour and actions. In consultation with her husband and the Prime Minister, John Major, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and her private secretary, Robert Fellowes, she wrote to Charles and Diana at the end of December 1995, saying that a divorce was desirable. \n\nIn 1997, a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. The Queen was on holiday with her extended family at Balmoral. Diana's two sons by Charles – Princes William and Harry – wanted to attend church and so the Queen and Prince Philip took them that morning. After that single public appearance, for five days the Queen and the Duke shielded their grandsons from the intense press interest by keeping them at Balmoral where they could grieve in private, but the royal family's seclusion and the failure to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace caused public dismay. Pressured by the hostile reaction, the Queen agreed to return to London and do a live television broadcast on 5 September, the day before Diana's funeral. In the broadcast, she expressed admiration for Diana and her feelings \"as a grandmother\" for the two princes.Bond, p. 134; Brandreth, p. 359; Lacey, pp. 13–15; Pimlott, pp. 623–624 As a result, much of the public hostility evaporated.\n\nGolden Jubilee\n\nIn 2002, Elizabeth marked her Golden Jubilee. Her sister and mother died in February and March respectively, and the media speculated whether the Jubilee would be a success or a failure. She again undertook an extensive tour of her realms, which began in Jamaica in February, where she called the farewell banquet \"memorable\" after a power cut plunged the King's House, the official residence of the governor-general, into darkness. As in 1977, there were street parties and commemorative events, and monuments were named to honour the occasion. A million people attended each day of the three-day main Jubilee celebration in London, and the enthusiasm shown by the public for the Queen was greater than many journalists had expected. \n\nThough generally healthy throughout her life, in 2003 she had keyhole surgery on both knees. In October 2006, she missed the opening of the new Emirates Stadium because of a strained back muscle that had been troubling her since the summer. \n\nIn May 2007, The Daily Telegraph, citing unnamed sources, reported that the Queen was \"exasperated and frustrated\" by the policies of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that she was concerned the British Armed Forces were overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that she had raised concerns over rural and countryside issues with Blair. She was, however, said to admire Blair's efforts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland. On 20 March 2008, at the Church of Ireland St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, the Queen attended the first Maundy service held outside England and Wales. At the invitation of the Irish President, Mary McAleese, the Queen made the first state visit to the Republic of Ireland by a British monarch in May 2011. \n\nThe Queen addressed the United Nations for a second time in 2010, again in her capacity as Queen of all Commonwealth realms and Head of the Commonwealth. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, introduced her as \"an anchor for our age\". During her visit to New York, which followed a tour of Canada, she officially opened a memorial garden for the British victims of the September 11 attacks. The Queen's visit to Australia in October 2011 – her sixteenth visit since 1954 – was called her \"farewell tour\" in the press because of her age. \n\nDiamond Jubilee and beyond\n\nHer Diamond Jubilee in 2012 marked 60 years on the throne, and celebrations were held throughout her realms, the wider Commonwealth, and beyond. In a message released on Accession Day, Elizabeth wrote:\n\nShe and her husband undertook an extensive tour of the United Kingdom, while her children and grandchildren embarked on royal tours of other Commonwealth states on her behalf. On 4 June, Jubilee beacons were lit around the world. On 18 December, she became the first British sovereign to attend a peacetime Cabinet meeting since George III in 1781. \n\nThe Queen, who opened the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, also opened the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in London, making her the first head of state to open two Olympic Games in two different countries. For the London Olympics, she played herself in a short film as part of the opening ceremony, alongside Daniel Craig as James Bond. On 4 April 2013, she received an honorary BAFTA for her patronage of the film industry and was called \"the most memorable Bond girl yet\" at the award ceremony. \n\nOn 3 March 2013, Elizabeth was admitted to the King Edward VII's Hospital as a precaution after developing symptoms of gastroenteritis. She returned to Buckingham Palace the following day. Because of her age and the need for her to limit travelling, in 2013 she chose not to attend the biennial meeting of Commonwealth heads of government for the first time in 40 years. She was represented at the summit in Sri Lanka by her son, Prince Charles. \n\nThe Queen surpassed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-lived British monarch in December 2007, and the longest-reigning British monarch on 9 September 2015. She was celebrated in Canada as the \"longest-reigning sovereign in Canada's modern era\". (King Louis XIV of France reigned over part of Canada for longer.) She is the longest-reigning queen regnant in history, the world's oldest reigning monarch and second-longest-serving current head of state after King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand.\n\nThe Queen does not intend to abdicate, though Prince Charles is expected to take on more of her workload as Elizabeth, who celebrated her ninetieth birthday in 2016, carries out fewer public engagements.Marr, p. 395\n\nPublic perception and character\n\nSince Elizabeth rarely gives interviews, little is known of her personal feelings. As a constitutional monarch, she has not expressed her own political opinions in a public forum. She does have a deep sense of religious and civic duty, and takes her coronation oath seriously.Shawcross, pp. 194–195 Aside from her official religious role as Supreme Governor of the established Church of England, she is personally a member of that church and the national Church of Scotland. She has demonstrated support for inter-faith relations and has met with leaders of other churches and religions, including five popes: Pius XII, John XXIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. A personal note about her faith often features in her annual Christmas message broadcast to the Commonwealth. In 2000, she spoke about the theological significance of the millennium marking the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus:\n\nShe is patron of over 600 organisations and charities. Her main leisure interests include equestrianism and dogs, especially her Pembroke Welsh Corgis. Her lifelong love of corgis began in 1933 with Dookie, the first corgi owned by her family. Scenes of a relaxed, informal home life have occasionally been witnessed; she and her family, from time to time, prepare a meal together and do the washing up afterwards. \n\nIn the 1950s, as a young woman at the start of her reign, Elizabeth was depicted as a glamorous \"fairytale Queen\". After the trauma of the Second World War, it was a time of hope, a period of progress and achievement heralding a \"new Elizabethan age\". Lord Altrincham's accusation in 1957 that her speeches sounded like those of a \"priggish schoolgirl\" was an extremely rare criticism. In the late 1960s, attempts to portray a more modern image of the monarchy were made in the television documentary Royal Family and by televising Prince Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales. In public, she took to wearing mostly solid-colour overcoats and decorative hats, which allow her to be seen easily in a crowd. \n\nAt her Silver Jubilee in 1977, the crowds and celebrations were genuinely enthusiastic, but in the 1980s, public criticism of the royal family increased, as the personal and working lives of Elizabeth's children came under media scrutiny. Elizabeth's popularity sank to a low point in the 1990s. Under pressure from public opinion, she began to pay income tax for the first time, and Buckingham Palace was opened to the public. Discontent with the monarchy reached its peak on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, though Elizabeth's personal popularity and support for the monarchy rebounded after her live television broadcast to the world five days after Diana's death. \n\nIn November 1999, a referendum in Australia on the future of the Australian monarchy favoured its retention in preference to an indirectly elected head of state. Polls in Britain in 2006 and 2007 revealed strong support for Elizabeth, and in 2012, her Diamond Jubilee year, approval ratings hit 90 percent. Referenda in Tuvalu in 2008 and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 2009 both rejected proposals to become republics. \n\nElizabeth has been portrayed in a variety of media by many notable artists, including painters Lucian Freud, Peter Blake, Juliet Pannett, Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, Terence Cuneo, Tai-Shan Schierenberg and Pietro Annigoni. Notable photographers of Elizabeth have included Cecil Beaton, Yousuf Karsh, Lord Lichfield, Terry O'Neill, Annie Leibovitz and John Swannell. The first official portrait of Elizabeth was taken by Marcus Adams in 1926.\n\nFinances\n\nElizabeth's personal fortune has been the subject of speculation for many years. Jock Colville, who was her former private secretary and a director of her bank, Coutts, estimated her wealth in 1971 at £2 million (equivalent to about £ today). In 1993, Buckingham Palace called estimates of £100 million \"grossly overstated\". She inherited an estimated £70 million estate from her mother in 2002. The Sunday Times Rich List 2015 estimated her private wealth at £340 million, making her the 302nd richest person in the UK. \n\nThe Royal Collection, which includes thousands of historic works of art and the Crown Jewels, is not owned by the Queen personally but is held in trust, as are her official residences, such as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and the Duchy of Lancaster, a property portfolio valued in 2014 at £442 million. Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle are privately owned by the Queen. The British Crown Estate – with holdings of £9.4 billion in 2014 – is held in trust by the sovereign and cannot be sold or owned by Elizabeth in a private capacity. \n\nTitles, styles, honours and arms\n\nTitles and styles\n\nElizabeth has held many titles and honorary military positions throughout the Commonwealth, is Sovereign of many orders in her own countries, and has received honours and awards from around the world. In each of her realms she has a distinct title that follows a similar formula: Queen of Jamaica and her other realms and territories in Jamaica, Queen of Australia and her other realms and territories in Australia, etc. In the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, which are Crown dependencies rather than separate realms, she is known as Duke of Normandy and Lord of Mann, respectively. Additional styles include Defender of the Faith and Duke of Lancaster. When in conversation with the Queen, the practice is to initially address her as Your Majesty and thereafter as Ma'am. \n\nArms\n\nFrom 21 April 1944 until her accession, Elizabeth's arms consisted of a lozenge bearing the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom differenced with a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing a Tudor rose and the first and third a cross of St George. Upon her accession, she inherited the various arms her father held as sovereign. The Queen also possesses royal standards and personal flags for use in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, and elsewhere. \n\nIssue\n\nAncestry"
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When did the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses say the world would end?
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tc_27
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity.Sources for descriptors:• Millenarian: • Restorationist: • Christian: • Denomination: The group claims a worldwide membership of more than 8.2 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance figures of more than 15 million, and an annual Memorial attendance of more than 19.9 million. Jehovah's Witnesses are directed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, a group of elders in Brooklyn, New York, which establishes all doctrines based on its interpretations of the Bible. They prefer to use their own translation, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, although their literature occasionally quotes and cites other translations. They believe that the destruction of the present world system at Armageddon is imminent, and that the establishment of God's kingdom over the earth is the only solution for all problems faced by humanity. \n\nThe group emerged from the Bible Student movement, founded in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell with the formation of Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society, with significant organizational and doctrinal changes under the leadership of Joseph Franklin Rutherford. The name Jehovah's witnesses was adopted in 1931 to distinguish themselves from other Bible Student groups and symbolize a break with the legacy of Russell's traditions.\n\nJehovah's Witnesses are best known for their door-to-door preaching, distributing literature such as The Watchtower and Awake!, and refusing military service and blood transfusions. They consider use of the name Jehovah vital for proper worship. They reject Trinitarianism, inherent immortality of the soul, and hellfire, which they consider to be unscriptural doctrines. They do not observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays or other holidays and customs they consider to have pagan origins incompatible with Christianity. Adherents commonly refer to their body of beliefs as \"the truth\" and consider themselves to be \"in the truth\". They consider secular society to be morally corrupt and under the influence of Satan, and most limit their social interaction with non-Witnesses. Congregational disciplinary actions include disfellowshipping, their term for formal expulsion and shunning. Baptized individuals who formally leave are considered disassociated and are also shunned. Disfellowshipped and disassociated individuals may eventually be reinstated if deemed repentant. \n\nThe religion's position regarding conscientious objection to military service and refusal to salute national flags has brought it into conflict with some governments. Consequently, some Jehovah's Witnesses have been persecuted and their activities are banned or restricted in some countries. Persistent legal challenges by Jehovah's Witnesses have influenced legislation related to civil rights in several countries. \n\nThe organization has attracted criticism over issues surrounding biblical translation, doctrines, handling of sexual abuse cases, and alleged coercion of its members. The claims are rejected by the religion's leaders, and some have been disputed by courts and religious scholars.\n\nHistory\n\nBackground (1870–1916)\n\nIn 1870, Charles Taze Russell and others formed a group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study the Bible. During the course of his ministry, Russell disputed many beliefs of mainstream Christianity including immortality of the soul, hellfire, predestination, the fleshly return of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, and the burning up of the world. In 1876, Russell met Nelson H. Barbour; later that year they jointly produced the book Three Worlds, which combined restitutionist views with end time prophecy. The book taught that God's dealings with humanity were divided dispensationally, each ending with a \"harvest,\" that Christ had returned as an invisible spirit being in 1874 inaugurating the \"harvest of the Gospel age,\" and that 1914 would mark the end of a 2520-year period called \"the Gentile Times,\" at which time world society would be replaced by the full establishment of God's kingdom on earth. Beginning in 1878 Russell and Barbour jointly edited a religious journal, Herald of the Morning. In June 1879 the two split over doctrinal differences, and in July, Russell began publishing the magazine Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, stating that its purpose was to demonstrate that the world was in \"the last days,\" and that a new age of earthly and human restitution under the reign of Christ was imminent. \n\nFrom 1879, Watch Tower supporters gathered as autonomous congregations to study the Bible topically. Thirty congregations were founded, and during 1879 and 1880, Russell visited each to provide the format he recommended for conducting meetings. As congregations continued to form during Russell's ministry, they each remained self-administrative, functioning under the congregationalist style of church governance. In 1881, Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was presided over by William Henry Conley, and in 1884, Charles Taze Russell incorporated the society as a non-profit business to distribute tracts and Bibles. By about 1900, Russell had organized thousands of part- and full-time colporteurs, and was appointing foreign missionaries and establishing branch offices. By the 1910s, Russell's organization maintained nearly a hundred \"pilgrims,\" or traveling preachers. Russell engaged in significant global publishing efforts during his ministry, and by 1912, he was the most distributed Christian author in the United States. \n\nRussell moved the Watch Tower Society's headquarters to Brooklyn, New York, in 1909, combining printing and corporate offices with a house of worship; volunteers were housed in a nearby residence he named Bethel. He identified the religious movement as \"Bible Students,\" and more formally as the International Bible Students Association. By 1910, about 50,000 people worldwide were associated with the movement and congregations re-elected him annually as their \"pastor.\" Russell died October 31, 1916, at the age of 64 while returning from a ministerial speaking tour. \n\nReorganization (1917–1942)\n\nIn January 1917, the Watch Tower Society's legal representative, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, was elected as its next president. His election was disputed, and members of the Board of Directors accused him of acting in an autocratic and secretive manner. The divisions between his supporters and opponents triggered a major turnover of members over the next decade. In June 1917, he released The Finished Mystery as a seventh volume of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures series. The book, published as the posthumous work of Russell, was a compilation of his commentaries on the Bible books of Ezekiel and Revelation, plus numerous additions by Bible Students Clayton Woodworth and George Fisher. It strongly criticized Catholic and Protestant clergy and Christian involvement in the Great War. As a result, Watch Tower Society directors were jailed for sedition under the Espionage Act in 1918 and members were subjected to mob violence; the directors were released in March 1919 and charges against them were dropped in 1920. \n\nRutherford centralized organizational control of the Watch Tower Society. In 1919, he instituted the appointment of a director in each congregation, and a year later all members were instructed to report their weekly preaching activity to the Brooklyn headquarters. At an international convention held at Cedar Point, Ohio, in September 1922, a new emphasis was made on house-to-house preaching. Significant changes in doctrine and administration were regularly introduced during Rutherford's twenty-five years as president, including the 1920 announcement that the Jewish patriarchs (such as Abraham and Isaac) would be resurrected in 1925, marking the beginning of Christ's thousand-year Kingdom. Disappointed by the changes, tens of thousands of defections occurred during the first half of Rutherford's tenure, leading to the formation of several Bible Student organizations independent of the Watch Tower Society, most of which still exist. By mid-1919, as many as one in seven of Russell-era Bible Students had ceased their association with the Society, and as many as two-thirds by the end of the 1920s. \n\nOn July 26, 1931, at a convention in Columbus, Ohio, Rutherford introduced the new name—Jehovah's witnesses—based on Isaiah 43:10: \"Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen\"—which was adopted by resolution. The name was chosen to distinguish his group of Bible Students from other independent groups that had severed ties with the Society, as well as symbolize the instigation of new outlooks and the promotion of fresh evangelizing methods. In 1932, Rutherford eliminated the system of locally elected elders and in 1938, introduced what he called a \"theocratic\" (literally, God-ruled) organizational system, under which appointments in congregations worldwide were made from the Brooklyn headquarters.\n\nFrom 1932, it was taught that the \"little flock\" of 144,000 would not be the only people to survive Armageddon. Rutherford explained that in addition to the 144,000 \"anointed\" who would be resurrected—or transferred at death—to live in heaven to rule over earth with Christ, a separate class of members, the \"great multitude,\" would live in a paradise restored on earth; from 1935, new converts to the movement were considered part of that class. By the mid-1930s, the timing of the beginning of Christ's presence (Greek: parousía), his enthronement as king, and the start of the \"last days\" were each moved to 1914. \n\nAs their interpretations of the Bible developed, Witness publications decreed that saluting national flags is a form of idolatry, which led to a new outbreak of mob violence and government opposition in the United States, Canada, Germany, and other countries. \n\nWorldwide membership of Jehovah's Witnesses reached 113,624 in 5,323 congregations by the time of Rutherford's death in January 1942. \n\nContinued development (1942–present)\n\nNathan Knorr was appointed as third president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in 1942. Knorr commissioned a new translation of the Bible, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, the full version of which was released in 1961. He organized large international assemblies, instituted new training programs for members, and expanded missionary activity and branch offices throughout the world. Knorr's presidency was also marked by an increasing use of explicit instructions guiding Witnesses in their lifestyle and conduct, and a greater use of congregational judicial procedures to enforce a strict moral code. \n\nFrom 1966, Witness publications and convention talks built anticipation of the possibility that Christ's thousand-year reign might begin in late 1975 or shortly thereafter. The number of baptisms increased significantly, from about 59,000 in 1966 to more than 297,000 in 1974. By 1975, the number of active members exceeded two million. Membership declined during the late 1970s after expectations for 1975 were proved wrong. Watch Tower Society literature did not state dogmatically that 1975 would definitely mark the end, but in 1980 the Watch Tower Society admitted its responsibility in building up hope regarding that year. \n\nThe offices of elder and ministerial servant were restored to Witness congregations in 1972, with appointments made from headquarters (and later, also by branch committees). It was announced that, starting in September 2014, appointments would be made by traveling overseers. In a major organizational overhaul in 1976, the power of the Watch Tower Society president was diminished, with authority for doctrinal and organizational decisions passed to the Governing Body. Since Knorr's death in 1977, the position of president has been occupied by Frederick Franz (1977–1992) and Milton Henschel (1992–2000), both members of the Governing Body, and since 2000 by Don A. Adams, not a member of the Governing Body. In 1995, Jehovah's Witnesses abandoned the idea that Armageddon must occur during the lives of the generation that was alive in 1914 and in 2013 changed their teaching on the \"generation\". \n\nOrganization\n\nJehovah's Witnesses are organized hierarchically, in what the leadership calls a \"theocratic organization\", reflecting their belief that it is God's \"visible organization\" on earth. The organization is led by the Governing Body—an all-male group that varies in size, but since early 2014 has comprised seven members,Twelve members as of September 2005 (See The Watchtower, March 15, 2006, page 26)Schroeder died March 8, 2006. (See The Watchtower, September 15, 2006, page 31)Sydlik died April 18, 2006. (See The Watchtower, January 1, 2007, page 8)Barber died April 8, 2007. (See The Watchtower, October 15, 2007, page 31)Jaracz died June 9, 2010. (See The Watchtower, November 15, 2010, page 23)Barr died December 4, 2010. (See The Watchtower, May 15, 2011, page 6)Sanderson appointed September 1, 2012. (See The Watchtower, July 15, 2013, page 26)Pierce died March 20, 2014. (See The Watchtower, December 15, 2014, page 3) all of whom profess to be of the \"anointed\" class with a hope of heavenly life—based in the Watch Tower Society's Brooklyn headquarters. There is no election for membership; new members are selected by the existing body. Until late 2012, the Governing Body described itself as the representative and \"spokesman\" for God's \"faithful and discreet slave class\" (approximately 10,000 self-professed \"anointed\" Jehovah's Witnesses). At the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Watch Tower Society, the \"faithful and discreet slave\" was defined as referring to the Governing Body only. The Governing Body directs several committees that are responsible for administrative functions, including publishing, assembly programs and evangelizing activities. It appoints all branch committee members and traveling overseers, after they have been recommended by local branches, with traveling overseers supervising circuits of congregations within their jurisdictions. Traveling overseers appoint local elders and ministerial servants, and while branch offices may appoint regional committees for matters such as Kingdom Hall construction or disaster relief. \n\nEach congregation has a body of appointed unpaid male elders and ministerial servants. Elders maintain general responsibility for congregational governance, setting meeting times, selecting speakers and conducting meetings, directing the public preaching work, and creating \"judicial committees\" to investigate and decide disciplinary action for cases involving sexual misconduct or doctrinal breaches. New elders are appointed by a traveling overseer after recommendation by the existing body of elders. Ministerial servants—appointed in a similar manner to elders—fulfill clerical and attendant duties, but may also teach and conduct meetings. Witnesses do not use elder as a title to signify a formal clergy-laity division, though elders may employ ecclesiastical privilege such as confession of sins. \n\nBaptism is a requirement for being considered a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses do not practice infant baptism, and previous baptisms performed by other denominations are not considered valid. Individuals undergoing baptism must affirm publicly that dedication and baptism identify them \"as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organization,\" though Witness publications say baptism symbolizes personal dedication to God and not \"to a man, work or organization.\" Their literature emphasizes the need for members to be obedient and loyal to Jehovah and to \"his organization,\" Raymond Franz (In Search of Christian Freedom, 2007, p.449) cites various Watch Tower Society publications that stress loyalty and obedience to the organization, including: \"Following Faithful Shepherds with Life in View\", The Watchtower, October 1, 1967, page 591, \"Make haste to identify the visible theocratic organization of God that represents his king, Jesus Christ. It is essential for life. Doing so, be complete in accepting its every aspect.\"; The Watchtower, September 1, 2006, pg 15, \"Have we formed a loyal attachment to the organization that Jehovah is using today?\"; \"Your Reminders Are What I Am Fond Of\", The Watchtower, June 15, 2006, pg 26, \"We too should remain faithful to Jehovah and to his organization regardless of injustices we suffer and regardless of what others do.\"; \"Are You Prepared for Survival?\", The Watchtower, May 15, 2006, pg 22, \"Just as Noah and his God-fearing family were preserved in the ark, survival of individuals today depends on their faith and their loyal association with the earthly part of Jehovah’s universal organization.\"; Worship The Only True God (Watch Tower Society, 2002), pg 134, \"Jehovah is guiding us today by means of his visible organization under Christ. Our attitude toward this arrangement demonstrates how we feel about the issue of sovereignty ... By being loyal to Jehovah’s organization, we show that Jehovah is our God and that we are united in worship of him.\" stating that individuals must remain part of it to receive God's favor and to survive Armageddon. \n\nPublishing\n\nThe organization publishes a significant amount of literature as part of its evangelism activities. The Watch Tower Society has produced over 200 million copies of the Bible in whole or part in over 120 languages. The Watchtower and Awake! are the most widely distributed magazines in the world. Translation of Witness publications is done by over 2000 volunteers worldwide, producing literature in over 760 languages. \n\nFunding\n\nMuch of their funding is provided by donations, primarily from members. There is no tithing or collection. In 2001 Newsday listed the Watch Tower Society as one of New York's forty richest corporations, with revenues exceeding $950 million. The organization reported for the same year that it \"spent over 70.9 million dollars in caring for special pioneers, missionaries, and traveling overseers in their field service assignments.\" \n\nBeliefs\n\nSources of doctrine\n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe their religion is a restoration of first-century Christianity. Doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses are established by the Governing Body, which assumes responsibility for interpreting and applying scripture. The Governing Body does not issue any single, comprehensive \"statement of faith\", but prefers to express its doctrinal position in a variety of ways through publications published by the Watch Tower Society. Their publications teach that doctrinal changes and refinements result from a process of progressive revelation, in which God gradually reveals his will and purpose, and that such enlightenment or \"new light\" results from the application of reason and study, the guidance of the holy spirit, and direction from Jesus Christ and angels. The Society also teaches that members of the Governing Body are helped by the holy spirit to discern \"deep truths\", which are then considered by the entire Governing Body before it makes doctrinal decisions. The religion's leadership, while disclaiming divine inspiration and infallibility, is said to provide \"divine guidance\" through its teachings described as \"based on God's Word thus ... not from men, but from Jehovah.\" \n\nThe entire Protestant canon of scripture is considered the inspired, inerrant word of God. Jehovah's Witnesses consider the Bible to be scientifically and historically accurate and reliable and interpret much of it literally, but accept parts of it as symbolic. They consider the Bible to be the final authority for all their beliefs, although sociologist Andrew Holden's ethnographic study of the religion concluded that pronouncements of the Governing Body, through Watch Tower Society publications, carry almost as much weight as the Bible. Regular personal Bible reading is frequently recommended; Witnesses are discouraged from formulating doctrines and \"private ideas\" reached through Bible research independent of Watch Tower Society publications, and are cautioned against reading other religious literature. Adherents are told to have \"complete confidence\" in the leadership, avoid skepticism about what is taught in the Watch Tower Society's literature, and \"not advocate or insist on personal opinions or harbor private ideas when it comes to Bible understanding.\" The religion makes no provision for members to criticize or contribute to official teachings and all Witnesses must abide by its doctrines and organizational requirements. \n\nJehovah and Jesus Christ\n\nJehovah's Witnesses emphasize use of the name Jehovah—a representation of God's name based on the Tetragrammaton. They believe that Jehovah is the only true God, the creator of all things, and the \"Universal Sovereign\". They believe that all worship should be directed toward him, and that he is not part of a Trinity; consequently, the religion places more emphasis on God than on Christ. They believe that the holy spirit is God's applied power or \"active force\", rather than a person. \n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is God's only direct creation, that everything else was created through Christ by means of God's power, and that the initial unassisted act of creation uniquely identifies Jesus as God's \"only-begotten Son\". Jesus served as a redeemer and a ransom sacrifice to pay for the sins of humanity. They believe Jesus died on a single upright post rather than the traditional cross. They believe that references in the Bible to the Archangel Michael, Abaddon (Apollyon), and the Word all refer to Jesus. Jesus is considered to be the only intercessor and high priest between God and humanity, and appointed by God as the king and judge of his kingdom. His role as a mediator (referred to in 1 Timothy 2:5) is applied to the 'anointed' class, though the 'other sheep' are said to also benefit from the arrangement. \n\nSatan\n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan was originally a perfect angel who developed feelings of self-importance and craved worship. Satan influenced Adam and Eve to disobey God, and humanity subsequently became participants in a challenge involving the competing claims of Jehovah and Satan to universal sovereignty. Other angels who sided with Satan became demons.\n\nJehovah's Witnesses teach that Satan and his demons were cast down to earth from heaven after October 1, 1914, at which point the end times began. Witnesses believe that Satan is the ruler of the current world order, that human society is influenced and misled by Satan and his demons, and that they are a cause of human suffering. They also believe that human governments are controlled by Satan, but that he does not directly control each human ruler. \n\nLife after death\n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe death is a state of non-existence with no consciousness. There is no Hell of fiery torment; Hades and Sheol are understood to refer to the condition of death, termed the common grave. Jehovah's Witnesses consider the soul to be a life or a living body that can die. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that humanity is in a sinful state, from which release is only possible by means of Jesus' shed blood as a ransom, or atonement, for the sins of humankind. \n\nWitnesses believe that a \"little flock\" go to heaven, but that the hope for life after death for the majority of \"other sheep\" involves being resurrected by God to a cleansed earth after Armageddon. They interpret Revelation 14:1–5 to mean that the number of Christians going to heaven is limited to exactly 144,000, who will rule with Jesus as kings and priests over earth. They believe that baptism as one of Jehovah's Witnesses is vital for salvation and that only they meet scriptural requirements for surviving Armageddon, but that God is the final judge.\"Remaining Organized for Survival Into the Millennium\", The Watchtower, September 1, 1989, page 19, \"Only Jehovah's Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the 'great crowd,'as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any Scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil.\" During Christ's millennial reign, most people who died prior to Armageddon will be resurrected with the prospect of living forever; they will be taught the proper way to worship God to prepare them for their final test at the end of the millennium. \n\nGod's kingdom\n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe that God's kingdom is a literal government in heaven, ruled by Jesus Christ and 144,000 \"spirit-anointed\" Christians drawn from the earth, which they associate with Jesus' reference to a \"new covenant\". The kingdom is viewed as the means by which God will accomplish his original purpose for the earth, transforming it into a paradise without sickness or death. It is said to have been the focal point of Jesus' ministry on earth. They believe the kingdom was established in heaven in 1914, and that Jehovah's Witnesses serve as representatives of the kingdom on earth. \n\nEschatology\n\nA central teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the current world era, or \"system of things\", entered the \"last days\" in 1914 and faces imminent destruction through intervention by God and Jesus Christ, leading to deliverance for those who worship God acceptably. They consider all other present-day religions to be false, identifying them with \"Babylon the Great\", or the \"harlot\", of Revelation 17, and believe that they will soon be destroyed by the United Nations, which they believe is represented in scripture by the scarlet-colored wild beast of Revelation chapter 17. This development will mark the beginning of the \"great tribulation\". Satan will subsequently attack Jehovah's Witnesses, an action that will prompt God to begin the war of Armageddon, during which all forms of government and all people not counted as Christ's \"sheep\", or true followers, will be destroyed. After Armageddon, God will extend his heavenly kingdom to include earth, which will be transformed into a paradise similar to the Garden of Eden. Most of those who had died before God's intervention will gradually be resurrected during \"judgment day\" lasting for one thousand years. This judgment will be based on their actions after resurrection rather than past deeds. At the end of the thousand years, Christ will hand all authority back to God. Then a final test will take place when Satan is released to mislead perfect mankind. Those who fail will be destroyed, along with Satan and his demons. The end result will be a fully tested, glorified human race. \n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ began to rule in heaven as king of God's kingdom in October 1914, and that Satan was subsequently ousted from heaven to the earth, resulting in \"woe\" to humanity. They believe that Jesus rules invisibly, from heaven, perceived only as a series of \"signs\". They base this belief on a rendering of the Greek word parousia—usually translated as \"coming\" when referring to Christ—as \"presence\". They believe Jesus' presence includes an unknown period beginning with his inauguration as king in heaven in 1914, and ending when he comes to bring a final judgment against humans on earth. They thus depart from the mainstream Christian belief that the \"second coming\" of Matthew 24 refers to a single moment of arrival on earth to judge humans. \n\nPractices\n\nWorship\n\nMeetings for worship and study are held at Kingdom Halls, which are typically functional in character, and do not contain religious symbols. Witnesses are assigned to a congregation in whose \"territory\" they usually reside and attend weekly services they refer to as \"meetings\" as scheduled by congregation elders. The meetings are largely devoted to study of Watch Tower Society literature and the Bible. The format of the meetings is established by the religion's headquarters, and the subject matter for most meetings is the same worldwide. Congregations meet for two sessions each week comprising five distinct meetings that total about three-and-a-half hours, typically gathering mid-week (three meetings) and on the weekend (two meetings). Prior to 2009, congregations met three times each week; these meetings were condensed, with the intention that members dedicate an evening for \"family worship\". Gatherings are opened and closed with kingdom songs (hymns) and brief prayers. Twice each year, Witnesses from a number of congregations that form a \"circuit\" gather for a one-day assembly. Larger groups of congregations meet once a year for a three-day \"regional convention\", usually at rented stadiums or auditoriums. Their most important and solemn event is the commemoration of the \"Lord's Evening Meal\", or \"Memorial of Christ's Death\" on the date of the Jewish Passover. \n\nEvangelism\n\nJehovah's Witnesses are perhaps best known for their efforts to spread their beliefs, most notably by visiting people from house to house, distributing literature published by the Watch Tower Society in 700 languages. The objective is to start a regular \"Bible study\" with any person who is not already a member, with the intention that the student be baptized as a member of the group; Witnesses are advised to consider discontinuing Bible studies with students who show no interest in becoming members. Witnesses are taught they are under a biblical command to engage in public preaching. They are instructed to devote as much time as possible to their ministry and are required to submit an individual monthly \"Field Service Report\". Baptized members who fail to report a month of preaching are termed \"irregular\" and may be counseled by elders; those who do not submit reports for six consecutive months are termed \"inactive\". \n\nEthics and morality\n\nAll sexual relations outside of marriage are grounds for expulsion if the individual is not deemed repentant; homosexual activity is considered a serious sin, and same-sex marriages are forbidden. Abortion is considered murder. Suicide is considered to be \"self-murder\" and a sin against God. Modesty in dress and grooming is frequently emphasized. Gambling, drunkenness, illegal drugs, and tobacco use are forbidden. Drinking of alcoholic beverages is permitted in moderation.\n\nThe family structure is patriarchal. The husband is considered to have authority on family decisions, but is encouraged to solicit his wife's thoughts and feelings, as well as those of his children. Marriages are required to be monogamous and legally registered. Marrying a non-believer, or endorsing such a union, is strongly discouraged and carries religious sanctions. \n\nDivorce is discouraged, and remarriage is forbidden unless a divorce is obtained on the grounds of adultery, which they refer to as \"a scriptural divorce\". If a divorce is obtained for any other reason, remarriage is considered adulterous unless the prior spouse has died or is since considered to have committed sexual immorality. Extreme physical abuse, willful non-support of one's family, and what the religion terms \"absolute endangerment of spirituality\" are considered grounds for legal separation. \n\nDisciplinary action\n\nFormal discipline is administered by congregation elders. When a baptized member is accused of committing a serious sin—usually cases of sexual misconduct or charges of apostasy for disputing Jehovah's Witness doctrines —a judicial committee is formed to determine guilt, provide help and possibly administer discipline. Disfellowshipping, a form of shunning, is the strongest form of discipline, administered to an offender deemed unrepentant. Contact with disfellowshipped individuals is limited to direct family members living in the same home, and with congregation elders who may invite disfellowshipped persons to apply for reinstatement; formal business dealings may continue if contractually or financially obliged. Witnesses are taught that avoiding social and spiritual interaction with disfellowshipped individuals keeps the congregation free from immoral influence and that \"losing precious fellowship with loved ones may help [the shunned individual] to come 'to his senses,' see the seriousness of his wrong, and take steps to return to Jehovah.\" The practice of shunning may also serve to deter other members from dissident behavior. Members who disassociate (formally resign) are described in Watch Tower Society literature as wicked and are also shunned. Expelled individuals may eventually be reinstated to the congregation if deemed repentant by elders in the congregation in which the disfellowshipping was enforced. Reproof is a lesser form of discipline given formally by a judicial committee to a baptized Witness who is considered repentant of serious sin; the reproved person temporarily loses conspicuous privileges of service, but suffers no restriction of social or spiritual fellowship. Marking, a curtailing of social but not spiritual fellowship, is practiced if a baptized member persists in a course of action regarded as a violation of Bible principles but not a serious sin.A common example given is a baptized Witness who dates a non-Witness; see The Watchtower, July 15, 1999, p. 30.\n\nSeparateness\n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible condemns the mixing of religions, on the basis that there can only be one truth from God, and therefore reject interfaith and ecumenical movements. They believe that only their religion represents true Christianity, and that other religions fail to meet all the requirements set by God and will soon be destroyed. Jehovah's Witnesses are taught that it is vital to remain \"separate from the world.\" The Witnesses' literature defines the \"world\" as \"the mass of mankind apart from Jehovah's approved servants\" and teach that it is morally contaminated and ruled by Satan. Witnesses are taught that association with \"worldly\" people presents a \"danger\" to their faith, and are instructed to minimize social contact with non-members to better maintain their own standards of morality. \n\nJehovah's Witnesses believe their highest allegiance belongs to God's kingdom, which is viewed as an actual government in heaven, with Christ as king. They remain politically neutral, do not seek public office, and are discouraged from voting, though individual members may participate in uncontroversial community improvement issues. Although they do not take part in politics, they respect the authority of the governments under which they live. They do not celebrate religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter, nor do they observe birthdays, nationalistic holidays, or other celebrations they consider to honor people other than Jesus. They feel that these and many other customs have pagan origins or reflect a nationalistic or political spirit. Their position is that these traditional holidays reflect Satan's control over the world. Witnesses are told that spontaneous giving at other times can help their children to not feel deprived of birthdays or other celebrations. \n\nThey do not work in industries associated with the military, do not serve in the armed services, and refuse national military service, which in some countries may result in their arrest and imprisonment. They do not salute or pledge allegiance to flags or sing national anthems or patriotic songs. Jehovah's Witnesses see themselves as a worldwide brotherhood that transcends national boundaries and ethnic loyalties. Sociologist Ronald Lawson has suggested the religion's intellectual and organizational isolation, coupled with the intense indoctrination of adherents, rigid internal discipline and considerable persecution, has contributed to the consistency of its sense of urgency in its apocalyptic message. \n\nRejection of blood transfusions\n\nJehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions, which they consider a violation of God's law based on their interpretation of Acts 15:28, 29 and other scriptures. Since 1961 the willing acceptance of a blood transfusion by an unrepentant member has been grounds for expulsion from the religion. Members are directed to refuse blood transfusions, even in \"a life-or-death situation\". Jehovah's Witnesses accept non-blood alternatives and other medical procedures in lieu of blood transfusions, and their literature provides information about non-blood medical procedures. \n\nThough Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions of whole blood, they may accept some blood plasma fractions at their own discretion. The Watch Tower Society provides pre-formatted durable power of attorney documents prohibiting major blood components, in which members can specify which allowable fractions and treatments they will personally accept. Jehovah's Witnesses have established Hospital Liaison Committees as a cooperative arrangement between individual Jehovah's Witnesses and medical professionals and hospitals. \n\nDemographics\n\nJehovah's Witnesses have an active presence in most countries, but do not form a large part of the population of any country.\n\nAs of August 2015, Jehovah's Witnesses report an average of 8.2 million publishers—the term they use for members actively involved in preaching—in 118,016 congregations. In 2015, these reports indicated over 1.93 billion hours spent in preaching and \"Bible study\" activity. Since the mid-1990s, the number of peak publishers has increased from 4.5 million to 8.2 million. In the same year, they conducted \"Bible studies\" with over 9.7 million individuals, including those conducted by Witness parents with their children. Jehovah's Witnesses estimate their current worldwide growth rate to be 1.5% per year.\n\nThe official published membership statistics, such as those mentioned above, include only those who submit reports for their personal ministry; official statistics do not include inactive and disfellowshipped individuals or others who might attend their meetings. As a result, only about half of those who self-identified as Jehovah's Witnesses in independent demographic studies are considered active by the faith itself. The 2008 US Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey found a low retention rate among members of the religion: about 37% of people raised in the religion continued to identify themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses. \n\nSociological analysis\n\nSociologist James A. Beckford, in his 1975 study of Jehovah's Witnesses, classified the religion's organizational structure as Totalizing, characterized by an assertive leadership, specific and narrow objectives, control over competing demands on members' time and energy, and control over the quality of new members. Other characteristics of the classification include likelihood of friction with secular authorities, reluctance to co-operate with other religious organizations, a high rate of membership turnover, a low rate of doctrinal change, and strict uniformity of beliefs among members. Beckford identified the religion's chief characteristics as historicism (identifying historical events as relating to the outworking of God's purpose), absolutism (conviction that Jehovah's Witness leaders dispense absolute truth), activism (capacity to motivate members to perform missionary tasks), rationalism (conviction that Witness doctrines have a rational basis devoid of mystery), authoritarianism (rigid presentation of regulations without the opportunity for criticism) and world indifference (rejection of certain secular requirements and medical treatments). \n\nSociologist Bryan R. Wilson, in his consideration of five religions including Jehovah's Witnesses, noted that each of the religions: \n# \"exists in a state of tension with the wider society;\"\n# \"imposes tests of merit on would-be members;\"\n# \"exercises stern discipline, regulating the declared beliefs and the life habits of members and prescribing and operating sanctions for those who deviate, including the possibility of expulsion;\"\n# \"demands sustained and total commitment from its members, and the subordination, and perhaps even the exclusion of all other interests.\"\n\nA sociological comparative study by the Pew Research Center found that Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States ranked highest in statistics for getting no further than high school graduation, belief in God, importance of religion in one's life, frequency of religious attendance, frequency of prayers, frequency of Bible reading outside of religious services, belief their prayers are answered, belief that their religion can only be interpreted one way, belief that theirs is the only one true faith leading to eternal life, opposition to abortion, and opposition to homosexuality. In the study, Jehovah's Witnesses ranked lowest in statistics for having earned a graduate degree and interest in politics. \n\nOpposition\n\nControversy surrounding various beliefs, doctrines and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses has led to opposition from local governments, communities, and religious groups. Religious commentator Ken Jubber wrote that \"Viewed globally, this persecution has been so persistent and of such intensity that it would not be inaccurate to regard Jehovah's Witnesses as the most persecuted group of Christians of the twentieth century.\" \n\nPersecution\n\nPolitical and religious animosity against Jehovah's Witnesses has at times led to mob action and government oppression in various countries. Their doctrine of political neutrality and their refusal to serve in the military has led to imprisonment of members who refused conscription during World War II and at other times where national service has been compulsory. In 1933, there were approximately 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany, of whom about 10,000 were later imprisoned. Of those, 2000 were sent to Nazi concentration camps, where they were identified by purple triangles; as many as 1200 died, including 250 who were executed. Shulman, William L. A State of Terror: Germany 1933–1939. Bayside, New York: Holocaust Resource Center and Archives. In Canada, Jehovah's Witnesses were interned in camps along with political dissidents and people of Chinese and Japanese descent. In the former Soviet Union, about 9,300 Jehovah's Witnesses were deported to Siberia as part of Operation North in April 1951.Валерий Пасат .\"Трудные страницы истории Молдовы (1940–1950)\". Москва: Изд. Terra, 1994 Their religious activities are currently banned or restricted in some countries, including China, Vietnam and some Islamic states. \n\nAuthors including William Whalen, Shawn Francis Peters and former Witnesses Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Alan Rogerson and William Schnell have claimed the arrests and mob violence in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s were the consequence of what appeared to be a deliberate course of provocation of authorities and other religions by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Whalen, Harrison and Schnell have suggested Rutherford invited and cultivated opposition for publicity purposes in a bid to attract dispossessed members of society, and to convince members that persecution from the outside world was evidence of the truth of their struggle to serve God.Claims that Jehovah's Witnesses chose a deliberate course of martyrdom are contained in:Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Visions of Glory, 1978, chapter 6. Watch Tower Society literature of the period directed that Witnesses should \"never seek a controversy\" nor resist arrest, but also advised members not to co-operate with police officers or courts that ordered them to stop preaching, and to prefer jail rather than pay fines. \n\nLegal challenges\n\nSeveral cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses have been heard by Supreme Courts throughout the world. The cases generally relate to their right to practice their religion, displays of patriotism and military service, and blood transfusions. \n\nIn the United States, their persistent legal challenges prompted a series of state and federal court rulings that reinforced judicial protections for civil liberties. Among the rights strengthened by Witness court victories in the United States are the protection of religious conduct from federal and state interference, the right to abstain from patriotic rituals and military service, the right of patients to refuse medical treatment, and the right to engage in public discourse. Similar cases in their favor have been heard in Canada. \n\nCriticism and controversy\n\nJehovah's Witnesses have attracted criticism over issues surrounding their Bible translation, doctrines, their handling of sexual abuse cases, and alleged coercion of members. Many of the claims are denied by Jehovah's Witnesses and some have also been disputed by religious scholars.\n\nFree speech and thought\n\nDoctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses are established by the Governing Body. The religion does not tolerate dissent over doctrines and practices; members who openly disagree with the religion's teachings are expelled and shunned. Witness publications strongly discourage followers from questioning doctrine and counsel received from the Governing Body, reasoning that it is to be trusted as part of \"God's organization\". It also warns members to \"avoid independent thinking\", claiming such thinking \"was introduced by Satan the Devil\" and would \"cause division\". Those who openly disagree with official teachings are condemned as \"apostates\" who are \"mentally diseased\". \n\nFormer members Heather and Gary Botting compare the cultural paradigms of the religion to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, and Alan Rogerson describes the religion's leadership as totalitarian. Other critics charge that by disparaging individual decision-making, the religion's leaders cultivate a system of unquestioning obedience in which Witnesses abrogate all responsibility and rights over their personal lives. Critics also accuse the religion's leaders of exercising \"intellectual dominance\" over Witnesses, controlling information and creating \"mental isolation\", which former Governing Body member Raymond Franz argued were all elements of mind control. \n\nJehovah's Witness publications state that consensus of faith aids unity, and deny that unity restricts individuality or imagination. Historian James Irvin Lichti has rejected the description of the religion as \"totalitarian\". \n\nSociologist Rodney Stark states that Jehovah's Witness leaders are \"not always very democratic\" and that members \"are expected to conform to rather strict standards,\" but adds that \"enforcement tends to be very informal, sustained by the close bonds of friendship within the group\", and that Jehovah's Witnesses see themselves as \"part of the power structure rather than subject to it.\" Sociologist Andrew Holden states that most members who join millenarian movements such as Jehovah's Witnesses have made an informed choice. However, he also states that defectors \"are seldom allowed a dignified exit\", and describes the administration as autocratic. \n\nNew World Translation\n\nSome Bible scholars including Bruce M. Metzger, former Professor and Bible editor at Princeton Theological Seminary, have said that the translation of certain texts in its New World Translation of the Bible is biased in favor of Witness practices and doctrines. The Bible editor Harold H. Rowley criticized the pre-release edition of the first volume (Genesis to Ruth) published in 1953 as \"a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated.\" \n\nOn the other hand, in his study on nine of \"the Bibles most widely in use in the English-speaking world\", Bible scholar Jason BeDuhn, Professor of Religious Studies at the Northern Arizona University, wrote: “The NW [New World Translation] emerges as the most accurate of the translations compared.” Although the general public and many Bible scholars assume that the differences in the New World Translation are the result of religious bias on the part of its translators, BeDuhn stated: “Most of the differences are due to the greater accuracy of the NW as a literal, conservative translation of the original expressions of the New Testament writers.” He added however that the insertion of the name Jehovah in the New Testament \"violate[s] accuracy in favor of denominationally preferred expressions for God\". \n\nFailed predictions\n\nWatch Tower Society publications have claimed that God has used Jehovah's Witnesses (and formerly, the International Bible Students) to declare his will and has provided advance knowledge about Armageddon and the establishment of God's kingdom. Some publications also claimed that God has used Jehovah's Witnesses and the International Bible Students as a modern-day prophet.Raymond Franz cites numerous examples. In Crisis of Conscience, 2002, pg. 173, he quotes from \"They Shall Know That a Prophet Was Among Them\", (The Watchtower, April 1, 1972,) which states that God had raised Jehovah's Witnesses as a prophet \"to warn (people) of dangers and declare things to come\" He also cites \"Identifying the Right Kind of Messenger\" (The Watchtower, May 1, 1997, page 8) which identifies the Witnesses as his \"true messengers ... by making the messages he delivers through them come true\", in contrast to \"false messengers\", whose predictions fail. In In Search of Christian Freedom, 2007, he quotes The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah—How? (1971, pg 70, 292) which describes Witnesses as the modern Ezekiel class, \"a genuine prophet within our generation\". The Watch Tower book noted: \"Concerning the message faithfully delivered by the Ezekiel class, Jehovah positively states that it 'must come true' ... those who wait undecided until it does 'come true' will also have to know that a prophet himself had proved to be in the midst of them.\" He also cites \"Execution of the Great Harlot Nears\", (The Watchtower, October 15, 1980, pg 17) which claims God gives the Witnesses \"special knowledge that others do not have ... advance knowledge about this system's end\". Jehovah's Witnesses' publications have made various predictions about world events they believe were prophesied in the Bible.The Watchtower, Jan. 15, 1959, pp. 39–41 Failed predictions have led to the alteration or abandonment of some doctrines. Some failed predictions had been presented as \"beyond doubt\" or \"approved by God\". \n\nThe Watch Tower Society rejects accusations that it is a false prophet, stating that its teachings are not inspired or infallible, and that it has not claimed its predictions were \"the words of Jehovah.\" George D. Chryssides has suggested that with the exception of statements about 1914, 1925 and 1975, the changing views and dates of the Jehovah's Witnesses are largely attributable to changed understandings of biblical chronology than to failed predictions. Chryssides further states, \"it is therefore simplistic and naïve to view the Witnesses as a group that continues to set a single end-date that fails and then devise a new one, as many counter-cultists do.\" However, sociologist Andrew Holden states that since the foundation of the movement around 140 years ago, \"Witnesses have maintained that we are living on the precipice of the end of time.\" \n\nHandling of sexual abuse cases\n\nJehovah's Witnesses have been accused of having policies and culture that help to conceal cases of sexual abuse within the organization. The religion has been criticized for its \"two witness rule\" for church discipline, based on its application of scriptures at Deuteronomy 19:15 and Matthew 18:15-17, which requires sexual abuse to be substantiated by secondary evidence if the accused person denies any wrongdoing. In cases where corroboration is lacking, the Watch Tower Society's instruction is that \"the elders will leave the matter in Jehovah's hands\". A former member of the church’s headquarters staff, Barbara Anderson, says the policy effectively requires that there be another witness to an act of molestation, \"which is an impossibility\". Anderson says the policies \"protect pedophiles rather than protect the children.\" Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that they have a strong policy to protect children, adding that the best way to protect children is by educating parents; they also state that they do not sponsor activities that separate children from parents. \n\nThe religion's failure to report abuse allegations to authorities has also been criticized. The Watch Tower Society's policy is that elders inform authorities when required by law to do so, but otherwise leave that action up to the victim and his or her family. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that of 1006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse identified by the Jehovah's Witnesses within their organization since 1950, \"not one was reported by the church to secular authorities.\" William Bowen, a former Jehovah's Witness elder who established the Silentlambs organization to assist sex abuse victims within the religion, has claimed Witness leaders discourage followers from reporting incidents of sexual misconduct to authorities, and other critics claim the organization is reluctant to alert authorities in order to protect its \"crime-free\" reputation. In court cases in the United Kingdom and the United States the Watch Tower Society has been found to have been negligent in its failure to protect children from known sex offenders within the congregation and the Society has settled other child abuse lawsuits out of court, reportedly paying as much as $780,000 to one plaintiff without admitting wrongdoing."
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Who was the only Spice Girl not to have a middle name?
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"The Spice Girls are an English pop girl group formed in 1994. The group originally consisted of Melanie Brown (\"Scary Spice\"), Melanie Chisholm (\"Sporty Spice\"), Emma Bunton (\"Baby Spice\"), Geri Halliwell (\"Ginger Spice\"), and Victoria Beckham, née Adams (\"Posh Spice\"). They were signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single \"Wannabe\" in 1996, which hit number one in 37 countries[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2999872.stm Simon Fuller: Guiding pop culture] BBC. Retrieved 18 September 2011 and established them as a global phenomenon. Their debut album Spice sold more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history. Their follow up album Spiceworld sold over 20 million copies worldwide. The Spice Girls have sold over 80 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling female group of all time, one of the best-selling pop groups of all time, and the biggest British pop phenomenon since Beatlemania. \n\nMeasures of their success include international record sales, a 2007–2008 reunion tour, merchandising, record-breaking achievements, iconic symbolism such as Halliwell's Union Jack dress representing \"girl power\", and a film, Spice World. The group became one of the most successful marketing engines ever, earning up to $75 million per year, with their global grosses estimated at $500–800 million between 1996 and 1998. Under the guidance of their mentor and manager Simon Fuller, the Spice Girls embraced merchandising and became a regular feature of the British and global press. In 1996, Top of the Pops magazine gave each member of the group aliases, which were adopted by the group and media. According to Rolling Stone journalist and biographer David Sinclair, \"Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh and Sporty were the most widely recognised group of individuals since John, Paul, George, and Ringo\". With the \"girl power\" phenomenon, the Spice Girls were popular cultural icons of the 1990s. They are cited as part of the 'second wave' 1990s British Invasion of the US. \n\nOn 8 July 2016, Mel B, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell reunited as a trio under the name \"Spice Girls - GEM\". \n\nBand history\n\n1994–96: Formation and early years\n\nIn the mid-1990s, family management team Bob Herbert and Chris Herbert of Heart Management decided to create a girl group to compete with popular boy bands, such as Take That and East 17, which dominated the pop music scene at the time. In February 1994, together with financier Chic Murphy, they placed an advertisement in the trade magazine The Stage asking for singers to audition for an all-female pop band at Danceworks studios.Spice Girls Official. [http://www.thespicegirls.com/facts/timeline Timeline]. Retrieved 16 March 2009. Approximately 400 women attended the audition, during which they were placed in groups of ten and danced a routine to \"Stay\" by Eternal, followed by solo auditions in which they were asked to perform songs of their own choosing. After several weeks of deliberation, Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Michelle Stephenson were among twelve women chosen to a second round of auditions in April; Geri Halliwell also attended the second audition, despite missing the first one due to work.\n\nA week after the second audition, the women were asked to attend a recall at Nomis Studios in Shepherds Bush, performing \"Signed, Sealed, Delivered\" on their own and in a group. During the session, Adams, Brown, Chisholm, Halliwell and Stephenson were selected to the band, initially named Touch. The group moved to a house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and spent most of 1994 training. During the first two months, they worked on demos at South Hill Park Recording Studios in Bracknell with producer/studio owner Michael Sparkes and songwriter/arranger Tim Hawes. According to Stephenson, the material the group was given was \"very, very young pop\"; one of the songs they recorded, \"Sugar and Spice\", would be the source of their final band name. They also worked on various dance routines at the Trinity Studios in Knaphill, near Woking, Surrey. During the training period, Stephenson was fired from the group and replaced with Emma Bunton, who came up with the band name Spice.\n\nThe group felt insecure about the lack of a contract and was frustrated by the direction in which Heart Management was steering them. In October 1994, armed with a catalogue of demos and dance routines, they began touring management agencies. They persuaded Bob Herbert to set up a showcase performance for the group in front of industry writers, producers and A&R men in December 1994 at the Nomis Studios, where they received an \"overwhelmingly positive\" reaction. Due to the large interest in the group, the Herberts quickly set about creating a binding contract for them. Encouraged by the reaction they had received at the Nomis showcase, all five members delayed signing contracts on the legal advice from, among others, Adams's father.\n\nIn March 1995, the group parted from Heart Management due to their frustration with the company's unwillingness to listen to their visions and ideas. To ensure they kept control of their own work, they allegedly stole the master recordings of their discography from the management offices. That same day, the group tracked down Sheffield-based producer Eliot Kennedy, who had been present at the showcase, and persuaded him to work with them. They were introduced to record producers Absolute, who in turn brought them to the attention of Simon Fuller of 19 Entertainment, who signed them to his company in March 1995. During the summer of that year, the group toured record labels in London and Los Angeles with Fuller, signing a deal with Virgin Records in September 1995. Their name was changed to Spice Girls, as a rapper was already using the name \"Spice\". From this point on until the summer of 1996, the group continued to write and record tracks for their debut album while extensively touring the west coast of the United States, where they signed a publishing deal with Windswept Pacific.\n\n1996–97: Spice and breakthrough\n\n \nOn 7 July 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut single \"Wannabe\" in the United Kingdom. In the weeks leading up to the release, the video for \"Wannabe\" (directed by Swedish commercials director Johan Camitz and shot in April at St Pancras Chambers in London), got a trial airing on music channel The Box. The video was an instant hit, and was aired up to seventy times a week at its peak. After the video was released, the Spice Girls had their first live TV slot on broadcast on LWT's Surprise Surprise. The first music press interview appears in Music Week. In July 1996, the group conducted their first interview with Paul Gorman, the contributing editor of music paper Music Week, at Virgin Records' Paris headquarters. His piece recognised that the Spice Girls were about to institute a change in the charts away from Britpop and towards out-and-out pop. He wrote: \"JUST WHEN BOYS with guitars threaten to rule pop life – Damon's all over Smash Hits, Ash are big in Big! and Liam can't move for tabloid frenzy – an all-girl, in-yer-face pop group have arrived with enough sass to burst that rockist bubble.\" The song entered the charts at number 3 before moving up to number 1 the following week and staying there for seven weeks. The song proved to be a global hit, hitting number one in 37 countries and becoming not only the biggest selling debut single by an all-female group but also the biggest-selling single by an all-female group of all time. \n\nRiding a wave of publicity and hype, the group released their next singles in the UK and Europe; in October \"Say You'll Be There\" was released topping the charts at number one for two weeks. In December \"2 Become 1\" was released, becoming their first Christmas number one and selling 430,000 copies in its first week, making it the fastest selling single of the year. The two tracks continued the group's remarkable sales by topping the charts in over fifty-three countries and cementing the group's reputation as the biggest pop act in the world. In November 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut album Spice in Europe. The success was unprecedented and drew comparisons to Beatlemania. In seven weeks Spice had sold 1.8 million copies in Britain alone,[http://www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/search.aspx UK Sales certificates database]. British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 25 November 2009. making the Spice Girls the fastest selling British act since the Beatles. In total, the album sold over 3 million copies in Britain, the biggest-selling album of all time in the UK by a female group, certified 10× Platinum, and peaked at number one for fifteen non-consecutive weeks. In Europe the album became the biggest-selling album of 1997 and was certified 8× Platinum by the IFPI for sales in excess of 8 million copies. \n\nThat same month the Spice Girls attracted a crowd of 500,000 when they switched on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, London. At the same time, Simon Fuller started to set up million pound sponsorship deals for the Spice Girls with Pepsi, Walkers, Impulse, Cadbury's and Polaroid. In December 1996, the group won three trophies at the Smash Hits awards at the London Arena, including best video for \"Say You'll Be There\". In January 1997, the group released \"Wannabe\" in the United States. The single, written by the Spice Girls, Richard Stannard, and Matt Rowe also proved to be a catalyst in helping the Spice Girls break into the notoriously difficult US market when it debuted on the Hot 100 Chart at number 11. At the time, this was the highest-ever debut by a non-American act, beating the previous record held by the Beatles for \"I Want to Hold Your Hand\" and the joint highest entry for a debut act beating Alanis Morissette with \"Ironic\". \"Wannabe\" reached number one in the US for four weeks. In February 1997, Spice was released in the US, and became the biggest-selling album of 1997 in the US, peaking at number one, and was certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA[http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp USA sales certificates database]. RIAA. Retrieved 10 March 2006. for sales in excess of 7.4 million\ncopies. The album is also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales. In total, the album sold 28 million copies worldwide becoming the biggest-selling album of all-time by an all-female group.\n\nLater that month, the Spice Girls won two Brit Awards for Best British Video, \"Say You'll Be There\" and Best British Single for \"Wannabe\". The group performed \"Who Do You Think You Are\" to open the 1997 BRIT Awards with Geri Halliwell wearing a Union Jack mini-dress, causing it to become one of pop history's most famed outfits. In March 1997, a double A-side of \"Mama\"/\"Who Do You Think You Are\" was released in Europe, the last from Spice, which once again saw them at number one, making the Spice Girls the first group in history since the Jackson 5 to have four consecutive number one hits. Girl Power!, The Spice Girls' first book and manifesto was launched later that month at the Virgin Megastore. It sold 200,000 copies within a day, and was eventually translated into more than 20 languages. In April, Spice: the Official Video Volume One, was released, and sold half a million copies. In May, Spice World was announced by the Spice Girls at the Cannes Film Festival. The group also performed their first live British show, for the Royalty of Great Britain. At the show, they breached royal protocol when Mel B and then Geri Halliwell planted kisses on Prince Charles' cheeks and pinched his bottom, causing controversy. At the Ivor Novello Awards, the group won International Hit of the Year and Best-Selling British Single awards for \"Wannabe\". In June 1997, Spice World began filming and wrapped in August. In September, the Spice Girls performed \"Say You'll Be There\" at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and won Best Dance Video for \"Wannabe\". At the 1997 Billboard Music Awards the group won four awards; New Artist of the Year, Hot 100 Singles Group of the Year, Album Group of the Year, and Album of the Year for Spice. \n\n1997–98: Groundbreaking success, Spiceworld and Halliwell's departure\n\nIn October 1997, the Spice Girls released the first single from Spiceworld, \"Spice Up Your Life\". It entered the UK Albums Chart at number one on 19 October 1997, making it the group's fifth consecutive number one hit single. That same month, Simon Fuller took the Spice Girls east to perform their first live major concert to 40,000 fans in Istanbul, Turkey. Later, the Girls travelled to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela, who announced, \"These are my heroes.\" This was the year when the Spice Girls reached the height of their career. In November, the Spice Girls released their second album, Spiceworld. The album was a global best seller. It set a new record for the fastest-selling album when it shipped seven million copies over the course of two weeks. Gaining favourable reviews, the album went on to sell over 10 million copies in Europe, Canada,[http://www.cria.ca/cert_db_search.php CRIA Canadian sales certificates database]. Canadian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 11 March 2006. and the United States\ncombined, and 20 million copies worldwide. Criticised in the United-States for releasing the album just nine months after their debut there, and suffering from over-exposure at home, the Spice Girls began to experience a media backlash. The group was criticised for the number of sponsorship deals signed —over twenty in total—and they began to witness diminishing international chart positions. Nevertheless, the Spice Girls remained the biggest-selling pop group of both 1997 and 1998.\n\nOn 7 November 1997, the group performed \"Spice Up Your Life\" in the 1997 MTV Europe Music Awards. After this performance, the Spice Girls made the decision to take over the running of the group themselves, and fired their manager Simon Fuller. The firing was front page news around the world. Many commentators speculated that Fuller had been the true mastermind behind the group, and that this was the moment when the band lost their impetus and direction. In December 1997, the second single from Spiceworld, \"Too Much\", was released. This became the second Christmas number one for the group and the sixth consecutive number one hit single in the UK. At the 1998 American Music Awards on 26 January, the Spice Girls won three awards; Favorite Pop Album, Favorite New Artist, and Favorite Pop Group. In February 1998, the Spice Girls won a special award for overseas success at the 1998 BRIT Awards, with combined sales of albums and singles for over of 45 million records worldwide, as of 7 February 1998 according to Billboard. That night, the group performed their next single, \"Stop\". This was their only track not to hit number one in Britain (it entered and peaked at number two). Further singles released from the album included \"Viva Forever\", which was scheduled to be released as a double A-side with \"Never Give Up on the Good Times\", but these plans were scrapped due to Halliwell's departure from the group in May 1998. The song became the seventh number one, and the video includes scenes of Halliwell stop motion animation.\n\nIn early 1998, the Spice Girls embarked upon the world tour that Fuller had set up for them covering Europe and North America. The Spiceworld Tour kicked off in Dublin, Ireland on 24 February 1998 before moving on to mainland Europe and then returning to Britain for two gigs at Wembley Arena and Twelve gigs at Birmingham's NEC Arena. Performing to 150,000 fans over the course of the tour. It was here that recordings were made for a planned live album, which was confirmed by the group: \"We've shown everyone we can do the business on stage, so now we want to do a live album for fans\". Despite masters of the recording being made, the idea was eventually dropped. Later that year, the Spice Girls were invited to sing on the official England World Cup song \"How Does It Feel (To Be on Top of the World)\", however, it was derided by England football fans in favour of a re-release of the Lightning Seeds anthem \"Three Lions\", which comfortably beat it to No. 1 on the singles chart. This was also the last song the group recorded with Geri's vocals until 2007. On 31 May 1998, Halliwell announced her departure from the Spice Girls. Through her solicitor (i.e. lawyer) she stated: \"Sadly I would like to confirm that I have left the Spice Girls. This is because of differences between us. I'm sure the group will continue to be successful and I wish them all the best.\" Halliwell claimed that she was suffering from exhaustion and wanted to take a break. Halliwell's departure from the group shocked fans, in the middle of rumours of fight with Mel B, the news of Halliwell's departure was covered as a major news story by media around the world, it made the covers of the most important tabloid and became one of the biggest entertainment news stories of the year, making news headlines the world over. Geri went on to launch an initially successful solo career.\n\nThe four remaining members were adamant that the group would carry on and that their approaching North American tour would continue as normal, however, Halliwell's departure threw most of the group's plans into disarray. It also meant that most of the material the group had recorded throughout the first half of 1998 at Dublin's Windmill Lane Studios with long-time collaborators Richard Stannard and Matt Rowe was eventually scrapped. A rumoured animated venture by Disney also failed to materialise. Finally, Halliwell's departure was the subject of a lawsuit by Aprilia World Service BV, a manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters. On 9 March 1998, Halliwell informed the other members of the group of her intention to withdraw from the group, yet the girls signed an agreement with AWS on 24 March and again on 30 April and participated in a commercial photo shoot on 4 May in Milan, eventually concluding a contract with AWS on 6 May 1998. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales held that their conduct constituted a misrepresentation, allowing AWS to rescind their contract with the Spice Girls. This is now the leading case in English law on misrepresentation by conduct. \"Viva Forever\" was the last single taken off Spiceworld. The video for the single was made before Geri's departure and features the girls in animated form – a decision made because there was no time to produce a video due to the heavy world tour schedule. Originally planned as a double A-side with \"Never Give Up on the Good Times\", the idea was dropped for several reasons, mainly due to time restraints (since there was no time to re-record and edit out Halliwell's vocals or make a video for the track). The North American tour was a big success, began in West Palm Beach on 15 June, and grossed $60 million in 40-date sold-out. \n\n1998–2000: Forever and indefinite hiatus\n\nWhile on tour in the United-States, the group continued to record new material and they released a new song, \"Goodbye\", before Christmas in 1998. The song was seen as a tribute to Geri Halliwell, and when it topped the UK Singles Chart it became their third consecutive Christmas number-one – equalling the record previously set by The Beatles. Later in 1998, Bunton and Chisholm appeared at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards without their other band members, and the group won two awards: \"Best Pop Act\" and \"Best Group\" for a second time. In late 1998, Brown and Adams announced they were both pregnant at the time, the former was also married to dancer Jimmy Gulzer and became known as Mel G for a brief period. She gave birth to daughter Phoenix Chi in February 1999. One month later, Adams gave birth to son Brooklyn, whose father was then Manchester United player David Beckham. Later that year, she married Beckham in a highly publicised wedding in Ireland. \n\nThe Spice Girls returned to the studio in August 1999, after an eight-month recording break to start work on their third and last studio album. The album's sound was initially more pop-influenced, similar to their first two albums, and included production from Eliot Kennedy. The album's sound took a mature direction when American producers like Rodney Jerkins, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis came on to collaborate with the group. In December 1999 they performed live for a UK-only tour, named Christmas in Spiceworld, in London and Manchester, also showcasing new songs from the third album. During 1999, the group recorded the character Amneris' song \"My Strongest Suit\" in Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, a concept album which would later go on to fuel the musical version of Verdi's Aida. The band performed again at the 2000 BRIT Awards, and it was announced that they had received the Outstanding Achievement in Music Award. Despite being at the event, Halliwell did not join her former bandmates on stage. In November 2000, the group released Forever. Sporting a new edgier R&B sound, the album received a lukewarm response from critics. \n\nIn the US, the album peaked at number thirty-nine on the Billboard 200 albums chart. In the UK, the album was released the same week as Westlife's Coast to Coast album and the chart battle was widely reported by the media, where Westlife won the battle reaching number one in the UK, leaving the Spice Girls at number two. The lead single from Forever, the double A-side \"Holler\"/\"Let Love Lead the Way\", became the group's ninth number one single in the UK. However the song failed to break onto the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart stateside, instead peaking at number seven on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles. \"Holler\" did peak at number thirty-one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2000. The only major performance of the lead single came at the MTV Europe Music Awards on 16 November 2000. In total, Forever achieved only a fraction of the success of its two best-selling predecessors, selling five million copies. In December 2000, the group unofficially announced that they were beginning an indefinite hiatus and would be concentrating on their solo careers in regards to their foreseeable future, although they pointed out that the group was not splitting. \n\n2007–08: Return of the Spice Girls and Greatest Hits\n\nOn 28 June 2007, the group held a press conference at The O2 Arena revealing their intention to reunite. The plan to reform had long been speculated by the media, but the group finally confirmed their intention to embark upon a worldwide concert tour, starting in Vancouver on 2 December 2007. Filmmaker Bob\nSmeaton, directed an official documentary on the reunion. It was entitled Spice Girls: Giving You Everything and was first aired on Australia's Fox8 on 16 December 2007, followed by BBC One in the UK, on 31 December. Ticket sales for the first London date of \"The Return of the Spice Girls\" World Tour sold out in 38 seconds. It was reported that over one million people signed up in the UK alone and over five million worldwide for the ticket ballot on the band's official website.BBC News. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7021976.stm Fans snap up Spice Girls tickets]. BBC. Retrieved 14 October 2007. Sixteen additional dates in London had been added and sold out. In the United States, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Jose shows also sold out, prompting additional dates to be added. It was announced that the\nSpice Girls would be playing dates in Chicago and Detroit (Auburn Hills) and Boston, as well as additional dates in New York to keep up with the demand. On the first concert in Canada, they performed to an audience of 15,000 people, singing twenty songs and changing a total of eight times. Along with the tour sellout, the Spice Girls licensed their name and image to Tesco's UK supermarket chain. \n\nThe group's comeback single, \"Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)\", was announced as the official Children in Need charity single for 2007 and was released 5 November. The first public appearance on stage by the Spice Girls was made at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where the group performed at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. They performed two songs, 1998 single \"Stop\" and the lead single from their greatest hits album, \"Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)\". The show was filmed by CBS on 15 November 2007 for broadcast on 4 December 2007. They also performed the song live for the BBC Children in Need telethon on 16 November 2007 from Los Angeles, in Roberto Cavalli gowns. The release peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart, making it the group's lowest charting British single to date. However, the album fared better, peaking at number two on the UK Albums Chart. On 1 February 2008, it was announced that due to personal and family commitments their tour would come to an end in Toronto on 26 February 2008, meaning that tour dates in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires were cancelled.BBC News. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7223629.stm Spice Girls cut short world tour]. BBC. Retrieved 2 February 2008. In March 2008, the group won the coveted \"Icon Awards\" at the 95.8 Capital Awards; Bunton and Chisholm collected the award. In June, they captured the Glamour Award for the Best Band; Bunton, Brown and Halliwell received the award at the event. In September, the Spice Girls won the \"Best Live Return Award\" at the 2008 Live Vodafone Music Awards, beating acts such as Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols. Bunton was there to collect the award. \n\n2010–12: Viva Forever musical and London Olympics\n\nIn 2010, the group was nominated for a BRIT Award in the new category, \"Best Performance of the 30th Year\" for their Brit Awards performance of their songs, \"Wannabe\" and \"Who Do You Think You Are\". The group later won the award which was received by Halliwell and Brown. The group along with Simon Fuller also teamed with Judy Craymer and Jennifer Saunders to develop a Spice Girls musical entitled Viva Forever!. Although the group were not in the musical, they influenced the show's cast and production choices in a story which uses; similar to that of ABBA's music in Mamma Mia!. \n\nTwo years later, in June 2012, the group reunited for the first time in four years for the press conference in London to promote the launch of Viva Forever: The Musical. The press conference was held at St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, the location where the group filmed the music video for \"Wannabe\", sixteen years earlier, to the day. In August 2012, after much speculation from the press and the public, the group performed a medley of \"Wannabe\" and \"Spice Up Your Life\" at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, reuniting solely for the event. Their performance received great response from the audience and became the most tweeted moment of the Olympics with over 116,000 tweets on Twitter per minute. In December 2012, the group reunited once again for the premiere of Viva Forever: The Musical at the West End's Piccadilly Theatre. In addition to the promotion of the musical, the group appeared in the documentary, Spice Girls' Story: Viva Forever! which aired on 24 December 2012 on ITV1.\n\n2016: Spice Girls - GEM \n\nOn 8 July 2016, Mel B, Bunton and Halliwell unveiled a new website and released a short video celebrating the 20th anniversary of their first single \"Wannabe\", and teasing upcoming news from them as a three piece called Spice Girls - GEM. \n\nCultural impact and legacy\n\nBritish music scene\n\nThe image of the Spice Girls was deliberately aimed at young girls, an audience of formidable size and potential; reinforcing the range of appeal within the target demographic were the bandmates' five distinctive personalities, which encouraged fans to identify with one member or another. This marketing was helped in no small way by the aliases assigned to each member of the group, similar to the marketing ploy used in children's serial literature of including several different character types in the storyline. Shortly after \"Wannabe\"'s release, the group appeared in Top of the Pops magazine where each member was given a nickname based upon her image: Adams became \"Posh Spice\", Bunton became \"Baby Spice\", Brown became \"Scary Spice\", Halliwell became \"Ginger Spice\", and Chisholm became \"Sporty Spice\". \n\n\"Girl power\"\n\nThe phrase \"girl power\" put a name to a social phenomenon, but the slogan was met with mixed reactions. The phrase was a label for the particular facet of post classical neo-feminist empowerment embraced by the band: that a sensual, feminine appearance and equality between the sexes need not be mutually exclusive. This concept was by no means original in the pop world: both Madonna and Bananarama had employed similar outlooks. The phrase, whilst coined by Welsh indie band Helen Love in 1993 and used as the title of an album by British pop duo Shampoo in 1995, had been used in 1987 by a London a capella all-girl group called Mint Juleps. With the production might of Trevor Horn behind them, this group had released a track called \"Girl to the Power of 6\". The format of the song, whilst having an obvious 1980s sound, had a similar format to the Spice Girls' \"Wannabe\", where each girl presented a distinct personality trait. The phrases \"Girl to the Power\" and \"Girl Power\" are mentioned several times, as well as strong overtones of female empowerment, unity and loyalty. However, the formula did not work for the Mint Juleps, perhaps being too far ahead of its time. It was not until the emergence of the Spice Girls in 1996 with \"Wannabe\", over 9 years later, that the concept of \"Girl power\" exploded onto the common consciousness. The Spice Girls' version was distinctive. Its message of empowerment appealed to young girls, adolescents and adult women, and it emphasised the importance of strong and loyal friendship among females.\n\nIn all, the focused, consistent presentation of \"girl power\" formed the centrepiece of their appeal as a band. Some critics dismissed it as no more than a shallow marketing tactic, while others took issue with the emphasis on physical appearance, concerned about the potential impact on self-conscious and/or impressionable youngsters. Regardless, the phrase became a cultural phenomenon, adopted as the mantra for millions of girls and even making it into the Oxford English Dictionary. \nIn summation of the concept, author Ryan Dawson said, \"The Spice Girls changed British culture enough for Girl Power to now seem completely unremarkable.\" \n\nCool Britannia\n\n \nThe term \"Cool Britannia\" became prominent in the media and represented the new political and social climate that was emerging with the advances made by New Labour and the new UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Coming out of a period of 18 years of Conservative government, Tony Blair and New Labour were seen as young, cool and very appealing, a main driving force in giving Britain a feeling of euphoria and optimism. \n\nAlthough by no means responsible for the onset of \"Cool Britannia\", the arrival of the Spice Girls added to the new image and re-branding of Britain, and underlined the growing world popularity of British, rather than American pop music. This fact was underlined at the 1997 BRIT Awards. The group won two awards but it was Halliwell's now iconic red, white and blue Union Jack mini-dress that appeared in media coverage around the world and became an enduring image of \"Cool Britannia\". \n\n1990s iconic status\n\nThe Union Jack dress that Halliwell wore has achieved iconic status, becoming one of the most prominent symbols of 1990s pop culture. The dress was sold at a charity auction to Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas for a record £41,320, giving Halliwell the Guinness World Record for the most expensive piece of pop star clothing ever sold after interest from a frenzy of bidders. The dress was one of many items of Spice Girls memorabilia sold at the auction, where total sales reached £146,511 for charity.\n\nThe iconic symbolism of the Spice Girls in the 1990s is also attributed to their merchandising and willingness to be a part of a media-driven world. They advertised for many brands and even parodied themselves in the video for the song \"Spice Up Your Life\", in which the band fly in a space ship surrounded by billboards and adverts featuring them. Because of their regular appearances in ads and the media, the band solidified themselves as a phenomenon—an icon of the decade and for British music. The Spice Girls ranked No. 10 in The 101 Reasons the '90s Ruled, special for TV channel E!. \n\nSome sources, especially those in the United Kingdom, revere the Spice Girls as \"gay icons\". In a survey in which more than 5,000 male and female homosexually oriented individuals from the UK had voted, Victoria Beckham placed 12th and Geri Halliwell placed 43rd in the Top 50 gay icons of all time. Halliwell joked at the Video Music Awards in 1998 about her appearance as Ginger Spice: \"As you have noted, I am no longer dressed like a drag queen.\" During an interview, Emma Bunton explained why the Spice Girls have so many gay fans: \"We were really flattered with having such a huge gay fan base because they know about fashion and they know about songs ... I'm so flattered that we've got such a huge gay following, it's amazing.\" \n\nTen years after the release of their debut single, the Spice Girls were voted the biggest cultural icons of the 1990s by 80 percent in a UK poll of 1,000 people carried out for the board game Trivial Pursuit, stating that \"Girl Power\" defined the decade.\n\nSpicy Crispy Chicks\n\nIn 1997, Jack in the Box, an American fast-food chain restaurant, sought to capitalise on Spice Girl Mania in America, by launching a major advertising campaign using a fictional musical group called the 'Spicy Crispy Chicks' (a take off of the Spice Girls). The comedic national television commercials were used to promote the new 'Spicy Crispy Sandwich', with the girls mimicking the Spice Girls, dancing in \"the Jack groove.\" The Spicy Crispy Chicks concept was used as a model for another successful advertising campaign called the 'Meaty Cheesy Boys'. At the 1998 Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show, one of the Spicy Crispy Chicks commercials won the top award for humour. \n\nFashion trends and nicknames\n\nIn the summer of 1996 a lunch at a Notting Hill restaurant with the editor of Top of the Pops magazine, Peter Loraine would inadvertently lead the Spice Girls to adopt nicknames. The nicknames played a key role in their marketability and the way their international audience would identify with them. \n\n\"In the magazine we used silly language and came up with nicknames all the time so it came naturally to give them names that would be used by the magazine and its readers; it was never meant to be adopted globally,\" he explains.\n\n*Victoria Beckham: Victoria was called Posh Spice because of her more upper-middle-class background, her choppy brunette bob hairstyle and refined attitude, form-fitting designer outfits and her love of high-heeled footwear.\n*Melanie Brown: Melanie (also called Mel B) was given the nickname Scary Spice because of her outrageous, \"in-your-face\" attitude, \"loud\" Leeds accent, throaty laugh, pierced tongue, manner of dress (which often consisted of leopard-print outfits), and her voluminously curly Afro hair.\n*Emma Bunton: Emma was called Baby Spice because she was the youngest member of the group, wore her long blonde hair in pigtails, wore babydoll dresses, had an innocent smile, and had a girly girl personality.\n*Melanie Chisholm: Melanie (also called Mel C) was called Sporty Spice because she usually wore a tracksuit with her long dark hair in a ponytail and sported a tough girl attitude as well as tattoos on both of her arms. She also possessed true athletic abilities, her signature being her ability to perform back handsprings.\n*Geri Halliwell: Geri was called Ginger Spice because of her \"liveliness, zest, and flaming red hair.\" She often wore outrageous stage outfits, as in the iconic Union Jack dress. Geri was seen by some as the de facto leader of the group thanks to her articulate conversational style and business savvy nature. She was also the eldest member of the group.\n\nPortrayal in the media\n\nThe Spice Girls became media icons in Great Britain and a regular feature of the British press; during the peak of their worldwide fame in 1997, the paparazzi were constantly seen following them everywhere, to obtain stories and gossip about the group, as a supposed affair between Emma Bunton and manager Simon Fuller, or constant split rumours which became fodder for numerous tabloids. Rumours of in-fighting and conflicts within the group also made headlines, especially between Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown; the rumours suggested that they were fighting to be the leader of the group. Brown, who later admitted that she used to be a \"bitch\" with Halliwell, said the problems had stayed in the past. The rumours reached their height when the Spice Girls dismissed their manager Simon Fuller during the power struggles, with Fuller reportedly receiving a 10 million pound severance cheque to keep quiet about the details of his sacking. Months later, in May 1998, Halliwell would leave the band in the midst of rumours of fighting with Brown; the news of Halliwell's departure was covered as a major news story by media around the world, and became one of the biggest entertainment news stories of the year.\n\nIn February 1997 at the BRIT Awards, Halliwell's Union Jack dress from a Spice Girls live performance made all the front pages the next day. During the ceremony, Halliwell's breasts were exposed twice, causing controversy. This would not be the only such exhibition published of Halliwell, because during the year the release of nude photos of Halliwell that she posed for earlier in her career caused some scandal. According to the documentary Giving You Everything, the rest of the women stated that they knew about the photos before they were famous, but when the photos were published they created friction inside the group that never abated.\n\nThe stories of their encounters with other celebrities also became fodder for the press; for example, in May 1997, at The Prince's Trust 21st anniversary concert, Mel B and Geri Halliwell breached royal protocol when they planted kisses on Prince Charles's cheeks, leaving it covered with lipstick, and later, Halliwell told him \"you're very sexy\" and also pinched his bottom. In November, the British Royal Family were considered fans of the Spice Girls, including The Prince of Wales and his son Prince Harry. That month, South African President Nelson Mandela said: \"These are my heroes. This is one of the greatest moments in my life\" in an encounter organised by Prince Charles, who said, \"It is the second greatest moment in my life, the first time I met them was the greatest\". In 1998 the video game magazine Nintendo Power created The More Annoying Than the Spice Girls Award, adding: \"What could possibly have been more annoying in 1997 than the Spice Girls, you ask?\" \n\nVictoria Adams started dating football player David Beckham in 1997 after they had met at a charity football match. The couple announced their engagement in 1998 and were dubbed \"Posh and Becks\" by the media. \n\nOther brand ventures\n\nFilm\n\nIn June 1997, the group began filming their movie debut with director Bob Spiers. Meant to accompany the album, the comical style and content of the movie was in the same vein as The Beatles' films in the 1960s such as A Hard Day's Night. The light-hearted comedy, intended to capture the spirit of the Spice Girls, featured a plethora of stars including Roger Moore, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Elton John, Richard O'Brien, Jennifer Saunders, Richard E. Grant, Elvis Costello, and Meat Loaf. Released in December 1997, Spiceworld: The Movie proved to be a hit at the box office, breaking the record for the highest-ever weekend debut for Super Bowl Weekend (25 January 1998) in the US, with box office sales of $10,527,222. The movie took in total $77 million at the box office worldwide, $100 million combining cinema tickets and DVD sales, including $30 million in the US and £11 million in Britain. Despite being a commercial success, the film was widely panned by critics; the movie was nominated for seven awards at the 1999 Golden Raspberry Awards where the Spice Girls collectively won the award for \"Worst Actress\". \n\nSince 18 July 2014, The Spice Bus, which featured in the film driven by Meat Loaf, is now on permanent display at the Island Harbour Marina on the Isle of Wight, England.\n\nTelevision\n\nThe first television special that the Spice Girls filmed was a documentary of their experiences from 1996 to 1997, titled One Hour of Girl Power. Later, Girl Talk was released. It was a television special where the Spice Girls spoke individually about themselves and the group. In April 1997, The Spice Girls appeared on the popular American television show Saturday Night Live, singing \"Wannabe\" and \"Say You'll Be There\". In November 1997, An Audience with...The Spice Girls was screened for British channel ITV. They also sang the song \"Power of Five\" on the day Channel 5 launched. The show attracted 11.8 million viewers in the UK, one fifth of the population. In December 1997 was the release of the first US television documentary Too Much Is Never Enough, focusing on their reaction to their sudden rise to fame around the world. In January 1998, the Spice Girls appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, singing two songs, followed by an interview with Oprah.\n\nIn June 1999 the TV special, The Spice Girls in America: A Tour Story was aired. This followed the Spice Girls' exploits and adventures in America, focusing on their tour of the US, and when Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls. In December 2000, T4 aired a documentary, \"Spice Girls on Film\", which focused on the Spice Girls' music videos. In November 2003, Melanie C and Geri appeared on the VH1 television series Behind the Music which devoted a chapter to tell the story of the Spice Girls, as well as E! True Hollywood Story, the TV documentary series on the cable network E!.\n\nThe first public appearance on stage by the Spice Girls Reunion was made at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where the group performed at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. They performed two songs, 1998 single \"Stop\" and the lead single from their greatest hits album, \"Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)\". The show was filmed by CBS on 15 November 2007 for broadcast on 4 December 2007, the show attracts averaged 7.4 million total viewers. \n\nIn December 2007, the official documentary, Spice Girls: Giving You Everything that made its world première in Australia on FOX8, It aired in Canada on 19 December 2007 (on the CTV), and on the BBC in the United Kingdom on 31 December 2007. The film features narrative insight and commentary from the five girls themselves. The title of the documentary comes from chorus lyrics from their UK No. 1 single \"Say You'll Be There\". The documentary attracted 3.6 million viewers in the UK. \n\nViva Forever: The Musical\n\nA jukebox musical written by Jennifer Saunders, produced by Judy Craymer and directed by Paul Garrington. Based on the songs of the Spice Girls, the show began previews at the Piccadilly Theatre, London on 27 November 2012 and had its Press Night on 11 December 2012 and features some of the group's biggest hit songs including \"Wannabe\", \"Spice Up Your Life\" and the eponymous \"Viva Forever\".\n\nMerchandise and sponsorship deals\n\nThe year 1997 saw the Spice Girls capitalising on their fame through a multimillion-dollar phenomenon of merchandise, with hundreds of official products, including Chupa Chups, Walkers Crisps, Cadbury Chocolate, Polaroid, Impulse Deodorant, Aprilia Scooters, Domino Sugar, Spice Girls Dolls, a PlayStation video game, Sponsorship with ASDA Supermarket chain Channel 5, and signed contract with Pepsi earned the group over £5 million (US$10 million). The Spice Girls brand had produced over £300 million worldwide through merchandise in 1997. Globally, the group's total grosses are estimated to have been $500–800 millions of dollars between 1996 and 1998.\n\nAt the height of 1990s Spicemania, there were many official and unofficial products produced by numerous manufacturers, including clothes, stickers, postcards, pens, bags, shoes, watches, caps, cosmetics, toys, food products, mugs, backpacks, magazines, books, videos, etc. \n\nDuring the summer of 1997, the group was criticised for \"selling out\" to worldwide brands, being accused of overexposure and signing too many sponsorship contracts with large corporate businesses. The group responded to the presses criticisms by launching a music video of \"Spice Up Your Life\" where they are seen referring to the number of sponsorships they had.\n* Cadbury Chocolate: 10 chocolate bars, assorted boxes and holiday confectioneries including easter eggs featuring the girls individually or as a group were produced.\n* Chupa Chups: Different tins filled with assorted lollipops featuring a different girl were among the many products released, but the most widely produced was the \"Fantasy Ball\" Chupa Chups with six different packages each featuring a collectible sticker. Also Pushpops, Crazy Dips, Bubblegum with tattoos and toy microphones were produced.\n* Walkers Crisps: In this promotion, over 51 different packaging designs created, with 10 for each member, plus a group package. The girls starred in two television adverts for the products.\n* Pepsi Cola: In early 1997, the Spice Girls signed a multimillion sponsorship deal with Pepsi, and earned over £5 million (US$10 million) for the group. The girls were featured on several cans and bottles of Pepsi throughout Europe. Promotional giveaways included collectible drinking glasses and a music single, \"Step to Me\". The girls starred in three television adverts for Pepsi all featuring the song \"Move Over (Generation Next)\". \n* Spice Girls Dolls: Were released by Galoob Toys in 1997, became a huge hit during the Christmas season going on to become best-selling dolls. \n* Polaroid: A regular Polaroid instant camera with a pink-and-purple shell and Spice Girl badging was produced along with a Spice Girls branded disposable Polaroid camera and flashlight. Each of the girls filmed a television advert promoting new types of Polaroid film (i.e. black & white, writable, etc.), in addition to making a group advert.\n* Impulse: The girls launched a fragrance known as \"Impulse Spice\", Deodorant and shower gel products were produced. One television advertisement was made for the product.\n* PlayStation: Spice World, a video game featuring computer-animated cartoons of the girls was developed in 1998.\n* Aprilia Scooters: 5 different scooters, each promoting a Spice Girl, were created and marketed as the \"Spice Sonic Effect\".\n* ASDA Supermarkets: British supermarket chain ASDA, created over 40 different Spice Items for Christmas 1997 developing goods such as party supplies, xmas supplies, Chocolate biscuits, Cookies, Cakes, Pizzas, Towels, Pillows, Bean Bags, Clothing supplies even including spice branded platform shoe sneakers and even Spice Girl branded kids meals in the stores' restaurants. Signed contract with ASDA for earned over £1 million (US$2 million) \n* Tesco Supermarkets: A two-part television ad campaign celebrating Christmas with the Spice Girls aired in 2007, been paid £5 million (US$10 million).\n* Channel 5: The girls appeared in promotional print ads, recorded a song (\"1,2,3,4,5!\"), filmed a music video and launched Britain's fifth terrestrial television network in 1997.\n* Domino Sugar: The Girls promoted the sugar with a sponsor of their North American tour, with clips being played before shows and during intermission on video screens.\n* Target Stores: The American discount retailer was one of the largest suppliers of official Spice Girls merchandise in the United States and Australia, usually devoting an aisle to products such as bikes, school supplies, party supplies, and toys.\n\nCareer records and achievements\n\nAs a group, the Spice Girls received several awards including five BRIT Awards, three American Music Awards, three MTV Europe Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Awards and three World Music Awards. As of January 2010, they have sold more than 80 million records worldwide, achieving certified sales of 13 million albums in Europe, 14 million records in the US and 2.4 million in Canada. The group achieved the highest debut for a UK group on the Billboard Hot 100 at number five with \"Say You'll Be There\". They are also the first British band since The Rolling Stones in 1975 to have two albums in the US Billboard 200 albums chart at the same time (Spice and Spiceworld). In addition to this, the Spice Girls also achieved the highest ever annual earnings by an all-female group in 1998 with an income of £29.6 million (approximately US$49 million). \n\nThey produced a total of nine number one singles in the UK—tied with ABBA behind Take That (eleven), The Shadows (twelve), Madonna (thirteen), Westlife (fourteen), Cliff Richard (fourteen), The Beatles (seventeen) and Elvis Presley (twenty-one). The group had three consecutive Christmas number one singles in the UK (\"2 Become 1\", 1996; \"Too Much\", 1997; \"Goodbye\", 1998); they only share this record with The Beatles. Their first single, \"Wannabe\", is the most successful song released by an all-female group. Debuting on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 11, it is also the highest-ever debut by a British band in the US, beating the previous record held by The Beatles for \"I Want to Hold Your Hand\" and the joint highest entry for a debut act, tying with Alanis Morissette.\n\nSpice is the 18th biggest-selling album of all time in the UK with over 3 million copies sold, and topped the charts for 15 non-consecutive weeks, the most by a female group in the UK. It is also the biggest-selling album of all time by a girl group, with sales of 28 million copies worldwide. Spiceworld shipped 7 million copies in just two weeks, including 1.4 million in Britain alone—the largest-ever shipment of an album over 14 days. They are also the first act (and so far only female act) to have their first six singles (\"Wannabe\", \"Say You'll Be There\", \"2 Become 1\", \"Mama\"/\"Who Do You Think You Are\", \"Spice Up Your Life\" and \"Too Much\") make number one on the UK charts. (Their run was broken by \"Stop\", which peaked at number two in March 1998.)\n\nSpiceworld: The Movie broke the record for the highest-ever weekend debut a film on Super Bowl weekend (25 January 1998) in the US, with box office sales of $10,527,222. Spiceworld: The Movie topped the UK video charts on its first week of release, selling over 55,000 copies on its first day in stores and 270,000 copies in the first week. \nThe Return of the Spice Girls Tour was announced as the highest-grossing concert act of 2008, netting £16.5 million (US$33 million) for the band. In total, the tour took more than $70 million, and produced $107.2 million in ticket sales and merchandising.\n\nDiscography\n\n* Spice (1996)\n* Spiceworld (1997)\n* Forever (2000)\n\nConcert tours\n\n* Spiceworld Tour (1998)\n* Christmas in Spiceworld (1999)\n* The Return of the Spice Girls (2007–08)"
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What are the international registration letters of a vehicle from Algeria?
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tc_31
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Algeria ( '; ; ), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the country's far north. With an area of 2381741 km2, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory, Mauritania, and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes (counties). Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been President since 1999.\n\nAncient Algeria has known many empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Idrisid, Aghlabid, Rustamid, Fatimids, Zirid, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Ottomans and the French colonial empire. Berbers are generally considered to be the indigenous inhabitants of Algeria. Following the Arab conquest of North Africa, most indigenous inhabitants were Arabised; thus, although most Algerians are Berber in origin, most identify with Arab identity. En masse, Algerians are a mix of Berbers with some additional elements such as Arabs, Turks and Andalusians (people from southern Spain who migrated after the reconquista).\n\nAlgeria is a regional and middle power. The North African country supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe, and energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has the 17th largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest in Africa, while it has the 9th largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget on the continent; most of Algeria's weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the United Nations and is the founding member of the Maghreb Union.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe country's name derives from the city of Algiers. The city's name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazā'ir (الجزائر, \"The Islands\"), a truncated form of the older Jazā'ir Banī Mazghanna (جزائر بني مزغنة, \"Islands of the Mazghanna Tribe\"),al-Idrisi, Muhammad (12th century) Nuzhat al-Mushtaq employed by medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient history\n\nIn the region of Ain Hanech (Saïda Province), early remnants (200,000 BC) of hominid occupation in North Africa were found. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. \n\nAlgeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).\n\nThe earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period.\n\nThe amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa. \n\nFrom their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.\n\nAs Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.\n\nBy the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.\n\nIn 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Massinissa in the 2nd century BC.\n\nAfter Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Massinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.\n\nFor several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa. The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on the land, as they were harassed by local tribes, in fact by the time the Byzantines arrived Lepcis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival. \n\nMiddle Ages\n\nAfter negligible resistance from the locals, the Arabs conquered Algeria in the mid-7th century and a large number of the indigenous people converted to the new faith. After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Aghlabids, Almohads, Abdalwadid, Zirids, Rustamids, Hammadids, Almoravids and the Fatimids.\n\nDuring the Middle Ages, North Africa was home to many great Scholars, Saints, and Sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh the first grammarian to suggest the Afroasiatic language family, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari, as well as the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen. It was during this time period that the Fatimids or children of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, came to the Maghreb. These \"Fatimids\" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz, and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, primarily made of Arabs and levantians extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors the Zirids seceded. In order to punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt. In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids however were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes however remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location, and time controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz, and Yemen. Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the Islamic Era.\n\nThe Amazighs historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houara, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions. \n\nSeveral Amazigh dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarizing the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Banu Ifran, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. \n\nIn the early 16th century, Spain constructed fortified outposts (presidios) on or near the Algerian coast. Spain took control of few coastal towns like Mers el Kebir in 1505; Oran in 1509; and Tlemcen, Mostaganem, and Ténès, in 1510. In the same year, few merchants of Algiers ceded one of the rocky islets in their harbor to Spain, which built a fort on it. The presidios in North Africa turned out to be a costly and largely ineffective military endeavor that did not guarantee access for Spain's merchant fleet. \n\nArabization\n\nThere reigned in Ifriqiya, current Tunisia, a Berber family, Zirid, somehow recognizing the suzerainty of the Fatimid caliph of Cairo. Probably in 1048, the Zirid ruler or viceroy, el-Mu'izz, decided to end this suzerainty. The Fatimid state was too weak to attempt a punitive expedition; The Viceroy, el-Mu'izz, also found another means of revenge.\n\nBetween the Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulent influence, both Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym among others, whose presence disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot. The then Fatimid vizier devised to relinquish control of the Maghreb and obtained the agreement of his sovereign. This not only prompted the Bedouins to leave, but the Fatimid treasury even gave them a light expatriation cash allowance.\n\nWhole tribes set off with women, children, ancestors, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on the way, especially in Cyrenaica, where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but each meeting, the last under the walls of Kairouan, his troops were defeated and Arabs remained masters of the field.\n\nThe flood was still rising and in 1057, the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they gradually choked Qalaa of Banu Hammad, as they had done Kairouan few decades ago. From there, they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains, some were forcibly taken by the Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. We can say that in the 13th century there were in all of North Africa, with the exception of the main mountain ranges and certain coastal regions remained entirely Berber.\n\nOttoman Algeria\n\nThe region of Algeria was partially ruled by Ottomans for three centuries from 1516 to 1830. In 1516 the Turkish privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards but eventually assumed control over the city and the surrounding region, forcing the previous ruler, Abu Hamo Musa III of the Bani Ziyad dynasty, to flee. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1791).\n\nThe next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. Until 1587 the area was governed by officers who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular Ottoman administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by janissaries, known in Algeria as the ojaq and led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.\n\nPlague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost from 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and suffered high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691, and 1740–42.\n\nIn 1671, the taifa rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of dey. After 1689, the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a council of some sixty nobles. It was at first dominated by the ojaq; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. In 1710, the dey persuaded the sultan to recognize him and his successors as regent, replacing the pasha in that role, although Algiers remained a part of the Ottoman Empire.\n\nThe dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system survived, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups, and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of Ottomon government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronized the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylie. \n\nPrivateers era\n\nThe Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. \n\nIn 1544, Hayreddin captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending the captives to Libya. In 1554, pirates sacked Vieste in southern Italy and took an estimated 7,000 captives as slaves. \n\nIn 1558, Barbary corsairs captured the town of Ciutadella (Minorca), destroyed it, slaughtered the inhabitants and took 3,000 survivors as slaves to Istanbul. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands, and in response, the residents built many coastal watchtowers and fortified churches. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. \n\nBetween 1609 and 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates.\n\nIn July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers sailed as far as Iceland, raiding and capturing slaves. Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629 pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands. \n\nIn the 19th century, the pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a \"license tax\" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels. One American slave reported that the Algerians had enslaved 130 American seamen in the Mediterranean and Atlantic from 1785 to 1793. \n\nPiracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the United States initiating the First (1801–1805) and Second Barbary Wars (1815). Following those wars, Algeria was weaker, and Europeans, with an Anglo-Dutch fleet commanded by the British Lord Exmouth, attacked Algiers. After a nine-hour bombardment, they obtained a treaty from the Dey that reaffirmed the conditions imposed by Decatur (US navy) concerning the demands of tributes. In addition, the Dey agreed to end the practice of enslaving Christians. \n\nFrench colonisation of Algeria\n\nUnder the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. Algerine slave trade and piracy ceased when the French conquered Algiers. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. The population of Algeria, which stood at about 1.5 million in 1830, reached nearly 11 million in 1960. French policy was predicated on \"civilizing\" the country. Algeria's social fabric suffered during the occupation; literacy plummeted. During this period, a small but influential French-speaking indigenous elite was formed, made up of Berbers mostly from Kabyles.\nAs a consequence, French government favored the Kabyles. About 80% of Indigenous Schools were constructed for Kabyles.\n\nFrom 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people immigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities. \n\nGradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status in the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy, and eventually independence from France. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals. The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. The war concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.\n\nThe number of European Pied-Noirs who fled Algeria totaled more than 900,000 between 1962 and 1964. The exodus to mainland France accelerated after the Oran massacre of 1962, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city, and began attacking civilians.\n\nIndependence\n\nAlgeria's first president was the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumediene, his former ally and defence minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. But, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialization drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalized. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.\n\nIn the 1960s and 1970s under President Houari Boumediene, Algeria pursued a programme of industrialisation within a state-controlled socialist economy. Boumediene's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread conventional Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of a return to Orthodox Islam.\n\nThe Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Muslim groups.\n\nCivil War and aftermath\n\nIn December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 people are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres. At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997.\n\nAlgeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a 'Civil Concord' initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Group Islamic Armée, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government.\n\nBouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces.\n\nIn November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes.\n\nA continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency. The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies. In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform. However, elections are routinely criticized by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.\n\nGeography\n\nFile:Kabylie-neige.jpg|The Djurdjura Range in snow\nFile:Tadrart Rouge.jpg|The Tadrart Rouge near Djanet.\nFile:El Tarf-Algerie.jpg|El Taref Province, In eastern Algeria.\nFile:Ouarsenis 2012, Wilaya de Tissemsilt (Algérie).jpg|Ouarsenis, range of mountains in North-Western (1985m)\nFile:Les Aiguades.jpg|Maritime front of Bejaïa\nFile:Djanet, Tassili.jpg|The Tassili n'Ajjer.\nFile:Seraidi-Annaba.jpg|Edough National Park, Annaba\n\nAlgeria is the largest country in Africa, the Arab world, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas form with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat ( m).\n\nAlgeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert.\n\nThe Ahaggar Mountains (), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about 1500 km south of the capital, Algiers, and just west of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities.\n\nClimate and hydrology\n\nIn this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.\n\nThe highest official temperature was at In Salah. \n\nRainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from 400 to annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as 1000 mm in some years.\n\nFarther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can get up to 110 °F.\n\nFauna and flora\n\nThe varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife. Many of the creatures comprising the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilization. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a small African leopard and Saharan cheetah population, but these are seldom seen. A species of deer, the Barbary stag, inhabits the dense humid forests in the north-eastern areas.\n\nA variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, including the Barbary lions, Atlas bears and crocodiles. \n\nIn the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara.\n\nCamels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with venomous and nonvenomous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects.\n\nPolitics\n\nAlgeria is an authoritarian regime, according to the Democracy Index 2014. The Freedom of the Press 2015 report gives it a rating of \"Not Free\". \n\nElected politicians are considered to have relatively little sway over Algeria. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military \"décideurs\", known as \"le pouvoir\" (\"the power\"), actually rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man may be Mohamed Mediène, head of the military intelligence. In recent years, many of these generals have died or retired. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that make him re-electable indefinitely. \n\nThe head of state is the president of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president was formerly limited to two five-year terms, but a constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament on 11 November 2008 removed this limitation. Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age. The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government. \n\nThe Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president. According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is \"based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession, or region\". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects. \n\nParliamentary elections were last held in May 2012, and were judged to be largely free by international monitors, though local groups alleged fraud and irregularities. In the elections, the FLN won 221 seats, the military-backed National Rally for Democracy won 70, and the Islamist Green Algeria Alliance won 47.\n\nForeign relations\n\nIn October 2009, Algeria cancelled a weapons deal with France over the possibility of inclusion of Israeli parts in them. \n\nTensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight. \n\nAlgeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer.\nGiving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.\n\nMilitary\n\nThe military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defence Forces. It is the direct successor of the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).\n\nTotal military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate). Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 12 months. The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Algeria has the second largest military in North Africa with the largest defence budget in Africa ($10 billion).\n\nIn 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. It also agreed to return old aircraft purchased from the former USSR. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria. \n\nAdministrative divisions\n\nAlgeria is divided into 48 provinces (wilayas), 553 districts (daïras) and 1,541 municipalities (baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city.\n\nThe administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are\n\nEconomy\n\nAlgeria is classified as an upper middle income country by the World Bank. Algeria's currency is the dinar (DZD). The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatization of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy.\n\nAlgeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages. The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities amongst regions.\n\nA wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past 5 years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development.\n\nThe Algerian economy grew by 2.6% in 2011, driven by public spending, in particular in the construction and public-works sector, and by growing internal demand. If hydrocarbons are excluded, growth has been estimated at 4.8%. Growth of 3% is expected in 2012, rising to 4.2% in 2013. The rate of inflation was 4% and the budget deficit 3% of GDP. The current-account surplus is estimated at 9.3% of GDP and at the end of December 2011, official reserves were put at US$182 billion. Inflation, the lowest in the region, has remained stable at 4% on average between 2003 and 2007. \n\nIn 2011 Algeria announced a budgetary surplus of $26.9 billion, 62% increase in comparison to 2010 surplus. In general, the country exported $73 billion worth of commodities while it imported $46 billion. \n\nThanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilization fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP. The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues.\n\nIn 2011, the agricultural sector and services recorded growth of 10% and 5.3%, respectively. About 14% of the labor force are employed in the agricultural sector. Fiscal policy in 2011 remained expansionist and made it possible to maintain the pace of public investment and to contain the strong demand for jobs and housing.\n\nAlgeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations. \n\nIn March 2006, Russia agreed to erase $4.74 billion of Algeria's Soviet-era debt during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the country, the first by a Russian leader in half a century. In return, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed to buy $7.5 billion worth of combat planes, air-defence systems and other arms from Russia, according to the head of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport. \n\nHydrocarbons\n\nAlgeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe. Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and over 95% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had 160 Tcuft of proven natural-gas reserves. It also ranks 16th in oil reserves.\n\nNon-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position.\n\nIncome from oil and gas rose in 2011 as a result of continuing high oil prices, though the trend in production volume is downwards. Production from the oil and gas sector in terms of volume, continues to decline, dropping from 43.2 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes between 2007 and 2011. Nevertheless, the sector accounted for 98% of the total volume of exports in 2011, against 48% in 1962, and 70% of budgetary receipts, or USD 71.4 billion.\n\nThe Algerian national oil company is Sonatrach, which plays a key role in all aspects of the oil and natural gas sectors in Algeria. All foreign operators must work in partnership with Sonatrach, which usually has majority ownership in production-sharing agreements. \n\nLabour market\n\nDespite a decline in total unemployment, youth and women unemployment is high. Unemployment particularly affects the young, with a jobless rate of 21.5% among the 15–24 age group.\n\nThe overall rate of unemployment was 10% in 2011, but remained higher among young people, with a rate of 21.5% for those aged between 15 and 24. The government strengthened in 2011 the job programmes introduced in 1988, in particular in the framework of the programme to aid those seeking work (Dispositif d'Aide à l'Insertion Professionnelle).\n\nTourism\n\nThe development of the tourism sector in Algeria had previously been hampered by a lack of facilities, but since 2004 a broad tourism development strategy has been implemented resulting in many hotels of a high modern standard being built.\n\nThere are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria including Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized oasis; also the Casbah of Algiers is an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Sites is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.\n\nTransport\n\nThe Algerian road network is the densest in Africa; its length is estimated at 180,000 km of highways, with more than 3,756 structures and a paving rate of 85%. This network will be complemented by the East-West Highway, a major infrastructure project currently under construction. It is a 3-way, 1,216 km long highway, linking Annaba in the extreme east to the Tlemcen in the far west. Algeria is also crossed by the Trans-Sahara Highway, which is now completely paved. This road is supported by the Algerian government to increase trade between the six countries crossed: Algeria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Tunisia.\n\nWater supply and sanitation\n\nThere is a substantial increase in the amount of drinking water supplied from reservoirs, long-distance water transfers and desalination at a low price to consumers, thanks to the country's substantial oil and gas revenues. In 2011 the capital Algiers transformed its intermittent water supply into a to continuous one, along with considerable improvements in wastewater treatment. However, there is still poor service quality in many cities outside Algiers with 78% of urban residents suffering from intermittent water supply. Another challenge is the pollution of water resources.\n\nDemographics\n\nIn January 2016 Algeria's population was an estimated 40,4 million, who are mainly Arab-Berber ethnically. At the outset of the 20th century, its population was approximately four million. About 90% of Algerians live in the northern, coastal area; the inhabitants of the Sahara desert are mainly concentrated in oases, although some 1.5 million remain nomadic or partly nomadic. 28.1% of Algerians are under the age of 15.\n\nWomen make up 70% of the country's lawyers and 60% of its judges and also dominate the field of medicine. Increasingly, women are contributing more to household income than men. 60% of university students are women, according to university researchers. \n\nBetween 90,000 and 165,000 Sahrawis from Western Sahara live in the Sahrawi refugee camps, in the western Algerian Sahara desert. There are also more than 4,000 Palestinian refugees, who are well integrated and have not asked for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 2009, 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria. \n\nThe largest concentration of Algerian migrants outside Algeria is in France, which has reportedly over 1.7 million Algerians of up to the second generation. \n\nEthnic groups\n\n \nIndigenous Berbers as well as Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, various Sub-Saharan Africans, and French have contributed to the history of Algeria. Descendants of Andalusian refugees are also present in the population of Algiers and other cities. Moreover, Spanish was spoken by these Aragonese and Castillian Morisco descendants deep into the 18th century, and even Catalan was spoken at the same time by Catalan Morisco descendants in the small town of Grish El-Oued. \n\nThere are 600,000 to 2 million former Algerian Turks, descendants of Turkish rulers, soldiers, doctors and others who ruled the region during the Ottoman rule in North Africa. Today's Turkish descendants are often called Kouloughlis, meaning descendants of Turkish men and native Algerian women. \n\nDespite the dominance of the Berber culture and ethnicity in Algeria, majority of Algerians identify with an Arabic-based identity, especially after the Arab nationialism rising in the 20th century. Berbers and Berber-speaking Algerians are divided into many groups with varying languages. The largest of these are the Kabyles, who live in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, the Chaoui of Northeast Algeria, the Tuaregs in the southern desert and the Shenwa people of North Algeria. \n\nDuring the colonial period, there was a large (10% in 1960) European population who became known as Pied-Noirs. They were primarily of French, Spanish and Italian origin. Almost all of this population left during the war of independence or immediately after its end. \n\nLanguages\n\nModern Standard Arabic is the official language. Algerian Arabic (Darja) is the language used by the majority of the population. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is heavily infused with borrowings from French and Berber.\n\nBerber has been recognized as a \"national language\" by the constitutional amendment of 8 May 2002. Kabyle, the predominant Berber language, is taught and is partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie.\n\nAlthough French has no official status, Algeria is the second-largest Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers, and French is widely used in government, media (newspapers, radio, local television), and both the education system (from primary school onwards) and academia due to Algeria's colonial history. It can be regarded as the de facto co-official language of Algeria. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians could read and write in French. ([http://www.webcitation.org/6FhBO8XsN Archive]) p. 9 \"Nous y agrégeons néanmoins quelques données disponibles pour des pays n'appartenant pas à l'OIF mais dont nous savons, comme pour l'Algérie (11,2 millions en 20081),\" and \"1. Nombre de personnes âgées de cinq ans et plus déclarant savoir lire et écrire le français, d'après les données du recensement de 2008 communiquées par l'Office national des statistiques d'Algérie.\" An Abassa Institute study in April 2000 found that 60% of households could speak and understand French or 18 million in a population of 30 million then. In recent decades the government has reinforced the study of French and TV programs have reinforced use of the language.\n\nAlgeria emerged as a bilingual state after 1962. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is spoken by about 72% of the population and Berber by 27–30%. \n\nReligion\n\nIslam is the predominant religion with 99% of the population. There are about 150,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia. \n\nThere were an estimated 10,000 Christians in Algeria in 2008. In a 2009 study the UNO estimated there were 45,000 Catholics and 50,000–100,000 Protestants in Algeria. A 2015 study estimates 380,000 Muslims converted to Christianity in Algeria. \n\nFollowing the Revolution and Algerian independence, all but 6,500 of the country's 140,000 Jews left the country, of whom about 90% moved to France with the Pied-Noirs and 10% moved to Israel.\n\nAlgeria has given the Muslim world a number of prominent thinkers, including Emir Abdelkader, Abdelhamid Ibn Badis, Mouloud Kacem Nait-Belkacem, Malek Bennabi, and Mohamed Akroun.\n\nCities\n\nBelow is a list of the most important Algerian cities:\n\nCulture\n\nModern Algerian literature, split between Arabic, Tamazight and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine and Ahlam Mosteghanemi while Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views. \n\nMalek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on decolonization; Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras); and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.\n\nContemporary Algerian cinema is various in terms of genre, exploring a wider range of themes and issues. There has been a transition from cinema which focused on the war of independence to films more concerned with the everyday lives of Algerians. \n\nArt\n\nAlgerian painters, like Mohamed Racim or Baya, attempted to revive the prestigious Algerian past prior to French colonization, at the same time that they have contributed to the preservation of the authentic values of Algeria. In this line, Mohamed Temam, Abdelkhader Houamel have also returned through this art, scenes from the history of the country, the habits and customs of the past and the country life. Other new artistic currents including the one of M'hamed Issiakhem, Mohammed Khadda and Bachir Yelles, appeared on the scene of Algerian painting, abandoning figurative classical painting to find new pictorial ways, in order to adapt Algerian paintings to the new realities of the country through its struggle and its aspirations. Mohammed Khadda and M'hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years.\n\nLiterature\n\nThe historic roots of Algerian literature goes back to the Numidian era, when Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. This period had also known Augustine of Hippo, Nonius Marcellus and Martianus Capella, among many others. The Middle Ages have known many Arabic writers who revolutionized the Arab world literature, with authors like Ahmad al-Buni, Ibn Manzur and Ibn Khaldoun, who wrote the Muqaddimah while staying in Algeria, and many others.\n\nAlbert Camus was an Algerian-born French Pied-Noir author. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.\n\nToday Algeria contains, in its literary landscape, big names having not only marked the Algerian literature, but also the universal literary heritage in Arabic and French.\n\nAs a first step, Algerian literature was marked by works whose main concern was the assertion of the Algerian national entity, there is the publication of novels as the Algerian trilogy of Mohammed Dib, or even Nedjma of Kateb Yacine novel which is often regarded as a monumental and major work. Other known writers will contribute to the emergence of Algerian literature whom include Mouloud Feraoun, Malek Bennabi, Malek Haddad, Moufdi Zakaria, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mohamed Laïd Al-Khalifa, Mouloud Mammeri, Frantz Fanon, and Assia Djebar.\n\nIn the aftermath of the independence, several new authors emerged on the Algerian literary scene, they will attempt through their works to expose a number of social problems, among them there are Rachid Boudjedra, Rachid Mimouni, Leila Sebbar, Tahar Djaout and Tahir Wattar.\n\nCurrently, a part of Algerian writers tends to be defined in a literature of shocking expression, due to the terrorism that occurred during the 1990s, the other party is defined in a different style of literature who staged an individualistic conception of the human adventure. Among the most noted recent works, there is the writer, the swallows of Kabul and the attack of Yasmina Khadra, the oath of barbarians of Boualem Sansal, memory of the flesh of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and the last novel by Assia Djebar nowhere in my father's House.\n\nMusic\n\nChaâbi music is a typically Algerian musical genre characterized by specific rhythms and of Qacidate (Popular poems) in Arabic dialect. The undisputed master of this music is El Hadj M'Hamed El Anka. The Constantinois Malouf style is saved by musician from whom Mohamed Tahar Fergani is one of the best performers.\n\nFolk music styles include Bedouin music, characterized by the poetic songs based on long kacida (poems); Kabyle music, based on a rich repertoire that is poetry and old tales passed through generations; Shawiya music, a folklore from diverse areas of the Aurès Mountains. Rahaba music style is unique to the Aures. Souad Massi is a rising Algerian folk singer. Other Algerian singers of the diaspora include Manel Filali in Germany and Kenza Farah in France. Tergui music is sung in Tuareg languages generally, Tinariwen had a worldwide success. Finally, the staïfi music is born in Sétif and remains a unique style of its kind.\n\nModern music is available in several facets, Raï music is a style typical of Western Algeria. Rap, relatively recent style in Algeria, is experiencing significant growth.\n\nCinema\n\nThe Algerian state's interest in film-industry activities can be seen in the annual budget of DZD 200 million (EUR 1.8) allocated to production, specific measures and an ambitious programme plan implemented by the Ministry of Culture in order to promote national production, renovate the cinema stock and remedy the weak links in distribution and exploitation.\n\nThe financial support provided by the state, through the Fund for the Development of the Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (FDATIC) and the Algerian Agency for Cultural Influence (AARC), plays a key role in the promotion of national production. Between 2007 and 2013, FDATIC subsidised 98 films (feature films, documentaries and short films). In mid-2013, AARC had already supported a total of 78 films, including 42 feature films, 6 short films and 30 documentaries.\n\nAccording to the European Audiovisual Observatory's LUMIERE database, 41 Algerian films were distributed in Europe between 1996 and 2013; 21 films in this repertoire were Algerian-French co-productions. (Days of Glory) (2006) and Outside the Law (2010) recorded the highest number of admissions in the European Union, 3,172,612 and 474,722, respectively. \n\nAlgeria won the Palme d'Or for Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975), two Oscars for Z (1969), and other awards for The Battle of Algiers.\n\nSports\n\nVarious games have existed in Algeria since antiquity. In the Aures, people played several games such As El Kherdba or El khergueba (chess variant). Playing cards, checkers and chess games are part of Algerian culture. Racing (fantasia) and the rifle shooting are part of cultural recreation of the Algerians. \n\nThe first Algerian and African gold medalist is Boughera El Ouafi in 1928 Olympics of Amsterdam in the Marathon. The second Algerian Medalist was Alain Mimoun in 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Several men and women were champions in athletics in the 1990s including Noureddine Morceli, Hassiba Boulmerka, Nouria Merah-Benida, and Taoufik Makhloufi, all specialized in middle distance running. \n\nFootball is the most popular sport in Algeria. Several names are engraved in the history of the sport, including Lakhdar Belloumi, Rachid Mekhloufi, Hassen Lalmas, Rabah Madjer, Salah Assad and Djamel Zidane. The Algeria national football team qualified for the 1982 FIFA World Cup, 1986 FIFA World Cup, 2010 FIFA World Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup. In addition, several football clubs have won continental and international trophies as the club ES Sétif or JS Kabylia. The Algerian Football Federation is an association of Algeria football clubs organizing national competitions and international matches of the selection of Algeria national football team. \n\nCuisine\n\nAlgerian cuisine is rich and diverse. The country was considered as the \"granary of Rome\". It offers a component of dishes and varied dishes, depending on the region and according to the seasons. The cuisine uses cereals as the main products, since they are always produced with abundance in the country. There is not a dish where cereals are not present.\n\nAlgerian cuisine varies from one region to another, according to seasonal vegetables. It can be prepared using meat, fish and vegetables. Among the dishes known, couscous, chorba, Rechta, Chakhchoukha, Berkoukes, Shakshouka, Mthewem, Chtitha, Mderbel, Dolma, Brik or Bourek, Garantita, Lham'hlou, etc. Merguez sausage is widely used in Algeria, but it differs, depending on the region and on the added spices.\n\nCakes are marketed and can be found in cities either in Algeria, in Europe or North America. However, traditional cakes are also made at home, following the habits and customs of each family. Among these cakes, there are Tamina, Chrik, Garn logzelles, Griouech, Kalb el-louz, Makroud, Mbardja, Mchewek, Samsa, Tcharak, Baghrir, Khfaf, Zlabia, Aarayech, Ghroubiya and Mghergchette. Algerian pastry also contains Tunisian or French cakes. Marketed and home-made bread products include varieties such as Kessra or Khmira or Harchaya, chopsticks and so-called washers Khoubz dar or Matloue.\nOther tradionel meals (Chakhchokha-Hassoua-T'chicha-Mahjouba and Doubara) are famous in Biskra.\n\nHealth\n\nIn 2002, Algeria had inadequate numbers of physicians (1.13 per 1,000 people), nurses (2.23 per 1,000 people), and dentists (0.31 per 1,000 people). Access to \"improved water sources\" was limited to 92% of the population in urban areas and 80% of the population in rural areas. Some 99% of Algerians living in urban areas, but only 82% of those living in rural areas, had access to \"improved sanitation\". According to the World Bank, Algeria is making progress toward its goal of \"reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to improved drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015\". Given Algeria's young population, policy favors preventive health care and clinics over hospitals. In keeping with this policy, the government maintains an immunization program. However, poor sanitation and unclean water still cause tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles, typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. The poor generally receive health care free of charge. \n\nHealth records have been maintained in Algeria since 1882 and began adding Muslims living in the South to their Vital record database in 1905 during French rule. \n\nEducation\n\nSince the 1970s, in a centralized system that was designed to significantly reduce the rate of illiteracy, the Algerian government introduced a decree by which school attendance became compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years who have the ability to track their learning through the 20 facilities built since independence, now the literacy rate is around 78.7%.\n\nSince 1972, Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. The students can also learn English, Italian, Spanish and German. In 2008, new programs at the elementary appeared, therefore the compulsory schooling does not start at the age of six anymore, but at the age of five. \nApart from the 122 private, learning at school, the Universities of the State are free of charge. After nine years of primary school, students can go to the high school or to an educational institution. The school offers two programs: general or technical. At the end of the third year of secondary school, students pass the exam of the bachelor's degree, which allows once it is successful to pursue graduate studies in universities and institutes. \n\nEducation is officially compulsory for children between the ages of six and 15. In 2008, the illiteracy rate for people over 10 was 22.3%, 15.6% for men and 29.0% for women. The province with the lowest rate of illiteracy was Algiers Province at 11.6%, while the province with the highest rate was Djelfa Province at 35.5%. \n\nAlgeria has 26 universities and 67 institutions of higher education, which must accommodate a million Algerians and 80,000 foreign students in 2008. The University of Algiers, founded in 1879, is the oldest, it offers education in various disciplines (law, medicine, science and letters). 25 of these universities and almost all of the institutions of higher education were founded after the independence of the country.\n\nEven if some of them offer instruction in Arabic like areas of law and the economy, most of the other sectors as science and medicine continue to be provided in French and English. Among the most important universities, there are the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, the University of Mentouri Constantine, University of Oran Es-Senia. Best universities of qualifications remain the University of Abou Bekr Belkaïd in Tlemcen and University of Batna Hadj Lakhdar, they occupy the 26th and 45th row in Africa."
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How did Jock die in Dallas?
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tc_32
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"John Ross \"Jock\" Ewing, Sr. (1909–82) is a character in the popular American television series Dallas, played by Jim Davis (1978–81); in the made-for-TV movie prequel to the series, Dallas: The Early Years (1986), he was played by Dale Midkiff. Jock Ewing founded Ewing Oil in 1930 and was the patriarch of the Ewing family.\n\nBackground\n\nEarly life and career\n\nJock was born in 1909, the younger of two sons. Through his older brother Jason, Jock got a job in an oil field in east Texas. While riding in a train boxcar he met Willard \"Digger\" Barnes, and the two became friends. Jock, Digger, and Jason all became wildcatters and began drilling their own fields. Digger had a unique ability to smell oil underground, and with Jock's business skills they began making a fortune.\n\nJason and Digger didn't get on much, while Jock stood up for Digger in those days. Jason eventually left Texas to wildcat in Alaska, marrying a woman named Nancy Shaw, with whom he had a son Jack (played by Dack Rambo) and a daughter Jamie (played by Jenilee Harrison). Jock and Digger returned to Dallas and Southfork, where Jock met Digger's girlfriend, Ellie Southworth. In the long run, Digger's drinking and undependability made Miss Ellie see that Digger would never change, and that Digger was not the type of man to marry, and she left Digger for Jock. Digger started to wander across the country after Ellie left him, but Jock and Digger continued with their oil business ventures for a few more years. Even as late as 1939, Jock and Digger both signed a deal to share the profits of Ewing 23 between themselves and their heirs in perpetuity. However, when Ewing 6 came in, Jock put the field in his name only, to prevent Digger from gambling and drinking his half away. Digger was furious and he claimed that Jock had stolen the wells for himself, ending their friendship and business relationship.\n\nMarriages and children\n\nEllie Southworth was desperate to save Southfork, which was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s, but Jock was reluctant to marry, even after Miss Ellie chose him over Digger, because unbeknownst to Miss Ellie, Jock was previously married to a woman named Amanda Lewis and looked after her psychiatric needs. Amanda had suffered a mental breakdown shortly after she and Jock were married, and Jock put her in a mental hospital. The doctor told Jock that Amanda would never recover and advised Jock to divorce her, which he eventually did in 1930. In 1936, Miss Ellie came to Jock, told him that she was pregnant with J.R., and demanded that he marry her. Jock and Miss Ellie married on the day that her family was to lose Southfork, and it was well known that Jock was the only man in Dallas with the money to save the ranch. Jock had a fragile and stormy relationship with Miss Ellie's father, Aaron Southworth, and with her brother, Garrison Southworth. On his deathbed, Aaron accepted Jock as part of his family by giving him his favorite gun.\n\nJock and Miss Ellie had three sons together, J.R, Gary and Bobby. Jock served in World War II, where he and an old army buddy, Tom Mallory, were shot down in a mission in Holland. They later returned to save the families who sheltered them. During his term in Britain, Jock had an affair with an Army nurse from Emporia, Kansas, named Margaret Hunter. Jock was shipped off to France, and Margaret returned to the United States. She married her fiancé, Amos Krebbs, and soon thereafter gave birth to Jock's illegitimate son, Ray Krebbs.\n\nAfter the war, Jock returned to Southfork and confessed to Miss Ellie about his affair with Margaret Hunter. She forgave him and they moved on. In 1948, Amos Krebbs left Margaret Hunter, leaving her to raise Ray as a single parent. In 1960, a 15-year-old Ray Krebbs showed up at Southfork with a note from his mother asking Jock to help Ray. Jock made Ray a hand on Southfork. Neither Jock, Miss Ellie nor Ray knew that Jock was Ray's father until 20 years later, when Amos Krebbs came to Dallas and revealed that Jock was Ray's father, bringing proof to back up his claim. Jock then welcomed Ray into the Ewing family, and personally explained it all to his family.\n\nAs the years passed from the 1930s onwards, Jock built Ewing Oil into one of the most powerful independent oil companies in Texas, much to the bitterness and jealousy of his former friend and business partner, Digger Barnes. Jock also became a successful rancher. Jock \"took over raising\" his eldest son J.R., showing him \"tough love\" and made him one of the most cunning and ruthless oil barons in the oil business. Jock came to heavily rely on J.R. in the management of Ewing Oil giving J.R. \"the fever for big business\" but \"never taught him when to stop\". Jock, for the most part, ignored his second son Gary, whom Jock considered weak and lacking the Ewing character, as Gary ran away from responsibility, began drinking excessively to handle the pressures of being a teenage husband and father, and couldn't stand up to J.R.'s bullying. Jock generally spoiled his youngest son, Bobby, who Jock considered to be \"the best of the lot\". Bobby had the morals that J.R. lacked and embraced Jock's favoritism. However, Bobby was often emotional, short-tempered and lacked the intelligence, drive, and focus to succeed in the oil business preferring football, women, ranching, and enjoying the social benefits of being a Ewing, which was earned by the hard work of Jock and J.R.\n\nRetirement\n\nIn 1977, Jock retired as president of Ewing Oil. He made J.R. his successor and took a more active role in running Southfork with foreman Ray Krebbs.\n\nDeath\n\nJock and Ellie briefly separated in 1981 after Miss Ellie learned that Jock was the power behind Takapa, a land development deal that she was fighting against on the grounds of conservationism. After Ellie refused his order to back down and stay out of the matter, he left Southfork. However, they quickly reconciled and went on a second honeymoon to Paris. Upon returning to the United States, Jock and Miss Ellie arrived in Washington. D.C., where they were met by the U.S. State Department with a request for Jock to lead the development of the oil industry in South America. Ellie returned to Southfork alone, while Jock had conferences in Washington. Jock briefly returned to Dallas for a few hours before leaving for South America. While flying back from Venezuela to Texas, the helicopter he was in collided with a small plane and landed in a lake. Jock's body was never found, but he was declared dead in the fall of 1982. The storyline involving Jock's death was necessitated by the death of actor Jim Davis. A tribute to Davis was shown at the end of the episode \"The Search\"; a picture of Davis and the words \"Jim Davis 1909-1981\" was quietly displayed for some moments before the credits and music started. A memorial headstone to Jock stands on Southfork Ranch, beside Miss Ellie's headstone and grave.\n\nWes Parmalee storyline\n\nIn a storyline during the 1986–87 season of the show, a man named Wes Parmalee (portrayed by Steve Forrest) came to Dallas, where Clayton and Ray hired him as ranch foreman on Southfork. One day, Miss Ellie found Jock's belt buckle, knife, letters, and photo of a young Miss Ellie in Parmalee's room. Wes then claimed to be Jock Ewing, and that he had survived the helicopter accident, which necessitated plastic surgery and rehab in a South American hospital. After passing a series of tests set by J.R. and Bobby, including X-ray tests, a polygraph test and knowledge about the Ewing family, including Jock's first wife Amanda and Ray being Jock's son, Wes convinced many in Dallas, in addition to Miss Ellie, Ray, and several other members of the Ewing family, that he could be Jock. However, Clayton, Bobby and J.R. utterly refused to believe any suggestion that Wes was Jock.\n\nBobby flew down and talked with the doctor who had treated Jock for a severe fever while he was in South America. Bobby returned to Southfork and revealed this information at a Ewing barbecue, where Jock's best friend Punk Anderson said that while he had the fever, Jock was telling the history of the Ewing family. This small piece of evidence against Wes Parmalee being Jock Ewing was seized on. By then, Ray had told Wes that his presence was causing a lot of trouble to the family, just before Wes went to see Miss Ellie. Miss Ellie told her family that Wes had told her that he wasn't Jock, that he had met Jock while working in South America and was on the helicopter with Jock, where he took Jock's things and learned about the Ewings. Wes wanted to have such a wonderful family again since he had had lost his wife and children years ago. Miss Ellie claimed that Wes had apologized for the pain he'd caused, and had left Dallas for good.\n\nThe storyline was an experiment to gauge an attempt to restore the late Jim Davis' character to the show, after efforts to recast proved futile after no suitable actor could be found to replace Davis. Ultimately, viewer reaction was mixed, but not favorable, as Miss Ellie had found happiness with her remarriage to Clayton Farlow, and that actor Steve Forrest, then at 61, was 16 years younger than his predecessor. Producers finally yielded to viewers and ended the storyline, leaving Jock dead for good by the end of the tenth season.\n\nLegacy\n\nAfter Jim Davis' death, artist Ro Kim painted a portrait of the actor in his role as Jock Ewing. The portrait became a focal point of the Dallas set and was featured in a number of episodes. The painting hung in the home of Larry Hagman, who played antagonist J.R. Ewing for many years until he decided to sell the portrait at auction in spring 2011. The Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas, where Dallas exteriors were shot, features a different Jock Ewing portrait as a focal point of its \"Jock's Living Room\".\n\nJock drove a 1977 Lincoln Mark V with the license plate EWING 1, which is still on the grounds of Southfork, parked in one of the gift shops.\n\nNotes"
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|
Who wrote the novel Evening Class?
|
tc_38
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"TagMe"
],
"filename": [
"Evening_Class_(novel).txt"
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"Evening Class (novel)"
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"Evening Class is a novel by Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film Italian for Beginners (2000) by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'.\n\nPlot introduction\n\nA story of many Irish men and women from various backgrounds and how a teacher, Nora O'Donoghue (known as \"Signora\"), and an Italian evening class changes their lives over the course of a year. Each chapter deals with the life story of one or more students in the class. In a Dickensian way, they bump into each other and are affected by the decisions of those around them.\n\nMajor themes\n\nIt is a story of love and deceit, family drama, wealth and poverty, of friendship and courage.\n\nRelated\n\nNora O'Donoghue and Aidan Dunne also appear in Quentins, another novel by Maeve Binchy, and play a more significant role in Heart and Soul.\n\nFilm adaptation\n\nThe novel heavily inspired the plot of the Danish feature film Italian for Beginners (2000), which won a Silver Berlin Bear and several other major international awards. Maeve Binchy was not paid, credited nor informed of this, but was later paid an undisclosed sum, when her publisher contacted the producers of the movie, Lars von Trier's company Zentropa. Although the film's writer-director Lone Scherfig had told the press that the film was based on her idea, executive producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen later admitted that she had made him aware of the similarities but that he had simply decided not to pay the original author."
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|
Which country does the airline Air Pacific come from?
|
tc_39
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
"TagMe"
],
"filename": [
"Fiji_Airways.txt"
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"Fiji Airways"
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"Air Pacific Limited, trading as Fiji Airways (and formerly as Air Pacific), is the flag carrier airline of Fiji. It is based in Nadi and operates international and domestic services to 10 countries and 17 cities around the Pacific Ocean, including Oceania, the United States and Hong Kong. Fiji Airways annually transports almost two-thirds of the visitors to the country.\n\nThe first commercial flight as Fiji Airways was made in 1951 but the airline's origins date back to Katafaga Estates Ltd. formed in 1947. After being acquired by Qantas in 1958, Katafaga Estates was retooled as a regional airline and renamed Air Pacific. In May 2012, the airline announced that it would reintroduce the name Fiji Airways to reinforce its role as the national airline of Fiji. The Fiji government owns 52% of the airline and Qantas 46%, with the governments of several Pacific island nations holding the remainder.\n\nHistory\n\nOrigins\n\nThe airline was founded by Australian aviator Harold Gatty who in 1931 had been the navigator on a record-breaking round-the-world flight with Wiley Post. Gatty moved to Fiji after World War II and registered the airline in 1947 as Katafaga Estates Ltd., after the coconut estate Gatty had established on Fiji's eastern island group. Gatty renamed the airline as Fiji Airways in September 1951. The New Zealander Fred Ladd was Fiji Airways' first Chief Pilot. \n\nAir Pacific\n\nAfter Gatty's death in 1958, Fiji Airways was acquired by Qantas. Initially, Qantas tried to create international support for a multinational, shared, regional airline. By 1966 Fiji Airways's shareholders included the governments of Tonga, Western Samoa, Nauru, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.\n\nAfter Fiji gained independence from Great Britain in 1970, the new national government began buying shares and the airline was renamed Air Pacific to reflect its regional presence.\n\nBy the early 1970s, seven Pacific island governments, some still under British rule at the time, held shares in Air Pacific, in addition to shares held by Qantas, TEAL (now Air New Zealand) and the British Overseas Airways Corporation (later merged to form British Airways). However, the regional airline idea lost support as some of the shareholding Pacific island governments sold their shares and created their own national airlines.\n\nIn the 1970s, tourism became the nation's leading industry, which made the airline even more important to the Fijian economy; and the government of Fiji acquired a controlling interest in Air Pacific in 1974. In 1981, the New York Times published an article that included details on the Fiji government's plan to buy out more shareholders in order to gain more control of Air Pacific as the national airline. However, the airline received no subsidies from the government and had to buy its own aircraft.\n\nIn the 1990s the airline relocated its headquarters from the capital city of Suva to the coastal town of Nadi where the main international airport is located. The company also constructed an elaborate aircraft maintenance center there. In 2007, Air Pacific acquired Sun Air, a domestic airline, renamed it Pacific Sun and began operations as Air Pacific's domestic and regional subsidiary. In June 2014, Pacific Sun was rebranded to Fiji Link.\n\nFlight history\n\nFiji Airways' first flight was on 1 September 1951, when a seven-seater de Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane departed Suva's Nausori Airport for Drasa Airport near Lautoka, on the west coast of the main island. The airline's first international flight to Brisbane, Australia was on 1 June 1973.\n\nIn 1983 it started flights to the USA with a route to Honolulu called “Project America.”\n\nIn December 2009, Air Pacific commenced a twice weekly service to Hong Kong, which was increased to three services in January 2014. In July 2010 Air Pacific announced a new Suva-Auckland service.\n\nToday, the airline and its domestic/regional subsidiary, Fiji Link, operate over 400 flights a week to almost 15 cities in 10 countries around the world.\n\nFleet history\n\nIn the beginning Fiji Airways used small de Havilland Dragon Rapide and de Havilland Australia DHA-3 Drover aircraft. The fleet grew to include two ATR 42 turboprops and two leased jets, a Boeing 747 and a Boeing 767. By the late 1990s, the fleet included both Boeing 737 and 767 jets, while the ATR 42 turboprops were used on flights to neighboring islands.\n\nThe 2000 Fijian coup d'état devastated the country's tourism industry and overall economy, which led to a substantial decrease in travel to Fiji. Faced with a falloff in air traffic, Air Pacific returned one of its two leased Boeing 747s.\n\nIn April 2011, Air Pacific announced that it had cancelled its order of eight Boeing 787-9s due to delivery delays of almost four years by Boeing. In October 2011, Air Pacific announced that it had ordered three Airbus A330-200s.\n\nIn March 2013 the company received its first Airbus A330. It was christened The Island of Taveuni and had its first flight to Auckland on 2 April. Today the fleet includes three Airbus A330-200s, one Airbus A330-300, four Boeing 737-800s and one Boeing 737-700. Fiji Link operates with two ATR 72-600, an ATR 42-600 and three de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft.\n\nPartnerships\n\nIn conjunction with Qantas, Air Pacific helped pioneer the concept of codeshare agreements in the early 1980s. Today, codesharing is an accepted airline practice the world over. In the 1990s Air Pacific signed a codeshare agreement with Canadian Airlines, allowing it to transport traffic from Toronto on to Auckland, New Zealand. Soon after it struck a codeshare deal with American Airlines. As of 2014 Fiji Airways partners with Qantas, Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Solomon Airlines.\n\nQantas, which owned less than 20% of Air Pacific at the time, began a ten-year management contract with the airline in 1985 to help reverse the financial losses the company was struggling with. In 1986, Air Pacific posted a profit of nearly $100,000. In 1987 Qantas paid a reported $3.5 million for a 20 percent stake in Air Pacific. Qantas raised its equity from 17.45 percent to 46 percent in 1998.\n\nOn 25 January 1995 Air Pacific and the then Royal Tongan Airlines began a joint leasing of aircraft. The concept came complete with the livery of the two airlines painted on each side of the Boeing 737-300 fuselage.\n\nFiji Airways has a subsidiary airline Fiji Link (formerly Pacific Sun) that offers domestic flights and flights to the nearby islands of Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Fiji Airways is also a partner with the frequent flyer programmes of Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and Qantas.\n\nRebranding\n\nIn May 2012, the airline announced that it would be rebranding and revert to its original name of Fiji Airways, with the rebranding coinciding with the delivery of the A330 aircraft in 2013. Fiji Airways' new brandmark, a \"Masi symbol that epitomises Fiji and enhances the new name of Fiji's national carrier\", was announced on 17 August 2012. The design was created by local Fijian Masi artist, Makereta Matemosi. The airline's new brand identity and colour scheme were fully revealed on 10 October 2012, in conjunction with Fiji Day.\n\nThe rebranding to Fiji Airways officially took place on 27 June 2013. The name change aimed to associate the airline more closely with the nation and to be more visible in search results. In China, the name Air Pacific was often confused with Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific, Philippine airline Cebu Pacific and a Chinese air conditioning company. With the rebranding came a name change for the airline's booking classes. The Pacific Voyager (economy) and Tabua Class (business) of Air Pacific became the Fiji Airways' Economy and Fiji Airways' Business Class. The airline also launched a new [http://www.fijiairways.com/ website] with the rebranding.\n\nCorporate affairs\n\nOwnership and structure\n\nFiji Airways is part of the Air Pacific Group (which includes the national airline, its wholly owned subsidiary Fiji Link, and a 38.75% stake in the Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa on Denarau Island). The Air Pacific Group itself is owned by the Fijian government (51%), the Australian flag-carrier Qantas (46.32%), and Air New Zealand and the governments of Kiribati, Tonga, Nauru and Samoa each hold minor stakes.\n\nBusiness trends\n\nThe airline was largely profitable from 1995 to 2004, but suffered back-to-back record losses of FJ$5.2 million for fiscal year 2008/2009 and FJ$65.3 million for 2009/2010. In early 2010 a new MD/CEO, Dave Pflieger, was recruited to turn the airline around and restore it to profitability. Pflieger returned to the United States at the end of his contract with the airline in the third quarter of 2013. Stefan Pichler was selected as the airline's new MD/CEO and assumed his role in September 2013.\n\nThe key trends for Fiji Airways, and the overall Group (including Fiji Link operations), are shown below (as at year ending 31 March until March 2013; year ending 31 December thereafter):\n\nDestinations \n\nFiji Airways has 17 direct-flight destinations in the Pacific Ocean region.\n\nCodeshare agreements\n\nFiji Airways has the following codeshare agreements:\n\n*Air New Zealand \n*Alaska Airlines \n*American Airlines \n*Cathay Pacific\n*Etihad Airways\n*Qantas \n*Solomon Airlines\n\nFleet\n\nCurrent Fleet\n\nAs of December 2015 the Fiji Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft:\n\nHistorical fleet \n\nFormer aircraft include examples of the Boeing 777 (on wet lease), Boeing 767, Boeing 747, de Havilland Dragon Rapide, de Havilland Heron, Douglas DC-3, BAC One-Eleven, Hawker Siddeley HS 748 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Known details include:"
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In which branch of the arts does Allegra Kent work?
|
tc_41
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"Allegra Kent (born August 11, 1937) is an American ballet dancer and actress.\n\nIris Margo Cohen was born to Jewish parents, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen, and later changed her name to Allegra Kent. Kent grew up in what she later described as a dysfunctional environment. In Once a Dancer: An Autobiography,Once a Dancer: An Autobiography © 1997, St. Martin's Press; ISBN 0-312-15051-2, 1st edition January 1997. she describes her Texan father (\"who liked to substitute 'Cowboy' for Herschel\") as having \"a gambler's soul and a restless nature\" (at pgs 5, 7). She describes her Wisznice (present-day Poland)-born immigrant mother as feeling \"neither European nor American; she was ashamed of her [own] parents... she borrowed a neighbor's working papers and took a job at twelve. By fourteen, she was teaching ballroom dancing at night in someone's private home, mostly to Japanese men\" (at pg. 6). \n\nBorn in Santa Monica, Kent studied with Bronislava Nijinska and Carmelita Maracci before joining the School of American Ballet. She had completely flat feet as a little girl and consulted a doctor, who prescribed wedges in her shoes to give her arches. She then began taking ballet. \n\nAfter graduating, she joined the New York City Ballet in 1953 at the age of 15, and was promoted to principal in 1957. Many roles in George Balanchine's ballets were created for her, including Seven Deadly Sins, Ivesiana and Bugaku. She danced the role of Dewdrop in the 1958 Playhouse 90 telecast of Balanchine's version of The Nutcracker. \n\nShe performed in such ballets as Serenade, Agon and Dances at a Gathering. She retired in 1981, becoming a ballet teacher, and in 1997 published an autobiography, Once a Dancer. In 2012, Kent published her first book for children, Ballerina Swan, with Holiday House Books for Young People, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Emily Arnold McCully. It has received rave reviews from The New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal. In Fall of 2013, Ballerina Swan was adapted for the stage as a dance piece by New York City Children's Theater, featuring choreographer Michael McGowan and artistic director Barbara Zinn Krieger. The adaptation received positive reviews by the New York Times, Time Out New York Kids, The Mama Maven, and many others. Due to its success, in December 2015, New York City Children's Theater produced a revival of \"Ballerina Swan.\"\n\nAllegra Kent currently teaches ballet at Barnard College. \n\nSources\n\n*The Encyclopedia of Dance & Ballet (1977), Rainbird Reference Books Ltd.; ISBN 0-907408-63-X \n*[http://www.ballerinagallery.com/kent.htm Profile], ballerinagallery.com; accessed November 10, 2014."
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Who had a 70s No 1 hit with Billy, Don't Be A Hero?
|
tc_43
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"\"Billy Don't Be a Hero\" is a 1974 pop song that was first a hit in the UK for Paper Lace and then some months later it was a hit in the US for Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. The song was written by two British songwriters Mitch Murray and Peter Callander.\n\nBecause the song was released in 1974, it was associated by some listeners with the Vietnam War, though it actually refers to an unidentified war. But the drum pattern, references to a marching band leading soldiers in blue, and \"riding out\" (cavalry) would seem to be referencing the American Civil War.\n\nA young woman is distraught that her fiancé chooses to leave the area with Army recruiters passing through the town and go with them to fight. She laments,\n\nThe song goes on to describe how Billy is killed in action in a pitched battle after volunteering to ride out and seek reinforcements (which suggests mounted infantry and a lack of modern two-way radio communications). In the end, the woman throws away the official letter notifying her of Billy's \"heroic\" death.\n\nChart performances\n\nPaper Lace's version of \"Billy Don't Be a Hero\" hit number one in the UK Singles Chart on 16 March 1974, and thereafter Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods version hit number one in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 on 15 June 1974, and number one in Canada on 7 July. The US version sold over three and a half million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in June 1974. The Bo Donaldson version was a massive hit in North America but is largely unknown elsewhere. Billboard ranked it as the No. 21 song for 1974. \n\nQuoted in other media\n\nThe song is mentioned as having played on K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70s Weekend in the film Reservoir Dogs.\n\nThe song features in the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1993).\n\nMystery Science Theater 3000 often riffs on movies by saying \"Billy, don't be a hero!\", including the episode \"The Creeping Terror\".\n\nIn the first episode of Friends, Ross is sad because it has been so long since he last picked up a woman, saying \"Do the words 'Billy, Don't Be a Hero' mean anything to you?\"\n\nMassive Attack's 1991 track \"Blue Lines\" (from the album of the same name) features the lyrics \"take a walk, Billy, don't be a hero\".\n\nIn Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the song is briefly heard during a montage in a disco cover by Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) performing on rollerblades during \"The Dewey Cox Show\". A much longer cut of this scene can be seen in the director's cut, and the whole performance was included in the extras for the 2-Disc editions.\n\nIn the Powerpuff Girls, the leader of the Gang Green Gang, Ace, says to another member, Billy, \"Billy, don't be a hero!\" when he decides to save the Powerpuff Girls from a subway train.\n\nIn The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, the episode \"K'nuckles, Don't Be a Hero\" is named after the song.\n\nIn The Justice Friends (Cartoon Network, 1996), Major Glory says \"Billy, don't be a hero!\" to William, Valhallen's pet goat, when it jumps to save Krunk from the attack of Valhallen's living clothes.\n\nIn an episode of ALF, Alf uses the line \"Willie, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life,\" referring to the head of the household, Wille Tanner, after Willie comes up with a bad idea.\n\nThe Doug Anthony Allstars performed a comedic cover of this song, featuring the altered line, \"Where did Billy's head go?\" in place of \"Keep your pretty head low\".\n\nDav Pilkey named the hero of The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby Billy solely to make possible a passing homage to Billy Don't Be a Hero."
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|
Who directed the movie La Dolce Vita?
|
tc_45
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"La Dolce Vita (; Italian for \"the sweet life\" or \"the good life\") is a 1960 Italian comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the \"sweet life\" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes, and remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.\n\nPlot\n\nBased on the most common interpretation of the storyline, the film can be divided into a prologue, seven major episodes interrupted by an intermezzo, and an epilogue (see also Structure, below). If the evenings of each episode were joined with the morning of the respective preceding episode together as a day, they would form seven consecutive days, which may not necessarily be the case.\n\nPrologue\n\n1st Day Sequence:\nA helicopter transports a statue of Christ over an ancient Roman aqueduct outside Rome while a second, Marcello Rubini's news helicopter, follows it into the city. The news helicopter is momentarily sidetracked by a group of bikini-clad women sunbathing on the rooftop of a high-rise apartment building. Hovering above, Marcello uses gestures to elicit phone numbers from them but fails in his attempt then shrugs and continues on following the statue into Saint Peter's Square.\n\nEpisode 1\n\n1st Night Sequence: Marcello meets Maddalena by chance in an exclusive nightclub. A beautiful and wealthy heiress, Maddalena is tired of Rome and constantly in search of new sensations while Marcello finds Rome suits him as a jungle he can hide in. They make love in the bedroom of a prostitute to whom they had given a ride home in Maddalena’s Cadillac.\n\n1st Dawn Sequence: Marcello returns to his apartment at dawn to find that his fiancée, Emma, has overdosed. On the way to the hospital, he declares his everlasting love to her and again as she lies in a semiconscious state in the emergency room. While waiting frantically for her recovery, however, he tries to make a phone call to Maddalena.\n\nEpisode 2\n\n2nd Day Sequence: That day, he goes on assignment for the arrival of Sylvia, a famous Swedish-American actress, at Ciampino airport where she is met by a horde of news reporters.\n\nDuring Sylvia's press conference, Marcello calls home to ensure Emma has taken her medication while reassuring her that he is not alone with Sylvia. After the film star confidently replies to the barrage of journalists' questions, her boyfriend Robert (Lex Barker) enters the room late and drunk. To Sylvia's producer, Marcello casually recommends that Sylvia be taken on a tour of St Peter's.\n\nInside St Peter's dome, a news reporter complains that Sylvia is \"an elevator\" because none of them can match her energetic climb up the numerous flights of stairs. Inspired, Marcello maneuvers forward to be alone with her when they finally reach the balcony overlooking the Vatican.\n\n2nd Night Sequence: That evening, the infatuated Marcello dances with Sylvia in the Baths of Caracalla. Sylvia's natural sensuality triggers raucous partying while Robert, her bored fiancé, draws caricatures and reads a newspaper. His humiliating remark to her causes Sylvia to leave the group, eagerly followed by Marcello and his paparazzi colleagues. Finding themselves alone, Marcello and Sylvia spend the rest of the evening in the alleys of Rome where they wade into the Trevi Fountain.\n\n2nd Dawn Sequence: Like a magic spell that has suddenly been broken, dawn arrives at the very moment Sylvia playfully \"anoints\" Marcello's head with fountain water. They drive back to Sylvia's hotel to find an enraged Robert waiting for her in his car. Robert slaps Sylvia, orders her to go to bed, and then assaults Marcello who takes it in stride.\n\nEpisode 3a\n\n3rd Day Sequence: Marcello meets Steiner, his distinguished intellectual friend, inside a church playing Bach on the organ. Steiner shows off his book of Sanskrit grammar.\n\nEpisode 4\n\n4th Day Sequence: Late afternoon, Marcello, his photographer friend Paparazzo, and Emma drive to the outskirts of Rome to cover the story of the purported sighting of the Madonna by two children. Although the Catholic Church is officially skeptical, a huge crowd of devotees and reporters gathers at the site.\n\n3rd Night Sequence: That night, the event is broadcast over Italian radio and television. Blindly following the two children from corner to corner in a downpour, the crowd tears a small tree apart for its branches and leaves said to have sheltered the Madonna. Meanwhile, Emma prays to the Virgin Mary to be given sole possession of Marcello's heart.\n\n3rd Dawn Sequence: The gathering ends at dawn with the crowd mourning a sick child, a pilgrim brought by his mother to be healed, but trampled to death in the melee.\n\nEpisode 3b\n\n4th Night Sequence: One evening, Marcello and Emma attend a gathering at Steiner’s luxurious home where they are introduced to a group of intellectuals who recite poetry, strum the guitar, offer philosophical ideas, and listen to sounds of nature recorded on tape. While one of the women declares it better not to get married so that one does not need to choose, Marcello responds that it is better to be chosen than to choose. Emma appears enchanted with Steiner's home and children, telling Marcello that one day he will have a home like Steiner's.\n\nOutside on the terrace, Marcello confesses to Steiner his admiration for all he stands for, but Steiner admits he is torn between the security that a materialistic life affords and his longing for a more spiritual albeit insecure way of life. Steiner philosophizes about the need for love in the world and fears what his children may grow up to face one day.\n\nIntermezzo\n\n5th Day Sequence: Marcello spends the afternoon working on his novel at a seaside restaurant where he meets Paola, a young waitress from Perugia playing Perez Prado's cha-cha Patricia on the jukebox and then humming its tune. He asks her if she has a boyfriend, then describes her as an angel in Umbrian paintings.\n\nEpisode 5\n\n5th Night Sequence: Marcello meets his father (Annibale Ninchi) visiting Rome on the Via Veneto. With Paparazzo, they go to the Cha-Cha-Cha Club where Marcello introduces his father to Fanny, a beautiful dancer and one of his past one-night stands (he had promised to get her picture in the paper, but failed to do it). Fanny takes a liking to his father. Marcello tells Paparazzo that as a child he had never seen much of his father, who would spend weeks away from home. Fanny invites Marcello’s father back to her flat, and two other dancers invite the two younger men to go with them. Marcello leaves the others when they get to the dancers' neighborhood. Fanny comes out of her house, upset that Marcello's father has become ill.\n\n4th Dawn Sequence: Marcello's father has suffered what seems to be a mild heart attack. Marcello wants him to stay with him in Rome so they can get to know each other, but his father, weakened, wants to go home and gets in a taxi to catch the first train home. He leaves Marcello forlorn, on the street, watching the taxi leave.\n\nEpisode 6\n\n6th Night Sequence: Marcello, Nico, and other friends met on the Via Veneto are driven to a castle owned by aristocrats at Bassano di Sutri outside Rome. There is already a party long in progress, and the party-goers are bleary-eyed and intoxicated. By chance, Marcello meets Maddalena again. The two of them explore a suite of ruins annexed to the castle. Maddalena seats Marcello in a vast room and then closets herself in another room connected by an echo chamber. As a disembodied voice, Maddalena asks him to marry her; Marcello professes his love for her, avoiding answering her proposal. Another man kisses and embraces Maddalena, who loses interest in Marcello. He rejoins the group, and eventually spends the night with Jane, an American artist and heiress.\n\n5th Dawn Sequence: Burnt out and bleary-eyed, the group returns at dawn to the main section of the castle, to be met by the matriarch of the castle, who is on her way to mass, accompanied by priests in a procession.\n\nEpisode 3c\n\n7th Night Sequence: Marcello and Emma are alone in his sports car on an isolated road. Emma starts an argument by professing her love, and tries to get out of the car; Marcello pleads with her not to get out. Emma says that Marcello will never find another woman who loves him the way she does. Marcello becomes enraged at her, telling her that he cannot live with her maternal and smothering love. He now wants her to get out of the car, and she refuses. With some violence (a bite from her and a slap from him), he throws her out of the car and drives off. She is left alone on a dark, lonely road, in the dark. After some hours (it is now dawn), Emma is still alone on the road, holding flowers, when she hears his car approaching. She gets into the car without saying a word.\n\n6th Dawn Sequence: Marcello and Emma are asleep in bed, tenderly intertwined; Marcello receives a phone call. He rushes to the Steiners' apartment and learns that Steiner has killed himself and his two children.\n\n6th Day Sequence: After waiting with the police for Steiner’s wife to return home, he meets her outside to break the terrible news while paparazzi swarm around her snapping pictures.\n\nEpisode 7\n\n6th Night Sequence: An unspecified amount of time later, an older Marcello—now with gray in his hair—and a group of partygoers break into a Fregene beach house owned by Riccardo, a friend of Marcello's. To celebrate her recent divorce from Riccardo, Nadia performs a striptease to Perez Prado's cha-cha Patricia. The drunken Marcello attempts to provoke the other partygoers into an orgy. Due to their inebriated states, however, the party descends into mayhem with Marcello throwing pillow feathers around the room as he rides a young woman crawling on her hands and knees. Riccardo shows up at the house and angrily tells the partiers to leave.\n\nEpilogue\n\n7th Dawn Sequence: The party proceeds to the beach at dawn where they find a modern-day leviathan, a bloated, stingray-like creature, caught in the fishermen's nets. In his stupor, Marcello comments on how its eyes stare even in death.\n\n7th Day Sequence: Paola, the adolescent waitress from the seaside restaurant in Fregene, calls to Marcello from across an estuary but the words they exchange are lost on the wind, drowned out by the crash of the waves. He signals his inability to understand what she is saying or interpret her gestures. He shrugs and returns to the partygoers; one of the women joins him and they hold hands as they walk away from the beach. In a long final close-up, Paola waves to Marcello then stands watching him with an enigmatic smile.\n\nCast\n\n* Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini\n* Anita Ekberg as Sylvia\n* Anouk Aimée as Maddalena\n* Yvonne Furneaux as Emma\n* Lex Barker as Robert, Sylvia's fiancé.\n* Magali Noël as Fanny\n\n* Alain Cuny as Steiner\n* Nadia Gray as Nadia\n* Annibale Ninchi as Marcello's father\n* Walter Santesso as Paparazzo\n* Valeria Ciangottini as Paola\n* Riccardo Garrone as Riccardo\n\n* Ida Galli as Debutante of the Year\n* Audrey McDonald as Jane\n* Gloria Jones as Gloria\n* Alain Dijon as Frankie Stout\n* Enzo Cerusico as Newspaper photographer\n* Nico as Nico\n\nProduction\n\nCostumes\n\nCritics have often commented on the extravagant costumes used throughout Fellini's films. In various interviews, Fellini claimed that the film's initial inspiration was the fashionable ladies' sack dress because of what the dress could hide beneath it. Brunello Rondi, Fellini's co-screenwriter and long-time collaborator, confirmed this view explaining that \"the fashion of women's sack dresses which possessed that sense of luxurious butterflying out around a body that might be physically beautiful but not morally so; these sack dresses struck Fellini because they rendered a woman very gorgeous who could, instead, be a skeleton of squalor and solitude inside.\" \n\nWriting\n\nCredit for the creation of Steiner, the intellectual who commits suicide after shooting his two children, goes to co-screenwriter Tullio Pinelli. Having gone to school with Italian novelist Cesare Pavese, Pinelli had closely followed the writer's career and felt that his over-intellectualism had become emotionally sterile, leading to his suicide in a Turin hotel in 1950. This idea of a \"burnt-out existence\" is carried over to Steiner in the party episode where the sounds of nature are not to be experienced first-hand by himself and his guests but in the virtual world of tape recordings.\n\nFilming\n\nMost of the film was shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. Set designer Piero Gherardi created over eighty locations, including the Via Veneto, the dome of Saint Peter's with the staircase leading up to it, and various nightclubs. However, other sequences were shot on location such as the party at the aristocrats' castle filmed in the real Bassano di Sutri palace north of Rome. (Some of the servants, waiters, and guests were played by real aristocrats.) Fellini combined constructed sets with location shots, depending on script requirements—a real location often \"gave birth to the modified scene and, consequently, the newly constructed set.\" The film's famous last scenes where the monster fish is pulled out of the sea and Marcello waves goodbye to Paola (the teenage \"Umbrian angel\") were shot on location at Passo Oscuro, a small resort town situated on the Italian coast 30 kilometers from Rome.\n\nFellini scrapped a major sequence that would have involved the relationship of Marcello with Dolores, an older writer living in a tower, to be played by 1930s Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer. If the director’s dealings with Rainer \"who used to involve Fellini in futile discussion\" were problematic, biographer Kezich argues that while rewriting the screenplay, the Dolores character grew \"hyperbolic\" and Fellini decided to jettison \"the entire story line.\" \n\nThe famous scene in the Trevi Fountain was shot over a week in winter: in March according to the BBC, in late January according to Anita Ekberg. Fellini claimed that Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble while Mastroianni had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes - to no avail. It was only after the actor \"polished off a bottle of vodka\" and \"was completely pissed\" that Fellini could shoot the scene. \n\nPaparazzo\n\nThe character of Paparazzo, the news photographer (Walter Santesso), was inspired by photojournalist Tazio Secchiaroli and is the origin of the word paparazzi used in many languages to describe intrusive photographers. As to the origin of the character's name itself, Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella argues that although \"it is indeed an Italian family name, the word is probably a corruption of the word papataceo, a large and bothersome mosquito. Ennio Flaiano, the film's co-screenwriter and creator of Paparazzo, reports that he took the name from a character in a novel by George Gissing.\" Gissing's character, Signor Paparazzo, is found in his travel book, By the Ionian Sea (1901).\n\nThemes, motifs and structure\n\nMarcello is a journalist in Rome during the late 1950s who covers tabloid news of movie stars, religious visions and the self-indulgent aristocracy while searching for a more meaningful way of life. Precisely, Marcello faces the existential struggle of having to choose between two lifestyles, namely depicted by journalism and literature. Indeed, Marcello on the one hand leads a lifestyle of excess, of fame and pleasure amongst Rome's thriving popular culture. Thereby, depicting the confusion and frequency with which Marcello gets distracted by women and power. On the other, a more sensitive Marcello aspires of becoming a writer, of leading an intellectual's life amongst the elites, the poets, writers and philosophers of the time. In the end, Marcello chooses neither journalism, nor literature. Thematically however, he's opted for the life of excess and popularity by officially becoming a publicity agent.\n\nThe film's theme \"is predominantly café society, the diverse and glittery world rebuilt upon the ruins and poverty\" of the Italian postwar period. In the opening sequence, a plaster statue of Christ the Labourer suspended by cables from a helicopter, flies past the ruins of an ancient Roman aqueduct. The statue is being taken to the Pope at the Vatican. Journalist Marcello and a photographer named Paparazzo follow in a second helicopter. The symbolism of Christ, arms outstretched as if blessing all of Rome as it flies overhead, is soon replaced by the profane lifestyle and neo-modern architecture of the \"new\" Rome, founded on the economic miracle of the late 1950s. (Much of this was filmed in Cinecittà or in EUR, the Mussolini-style area south of Rome.) The delivery of the statue is the first of many recurring scenes, placing religious icons in the midst of characters demonstrating their \"modern\" morality, influenced by the booming economy and the emerging mass-consumer lifestyle.\n\nSeven principal episodes\n\nThe most common interpretation of the film is a mosaic, its parts linked by the protagonist, Marcello Rubini, a journalist. The seven principal episodes are as follows:\n\n1. Marcello's evening with the heiress Maddalena (Anouk Aimée)\n\n2. His long, frustrating night with the American actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) that ends in the Trevi fountain at dawn\n\n3. His reunion with the intellectual Steiner (Alain Cuny); their relationship is divided into three sequences spread over the entire film: a) the encounter, b) Steiner's party, and c) Steiner's tragedy\n\n4. The fake miracle\n\n5. His father's visit/Steiner's Party\n\n6. The aristocrat's party/Steiner's tragedy\n \n7. The \"orgy\" at the beach house\n\nInterrupting these seven episodes is the restaurant sequence with the angelic Paola; they are framed by a prologue (Christ statue over Rome) and epilogue (the monster fish), giving the film its innovative and symmetrically symbolic structure. The evocations are: seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven virtues, seven days of creation.\n\nOther critics claim that this widespread view of the film's structure is inaccurate. Peter Bondanella, for example, argues that \"any critic of La dolce vita not mesmerized by the magic number seven will find it almost impossible to organize the numerous sequences on a strictly numerological basis.\" \n\nAn aesthetic of disparity\n\nCritic Robert Richardson suggests that the originality of La dolce vita lies in a new form of film narrative that mines \"an aesthetic of disparity.\" Abandoning traditional plot and conventional \"character development,\" Fellini and co-screenwriters Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli, forged a cinematic narrative that rejected continuity, unnecessary explanations, and narrative logic in favour of seven non-linear encounters between Marcello, a kind of Dantesque Pilgrim, and an underworld of 120 different characters. These encounters build up a cumulative impression on the viewer that finds resolution in an \"overpowering sense of the disparity between what life has been or could be, and what it actually is.\" \n\nIn a device used earlier in his films, Fellini orders the disparate succession of sequences as movements from evening to dawn. Also employed as an ordering device is the image of a downward spiral that Marcello sets in motion when descending the first of several staircases (including ladders) that open and close each major episode. The upshot is that the film's aesthetic form, rather than its content, embodies the overall theme of Rome as a moral wasteland.\n\nCritical reception\n\nWriting for L'Espresso, Italian novelist Alberto Moravia highlighted the film's variations in tone: \"Highly expressive throughout, Fellini seems to change the tone according to the subject matter of each episode, ranging from expressionist caricature to pure neo-realism. In general, the tendency to caricature is greater the more severe the film's moral judgement although this is never totally contemptuous, there being always a touch of complacence and participation, as in the final orgy scene or the episode at the aristocrats' castle outside Rome, the latter being particularly effective for its descriptive acuteness and narrative rhythm.\" \n\nIn Filmcritica XI, Italian poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that \"La dolce vita was too important to be discussed as one would normally discuss a film. Though not as great as Chaplin, Eisenstein or Mizoguchi, Fellini is unquestionably an author rather than a director. The film is therefore his and his alone... The camera moves and fixes the image in such a way as to create a sort of diaphragm around each object, thus making the object’s relationship to the world appear as irrational and magical. As each new episode begins, the camera is already in motion using complicated movements. Frequently, however, these sinuous movements are brutally punctuated by a very simple documentary shot, like a quotation written in everyday language\". \n\nIn France, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, film critic and co-founder of Cahiers du cinéma, felt that \"what La dolce vita lacks is the structure of a masterpiece. In fact, the film has no proper structure: it is a succession of cinematic moments, some more convincing than others… In the face of criticism, La Dolce Vita disintegrates, leaving behind little more than a sequence of events with no common denominator linking them into a meaningful whole\". \n\nThe New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther praised Fellini’s “brilliantly graphic estimation of a whole swath of society in sad decay and, eventually, a withering commentary on the tragedy of the over-civilized… Fellini is nothing if not fertile, fierce and urbane in calculating the social scene around him and packing it onto the screen. He has an uncanny eye for finding the offbeat and grotesque incident, the gross and bizarre occurrence that exposes a glaring irony. He has, too, a splendid sense of balance and a deliciously sardonic wit that not only guided his cameras but also affected the writing of the script. In sum, it is an awesome picture, licentious in content but moral and vastly sophisticated in its attitude and what it says\". \n\nFilm critic Roger Ebert considered La Dolce Vita as Fellini’s best film, as well as his favorite film of all time besides Citizen Kane (1941), and listed it consistently in his top ten films for the Sight & Sound Greatest Films poll every ten years. Ebert's first review for the film, written on October 4, 1961, was the first film review he wrote, before he started his career as a film critic in 1967. The film was also a personal touchstone for Ebert, in how his perspective of the movie and his life changes as time passes by, giving this summation in his 1997 Great Movie review:\n\n\"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw 'La Dolce Vita' in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom 'the sweet life' represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age. When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal.\" \n\nReview aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that from 57 reviews, 96% were positive; the consensus states: \"An epic, breathtakingly stylish cinematic landmark, La Dolce Vita remains riveting in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- its sprawling length.\" On Metacritic, the film has a 93/100 rating based on 12 critics, indicating \"universal acclaim\". \n\nThe film earned $6 million in North American rentals on original release. The film was re-released in North America in 1966 and earned $1.5 million in rentals. \n\nCensorship\n\nPerceived by the Catholic Church as a parody of the second coming of Jesus, the opening scene and the film as a whole were condemned by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in 1960. Subject to widespread censorship, the film was banned in Spain, until the death of Franco in 1975. Umberto Tupini, the Minister of Culture of the Tambroni government censored it and other \"shameful films\".\n\nAwards and recognition\n\nThe New York Times hailed La dolce vita as \"one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s\". It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won one for Best Costume Design: Black-and-White. La dolce vita also earned the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. Entertainment Weekly voted it the 6th Greatest film of all time. \n\nIn 2010, the film was ranked #11 in Empire magazine's \"The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema\". \n\nIn popular culture\n\nAs mentioned above, one of the characters (Paparazzo) is the inspiration for the popular term \"paparazzi,\" a word for an intrusive photojournalist.\n\nTributes to Fellini in the \"Director's Cut\" of Cinema Paradiso (1988) include a helicopter suspending a statue of Christ over the city and scenes in which the Trevi Fountain is used as a backdrop while Toto, the main character, grows up to be a famous film director.\n\nWoody Allen's Celebrity (1998) is a New York-set re-working of La dolce vita with Kenneth Branagh taking up Mastroianni's role, and Winona Ryder and Charlize Theron taking on the roles held by Anouk Aimée and Anita Ekberg, respectively.\n\nIn Sofia Coppola's film Lost in Translation (2003), Kelly's interview for LIT resembles Sylvia's interview scenes in La dolce vita. Charlotte and Bob later meet in the middle of the night and watch the famous Trevi Fountain sequence while drinking sake. Coppola said, \"I saw that movie on TV when I was in Japan. It's not plot-driven, it's about them wandering around. And there was something with the Japanese subtitles and them speaking Italian - it had a truly enchanting quality\".\n\nThe 2013 Italian film The Great Beauty features a former writer who wanders through the parties of the Roman high society trying to decide what to do with his life.\n \n\nNotes"
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Which country does the airline LACSA come from?
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tc_46
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines utilize aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements. Generally, airline companies are recognized with an air operating certificate or license issued by a governmental aviation body.\n\nAirlines vary in size, from small domestic airlines to full-service international airlines. Airline services can be categorized as being intercontinental, domestic, regional, or international, and may be operated as scheduled services or charters. The largest airline currently is American Airlines Group.\n\nHistory\n\nThe first airlines\n\nDELAG, Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft was the world's first airline. It was founded on November 16, 1909 with government assistance, and operated airships manufactured by The Zeppelin Corporation. Its headquarters were in Frankfurt. The first fixed wing scheduled air service was started on January 1, 1914 from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa, Florida. The four oldest non-dirigible airlines that still exist are Netherlands' KLM (1919), Colombia's Avianca (1919), Australia's Qantas (1921), and the Czech Republic's Czech Airlines (1923).\n\nEuropean airline industry\n\nBeginnings\n\nThe earliest fixed wing airline in Europe was the Aircraft Transport and Travel, formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916. Using a fleet of former military Airco DH.4A biplanes that had been modified to carry two passengers in the fuselage, it operated relief flights between Folkestone and Ghent. On 15 July 1919, the company flew a proving flight across the English Channel, despite a lack of support from the British government. Flown by Lt. H Shaw in an Airco DH.9 between RAF Hendon and Paris - Le Bourget Airport, the flight took 2 hours and 30 minutes at £21 per passenger.\n\nOn 25 August 1919, the company used DH.16s to pioneer a regular service from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Le Bourget, the first regular international service in the world. The airline soon gained a reputation for reliability, despite problems with bad weather and began to attract European competition. In November 1919, it won the first British civil airmail contract. Six Royal Air Force Airco DH.9A aircraft were lent to the company, to operate the airmail service between Hawkinge and Cologne. In 1920, they were returned to the Royal Air Force. \n\nOther British competitors were quick to follow - Handley Page Transport was established in 1919 and used the company's converted wartime Type O/400 bombers with a capacity for 19 passengers, to run a London-Paris passenger service.\n\nThe first French airline was Société des lignes Latécoère, later known as Aéropostale, which started its first service in late 1918 to Spain. The Société Générale des Transports Aériens was created in late 1919, by the Farman brothers and the Farman F.60 Goliath plane flew scheduled services from Toussus-le-Noble to Kenley, near Croydon, England. Another early French airline was the Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes, established in 1919 by Louis-Charles Breguet, offering a mail and freight service between Le Bourget Airport, Paris and Lesquin Airport, Lille. \n\nThe first German airline to use heavier than air aircraft was Deutsche Luft-Reederei established in 1917 which started operating in February 1919. In its first year, the D.L.R. operated regularly scheduled flights on routes with a combined length of nearly 1000 miles. By 1921 the D.L.R. network was more than 3000 km (1865 miles) long, and included destinations in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics. Another important German airline was Junkers Luftverkehr, which began operations in 1921. It was a division of the aircraft manufacturer Junkers, which became a separate company in 1924. It operated joint-venture airlines in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.\n\nThe Dutch airline KLM made its first flight in 1920, and is the oldest continuously operating airline in the world. Established by aviator Albert Plesman, it was immediately awarded a \"Royal\" predicate from Queen Wilhelmina Its first flight was from Croydon Airport, London to Amsterdam, using a leased Aircraft Transport and Travel DH-16, and carrying two British journalists and a number of newspapers. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.\n\nIn Finland, the charter establishing Aero O/Y (now Finnair) was signed in the city of Helsinki on September 12, 1923. Junkers F.13 D-335 became the first aircraft of the company, when Aero took delivery of it on March 14, 1924. The first flight was between Helsinki and Tallinn, capital of Estonia, and it took place on March 20, 1924, one week later.\n\nIn the Soviet Union, the Chief Administration of the Civil Air Fleet was established in 1921. One of its first acts was to help found Deutsch-Russische Luftverkehrs A.G. (Deruluft), a German-Russian joint venture to provide air transport from Russia to the West. Domestic air service began around the same time, when Dobrolyot started operations on 15 July 1923 between Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod. Since 1932 all operations had been carried under the name Aeroflot.\n\nEarly European airlines tend to favour comfort - the passenger cabins were often spacious with luxurious interiors - over speed and efficiency. The relatively basic navigational capabilities of pilots at the time also meant that delays due to the weather were commonplace.\n\nRationalization\n\nBy the early 1920s, small airlines were struggling to compete, and there was a movement towards increased rationalization and consolidation. In 1924, Imperial Airways was formed from the merger of Instone Air Line Company, British Marine Air Navigation, Daimler Airway and Handley Page Transport Co Ltd., to allow British airlines to compete with stiff competition from French and German airlines that were enjoying heavy government subsidies. The airline was a pioneer in surveying and opening up air routes across the world to serve far-flung parts of the British Empire and to enhance trade and integration. \n\nThe first new airliner ordered by Imperial Airways, was the Handley Page W8f City of Washington, delivered on 3 November 1924. In the first year of operation the company carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters. In April 1925, the film The Lost World became the first film to be screened for passengers on a scheduled airliner flight when it was shown on the London-Paris route.\n\nTwo French airlines also merged to form Air Union on 1 January 1923. This later merged with four other French airlines to become Air France, the country's flagship carrier to this day, on 7 October 1933.\n\nGermany's Deutsche Luft Hansa was created in 1926 by merger of two airlines, one of them Junkers Luftverkehr. Luft Hansa, due to the Junkers heritage and unlike most other airlines at the time, became a major investor in airlines outside of Europe, providing capital to Varig and Avianca. German airliners built by Junkers, Dornier, and Fokker were among the most advanced in the world at the time.\n\nGlobal expansion\n\nIn 1926, Alan Cobham surveyed a flight route from the UK to Cape Town, South Africa, following this up with another proving flight to Melbourne, Australia. Other routes to British India and the Far East were also charted and demonstrated at this time. Regular services to Cairo and Basra began in 1927 and was extended to Karachi in 1929. The London-Australia service was inaugurated in 1932 with the Handley Page HP 42 airliners. Further services were opened up to Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Brisbane and Hong Kong passengers departed London on 14 March 1936 following the establishment of a branch from Penang to Hong Kong.\n\nImperial's aircraft were small, most seating fewer than twenty passengers, and catered for the rich - only about 50,000 passengers used Imperial Airways in the 1930s. Most passengers on intercontinental routes or on services within and between British colonies were men doing colonial administration, business or research. \n\nLike Imperial Airways, Air France and KLM's early growth depended heavily on the needs to service links with far-flung colonial possessions (North Africa and Indochina for the French and the East Indies for the Dutch). France began an air mail service to Morocco in 1919 that was bought out in 1927, renamed Aéropostale, and injected with capital to become a major international carrier. In 1933, Aéropostale went bankrupt, was nationalized and merged into Air France.\n\nAlthough Germany lacked colonies, it also began expanding its services globally. In 1931, the airship Graf Zeppelin began offering regular scheduled passenger service between Germany and South America, usually every two weeks, which continued until 1937. In 1936, the airship Hindenburg entered passenger service and successfully crossed the Atlantic 36 times before crashing at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937.\n\nFrom February 1934 until World War II began in 1939 Deutsche Lufthansa operated an airmail service from Stuttgart, Germany via Spain, the Canary Islands and West Africa to Natal in Brazil. This was the first time an airline flew across an ocean. \n\nBy the end of the 1930s Aeroflot had become the world's largest airline, employing more than 4,000 pilots and 60,000 other service personnel and operating around 3,000 aircraft (of which 75% were considered obsolete by its own standards). During the Soviet era Aeroflot was synonymous with Russian civil aviation, as it was the only air carrier. It became the first airline in the world to operate sustained regular jet services on 15 September 1956 with the Tupolev Tu-104.\n\nEU airline deregulation\n\nDeregulation of the European Union airspace in the early 1990s has had substantial effect on the structure of the industry there. The shift towards 'budget' airlines on shorter routes has been significant. Airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair have often grown at the expense of the traditional national airlines.\n\nThere has also been a trend for these national airlines themselves to be privatized such as has occurred for Aer Lingus and British Airways. Other national airlines, including Italy's Alitalia, have suffered - particularly with the rapid increase of oil prices in early 2008.\n\nU.S. airline industry\n\nEarly development\n\nTony Jannus conducted the United States' first scheduled commercial airline flight on 1 January 1914 for the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line. The 23-minute flight traveled between St. Petersburg, Florida and Tampa, Florida, passing some 50 ft above Tampa Bay in Jannus' Benoist XIV wood and muslin biplane flying boat. His passenger was a former mayor of St. Petersburg, who paid $400 for the privilege of sitting on a wooden bench in the open cockpit. The Airboat line operated for about four months, carrying more than 1,200 passengers who paid $5 each. Chalk's International Airlines began service between Miami and Bimini in the Bahamas in February 1919. Based in Ft. Lauderdale, Chalk's claimed to be the oldest continuously operating airline in the United States until its closure in 2008. \n\nFollowing World War I, the United States found itself swamped with aviators. Many decided to take their war-surplus aircraft on barnstorming campaigns, performing aerobatic maneuvers to woo crowds. In 1918, the United States Postal Service won the financial backing of Congress to begin experimenting with air mail service, initially using Curtiss Jenny aircraft that had been procured by the United States Army Air Service. Private operators were the first to fly the mail but due to numerous accidents the US Army was tasked with mail delivery. During the Army's involvement they proved to be too unreliable and lost their air mail duties. By the mid-1920s, the Postal Service had developed its own air mail network, based on a transcontinental backbone between New York City and San Francisco. To supplant this service, they offered twelve contracts for spur routes to independent bidders. Some of the carriers that won these routes would, through time and mergers, evolve into Pan Am, Delta Air Lines, Braniff Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines (originally a division of Boeing), Trans World Airlines, Northwest Airlines, and Eastern Air Lines.\n\nService during the early 1920s was sporadic: most airlines at the time were focused on carrying bags of mail. In 1925, however, the Ford Motor Company bought out the Stout Aircraft Company and began construction of the all-metal Ford Trimotor, which became the first successful American airliner. With a 12-passenger capacity, the Trimotor made passenger service potentially profitable. Air service was seen as a supplement to rail service in the American transportation network.\n\nAt the same time, Juan Trippe began a crusade to create an air network that would link America to the world, and he achieved this goal through his airline, Pan American World Airways, with a fleet of flying boats that linked Los Angeles to Shanghai and Boston to London. Pan Am and Northwest Airways (which began flights to Canada in the 1920s) were the only U.S. airlines to go international before the 1940s.\n\nWith the introduction of the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-3 in the 1930s, the U.S. airline industry was generally profitable, even during the Great Depression. This trend continued until the beginning of World War II.\n\nDevelopment since 1945\n\nAs governments met to set the standards and scope for an emergent civil air industry toward the end of the war, the U.S. took a position of maximum operating freedom; U.S. airline companies were not as hard-hit as European and the few Asian ones had been. This preference for \"open skies\" operating regimes continues, with limitations, to this day.\n\nWorld War II, like World War I, brought new life to the airline industry. Many airlines in the Allied countries were flush from lease contracts to the military, and foresaw a future explosive demand for civil air transport, for both passengers and cargo. They were eager to invest in the newly emerging flagships of air travel such as the Boeing Stratocruiser, Lockheed Constellation, and Douglas DC-6. Most of these new aircraft were based on American bombers such as the B-29, which had spearheaded research into new technologies such as pressurization. Most offered increased efficiency from both added speed and greater payload.\n\nIn the 1950s, the De Havilland Comet, Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8, and Sud Aviation Caravelle became the first flagships of the Jet Age in the West, while the Eastern bloc had Tupolev Tu-104 and Tupolev Tu-124 in the fleets of state-owned carriers such as Czechoslovak ČSA, Soviet Aeroflot and East-German Interflug. The Vickers Viscount and Lockheed L-188 Electra inaugurated turboprop transport.\n\nThe next big boost for the airlines would come in the 1970s, when the Boeing 747, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, and Lockheed L-1011 inaugurated widebody (\"jumbo jet\") service, which is still the standard in international travel. The Tupolev Tu-144 and its Western counterpart, Concorde, made supersonic travel a reality. Concorde first flew in 1969 and operated through 2003. In 1972, Airbus began producing Europe's most commercially successful line of airliners to date. The added efficiencies for these aircraft were often not in speed, but in passenger capacity, payload, and range. Airbus also features modern electronic cockpits that were common across their aircraft to enable pilots to fly multiple models with minimal cross-training.\n\nUS airline deregulation\n\nThe 1978 U.S. airline industry deregulation lowered federally controlled barriers for new airlines just as a downturn in the nation's economy occurred. New start-ups entered during the downturn, during which time they found aircraft and funding, contracted hangar and maintenance services, trained new employees, and recruited laid off staff from other airlines.\n\nMajor airlines dominated their routes through aggressive pricing and additional capacity offerings, often swamping new start-ups. In the place of high barriers to entry imposed by regulation, the major airlines implemented an equally high barrier called loss leader pricing. In this strategy an already established and dominant airline stomps out its competition by lowering airfares on specific routes, below the cost of operating on it, choking out any chance a start-up airline may have. The industry side effect is an overall drop in revenue and service quality. Since deregulation in 1978 the average domestic ticket price has dropped by 40%. So has airline employee pay. By incurring massive losses, the airlines of the USA now rely upon a scourge of cyclical Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings to continue doing business. America West Airlines (which has since merged with US Airways) remained a significant survivor from this new entrant era, as dozens, even hundreds, have gone under.\n\nIn many ways, the biggest winner in the deregulated environment was the air passenger. Although not exclusively attributable to deregulation, indeed the U.S. witnessed an explosive growth in demand for air travel. Many millions who had never or rarely flown before became regular fliers, even joining frequent flyer loyalty programs and receiving free flights and other benefits from their flying. New services and higher frequencies meant that business fliers could fly to another city, do business, and return the same day, from almost any point in the country. Air travel's advantages put long distance intercity railroad travel and bus lines under pressure, with most of the latter having withered away, whilst the former is still protected under nationalization through the continuing existence of Amtrak.\n\nBy the 1980s, almost half of the total flying in the world took place in the U.S., and today the domestic industry operates over 10,000 daily departures nationwide.\n\nToward the end of the century, a new style of low cost airline emerged, offering a no-frills product at a lower price. Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, AirTran Airways, Skybus Airlines and other low-cost carriers began to represent a serious challenge to the so-called \"legacy airlines\", as did their low-cost counterparts in many other countries. Their commercial viability represented a serious competitive threat to the legacy carriers. However, of these, ATA and Skybus have since ceased operations.\n\nIncreasingly since 1978, US airlines have been reincorporated and spun off by newly created and internally led management companies, and thus becoming nothing more than operating units and subsidiaries with limited financially decisive control. Among some of these holding companies and parent companies which are relatively well known, are the UAL Corporation, along with the AMR Corporation, among a long list of airline holding companies sometime recognized worldwide. Less recognized are the private equity firms which often seize managerial, financial, and board of directors control of distressed airline companies by temporarily investing large sums of capital in air carriers, to rescheme an airlines assets into a profitable organization or liquidating an air carrier of their profitable and worthwhile routes and business operations.\n\nThus the last 50 years of the airline industry have varied from reasonably profitable, to devastatingly depressed. As the first major market to deregulate the industry in 1978, U.S. airlines have experienced more turbulence than almost any other country or region. In fact, no U.S. legacy carrier survived bankruptcy-free. Amongst the outspoken critics of deregulation, former CEO of American Airlines, Robert Crandall has publicly stated:\n\n\"Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing shows airline industry deregulation was a mistake. \"\n\nThe airline industry bailout\n\nCongress passed the [http://ostpxweb.ost.dot.gov/aviation/Data/stabilizationact.pdf Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act] (P.L. 107-42) in response to a severe liquidity crisis facing the already-troubled airline industry in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Through the ATSB Congress sought to provide cash infusions to carriers for both the cost of the four-day federal shutdown of the airlines and the incremental losses incurred through December 31, 2001 as a result of the terrorist attacks. This resulted in the first government bailout of the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2005 US airlines lost $30 billion with wage cuts of over $15 billion and 100,000 employees laid off. \n\nIn recognition of the essential national economic role of a healthy aviation system, Congress authorized partial compensation of up to $5 billion in cash subject to review by the Department of Transportation and up to $10 billion in loan guarantees subject to review by a newly created Air Transportation Stabilization Board (ATSB). The applications to DOT for reimbursements were subjected to rigorous multi-year reviews not only by DOT program personnel but also by the Government Accountability Office and the DOT Inspector General. \n\nUltimately, the federal government provided $4.6 billion in one-time, subject-to-income-tax cash payments to 427 U.S. air carriers, with no provision for repayment, essentially a gift from the taxpayers. (Passenger carriers operating scheduled service received approximately $4 billion, subject to tax.) In addition, the ATSB approved loan guarantees to six airlines totaling approximately $1.6 billion. Data from the US Treasury Department show that the government recouped the $1.6 billion and a profit of $339 million from the fees, interest and purchase of discounted airline stock associated with loan guarantees. \n\nAsian airline industry\n\nAlthough Philippine Airlines (PAL) was officially founded on February 26, 1941, its license to operate as an airliner was derived from merged Philippine Aerial Taxi Company (PATCO) established by mining magnate Emmanuel N. Bachrach on December 3, 1930, making it Asia's oldest scheduled carrier still in operation. Commercial air service commenced three weeks later from Manila to Baguio, making it Asia's first airline route. Bachrach's death in 1937 paved the way for its eventual merger with Philippine Airlines in March 1941 and made it Asia's oldest airline. It is also the oldest airline in Asia still operating under its current name. Bachrach's majority share in PATCO was bought by beer magnate Andres R. Soriano in 1939 upon the advice of General Douglas MacArthur and later merged with newly formed Philippine Airlines with PAL as the surviving entity. Soriano has controlling interest in both airlines before the merger. PAL restarted service on March 15, 1941 with a single Beech Model 18 NPC-54 aircraft, which started its daily services between Manila (from Nielson Field) and Baguio, later to expand with larger aircraft such as the DC-3 and Vickers Viscount.\n\nIndia was also one of the first countries to embrace civil aviation. One of the first West Asian airline companies was Air India, which had its beginning as Tata Airlines in 1932, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. (now Tata Group). The airline was founded by India's leading industrialist, JRD Tata. On October 15, 1932, J. R. D. Tata himself flew a single engined De Havilland Puss Moth carrying air mail (postal mail of Imperial Airways) from Karachi to Bombay via Ahmedabad. The aircraft continued to Madras via Bellary piloted by Royal Air Force pilot Nevill Vintcent. Tata Airlines was also one of the world's first major airlines which began its operations without any support from the Government. \n\nWith the outbreak of World War II, the airline presence in Asia came to a relative halt, with many new flag carriers donating their aircraft for military aid and other uses. Following the end of the war in 1945, regular commercial service was restored in India and Tata Airlines became a public limited company on July 29, 1946 under the name Air India. After the independence of India, 49% of the airline was acquired by the Government of India. In return, the airline was granted status to operate international services from India as the designated flag carrier under the name Air India International.\n\nOn July 31, 1946, a chartered Philippine Airlines (PAL) DC-4 ferried 40 American servicemen to Oakland, California, from Nielson Airport in Makati City with stops in Guam, Wake Island, Johnston Atoll and Honolulu, Hawaii, making PAL the first Asian airline to cross the Pacific Ocean. A regular service between Manila and San Francisco was started in December. It was during this year that the airline was designated as the flag carrier of Philippines.\n\nDuring the era of decolonization, newly born Asian countries started to embrace air transport. Among the first Asian carriers during the era were Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong (founded in September 1946), Orient Airways (later Pakistan International Airlines; founded in October 1946), Air Ceylon (later SriLankan Airlines; founded in 1947), Malayan Airways Limited in 1947 (later Singapore and Malaysia Airlines), El Al in Israel in 1948, Garuda Indonesia in 1948, Japan Airlines in 1951, Thai Airways International in 1960, and Korean National Airlines in 1947.\n\nLatin American airline industry\n\nAmong the first countries to have regular airlines in Latin America were Bolivia with Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano, Cuba with Cubana de Aviación, Colombia with Avianca, Argentina with Aerolineas Argentinas, Chile with LAN Chile (today LAN Airlines), Brazil with Varig, Dominican Republic with Dominicana de Aviación, Mexico with Mexicana de Aviación, Trinidad and Tobago with BWIA West Indies Airways (today Caribbean Airlines), Venezuela with Aeropostal, and TACA based in El Salvador and representing several airlines of Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua). All the previous airlines started regular operations well before World War II.\n\nThe air travel market has evolved rapidly over recent years in Latin America. Some industry estimates indicate that over 2,000 new aircraft will begin service over the next five years in this region.\n\nThese airlines serve domestic flights within their countries, as well as connections within Latin America and also overseas flights to North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.\n\nOnly three airlines: Avianca, LAN, and TAM Airlines have international subsidiaries and cover many destinations within the Americas as well as major hubs in other continents. LAN with Chile as the central operation along with Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina and some operations in the Dominican Republic. The recently formed AviancaTACA group has control of Avianca Brazil, VIP Ecuador and a strategic alliance with AeroGal. And TAM with its Mercosur base in Asuncion, Paraguay. As of 2010, talks of uniting LAN and TAM have strongly developed to create a joint airline named LATAM.\n\nRegulatory considerations\n\nNational\n\nMany countries have national airlines that the government owns and operates. Fully private airlines are subject to a great deal of government regulation for economic, political, and safety concerns. For instance, governments often intervene to halt airline labor actions to protect the free flow of people, communications, and goods between different regions without compromising safety.\n\nThe United States, Australia, and to a lesser extent Brazil, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom, and Japan have \"deregulated\" their airlines. In the past, these governments dictated airfares, route networks, and other operational requirements for each airline. Since deregulation, airlines have been largely free to negotiate their own operating arrangements with different airports, enter and exit routes easily, and to levy airfares and supply flights according to market demand.\n\nThe entry barriers for new airlines are lower in a deregulated market, and so the U.S. has seen hundreds of airlines start up (sometimes for only a brief operating period). This has produced far greater competition than before deregulation in most markets. The added competition, together with pricing freedom, means that new entrants often take market share with highly reduced rates that, to a limited degree, full service airlines must match. This is a major constraint on profitability for established carriers, which tend to have a higher cost base.\n\nAs a result, profitability in a deregulated market is uneven for most airlines. These forces have caused some major airlines to go out of business, in addition to most of the poorly established new entrants.\n\nIn the United States, the airline industry is dominated by four large firms. Because of industry consolidation, after fuel prices dropped considerably in 2015, very little of the savings were passed on to consumers. \n\nInternational\n\nGroups such as the International Civil Aviation Organization establish worldwide standards for safety and other vital concerns. Most international air traffic is regulated by bilateral agreements between countries, which designate specific carriers to operate on specific routes. The model of such an agreement was the Bermuda Agreement between the US and UK following World War II, which designated airports to be used for transatlantic flights and gave each government the authority to nominate carriers to operate routes.\n\nBilateral agreements are based on the \"freedoms of the air\", a group of generalized traffic rights ranging from the freedom to overfly a country to the freedom to provide domestic flights within a country (a very rarely granted right known as cabotage). Most agreements permit airlines to fly from their home country to designated airports in the other country: some also extend the freedom to provide continuing service to a third country, or to another destination in the other country while carrying passengers from overseas.\n\nIn the 1990s, \"open skies\" agreements became more common. These agreements take many of these regulatory powers from state governments and open up international routes to further competition. Open skies agreements have met some criticism, particularly within the European Union, whose airlines would be at a comparative disadvantage with the United States' because of cabotage restrictions.\n\nEconomic considerations\n\nHistorically, air travel has survived largely through state support, whether in the form of equity or subsidies. The airline industry as a whole has made a cumulative loss during its 100-year history, once the costs include subsidies for aircraft development and airport construction. \n\nOne argument is that positive externalities, such as higher growth due to global mobility, outweigh the microeconomic losses and justify continuing government intervention. A historically high level of government intervention in the airline industry can be seen as part of a wider political consensus on strategic forms of transport, such as highways and railways, both of which receive public funding in most parts of the world.\n\nAlthough many countries continue to operate state-owned or parastatal airlines, many large airlines today are privately owned and are therefore governed by microeconomic principles to maximize shareholder profit.\n\nTop airline groups by revenue \n\nfor 2010, source : Airline Business August 2011, Flightglobal Data Research\n\nTicket revenue\n\nAirlines assign prices to their services in an attempt to maximize profitability. The pricing of airline tickets has become increasingly complicated over the years and is now largely determined by computerized yield management systems.\n\nBecause of the complications in scheduling flights and maintaining profitability, airlines have many loopholes that can be used by the knowledgeable traveler. Many of these airfare secrets are becoming more and more known to the general public, so airlines are forced to make constant adjustments.\n\nMost airlines use differentiated pricing, a form of price discrimination, to sell air services at varying prices simultaneously to different segments. Factors influencing the price include the days remaining until departure, the booked load factor, the forecast of total demand by price point, competitive pricing in force, and variations by day of week of departure and by time of day. Carriers often accomplish this by dividing each cabin of the aircraft (first, business and economy) into a number of travel classes for pricing purposes.\n\nA complicating factor is that of origin-destination control (\"O&D control\"). Someone purchasing a ticket from Melbourne to Sydney (as an example) for A$200 is competing with someone else who wants to fly Melbourne to Los Angeles through Sydney on the same flight, and who is willing to pay A$1400. Should the airline prefer the $1400 passenger, or the $200 passenger plus a possible Sydney-Los Angeles passenger willing to pay $1300? Airlines have to make hundreds of thousands of similar pricing decisions daily.\n\nThe advent of advanced computerized reservations systems in the late 1970s, most notably Sabre, allowed airlines to easily perform cost-benefit analyses on different pricing structures, leading to almost perfect price discrimination in some cases (that is, filling each seat on an aircraft at the highest price that can be charged without driving the consumer elsewhere).\n\nThe intense nature of airfare pricing has led to the term \"fare war\" to describe efforts by airlines to undercut other airlines on competitive routes. Through computers, new airfares can be published quickly and efficiently to the airlines' sales channels. For this purpose the airlines use the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO), who distribute latest fares for more than 500 airlines to Computer Reservation Systems across the world.\n\nThe extent of these pricing phenomena is strongest in \"legacy\" carriers. In contrast, low fare carriers usually offer pre-announced and simplified price structure, and sometimes quote prices for each leg of a trip separately.\n\nComputers also allow airlines to predict, with some accuracy, how many passengers will actually fly after making a reservation to fly. This allows airlines to overbook their flights enough to fill the aircraft while accounting for \"no-shows,\" but not enough (in most cases) to force paying passengers off the aircraft for lack of seats, stimulative pricing for low demand flights coupled with overbooking on high demand flights can help reduce this figure. This is especially crucial during tough economic times as airlines undertake massive cuts to ticket prices to retain demand. \n\nOperating costs\n\nFull-service airlines have a high level of fixed and operating costs to establish and maintain air services: labor, fuel, airplanes, engines, spares and parts, IT services and networks, airport equipment, airport handling services, sales distribution, catering, training, aviation insurance and other costs. Thus all but a small percentage of the income from ticket sales is paid out to a wide variety of external providers or internal cost centers.\n\nMoreover, the industry is structured so that airlines often act as tax collectors. Airline fuel is untaxed because of a series of treaties existing between countries. Ticket prices include a number of fees, taxes and surcharges beyond the control of airlines. Airlines are also responsible for enforcing government regulations. If airlines carry passengers without proper documentation on an international flight, they are responsible for returning them back to the original country.\n\nAnalysis of the 1992–1996 period shows that every player in the air transport chain is far more profitable than the airlines, who collect and pass through fees and revenues to them from ticket sales. While airlines as a whole earned 6% return on capital employed (2-3.5% less than the cost of capital), airports earned 10%, catering companies 10-13%, handling companies 11-14%, aircraft lessors 15%, aircraft manufacturers 16%, and global distribution companies more than 30%. (Source: Spinetta, 2000, quoted in Doganis, 2002)\n\nThe widespread entrance of a new breed of low cost airlines beginning at the turn of the century has accelerated the demand that full service carriers control costs. Many of these low cost companies emulate Southwest Airlines in various respects, and like Southwest, they can eke out a consistent profit throughout all phases of the business cycle.\n\nAs a result, a shakeout of airlines is occurring in the U.S. and elsewhere. American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines (twice), US Airways (twice), Delta Air Lines, and Northwest Airlines have all declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Some argue that it would be far better for the industry as a whole if a wave of actual closures were to reduce the number of \"undead\" airlines competing with healthy airlines while being artificially protected from creditors via bankruptcy law. On the other hand, some have pointed out that the reduction in capacity would be short lived given that there would be large quantities of relatively new aircraft that bankruptcies would want to get rid of and would re-enter the market either as increased fleets for the survivors or the basis of cheap planes for new startups.\n\nWhere an airline has established an engineering base at an airport, then there may be considerable economic advantages in using that same airport as a preferred focus (or \"hub\") for its scheduled flights.\n\nAssets and financing\n\nAirline financing is quite complex, since airlines are highly leveraged operations. Not only must they purchase (or lease) new airliner bodies and engines regularly, they must make major long-term fleet decisions with the goal of meeting the demands of their markets while producing a fleet that is relatively economical to operate and maintain. Compare Southwest Airlines and their reliance on a single airplane type (the Boeing 737 and derivatives), with the now defunct Eastern Air Lines which operated 17 different aircraft types, each with varying pilot, engine, maintenance, and support needs.\n\nA second financial issue is that of hedging oil and fuel purchases, which are usually second only to labor in its relative cost to the company. However, with the current high fuel prices it has become the largest cost to an airline. Legacy airlines, compared with new entrants, have been hit harder by rising fuel prices partly due to the running of older, less fuel efficient aircraft. While hedging instruments can be expensive, they can easily pay for themselves many times over in periods of increasing fuel costs, such as in the 2000–2005 period.\n\nIn view of the congestion apparent at many international airports, the ownership of slots at certain airports (the right to take-off or land an aircraft at a particular time of day or night) has become a significant tradable asset for many airlines. Clearly take-off slots at popular times of the day can be critical in attracting the more profitable business traveler to a given airline's flight and in establishing a competitive advantage against a competing airline.\n\nIf a particular city has two or more airports, market forces will tend to attract the less profitable routes, or those on which competition is weakest, to the less congested airport, where slots are likely to be more available and therefore cheaper. For example, Reagan National Airport attracts profitable routes due partly to its congestion, leaving less-profitable routes to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Dulles International Airport.\n\nOther factors, such as surface transport facilities and onward connections, will also affect the relative appeal of different airports and some long distance flights may need to operate from the one with the longest runway. For example, LaGuardia Airport is the preferred airport for most of Manhattan due to its proximity, while long-distance routes must use John F. Kennedy International Airport's longer runways.\n\nAirline partnerships\n\nCodesharing is the most common type of airline partnership; it involves one airline selling tickets for another airline's flights under its own airline code. An early example of this was Japan Airlines' (JAL) codesharing partnership with Aeroflot in the 1960s on Tokyo–Moscow flights; Aeroflot operated the flights using Aeroflot aircraft, but JAL sold tickets for the flights as if they were JAL flights. This practice allows airlines to expand their operations, at least on paper, into parts of the world where they cannot afford to establish bases or purchase aircraft. Another example was the Austrian–Sabena partnership on the Vienna–Brussels–New York/JFK route during the late '60s, using a Sabena Boeing 707 with Austrian livery.\n\nSince airline reservation requests are often made by city-pair (such as \"show me flights from Chicago to Düsseldorf\"), an airline that can codeshare with another airline for a variety of routes might be able to be listed as indeed offering a Chicago–Düsseldorf flight. The passenger is advised however, that airline no. 1 operates the flight from say Chicago to Amsterdam, and airline no. 2 operates the continuing flight (on a different airplane, sometimes from another terminal) to Düsseldorf. Thus the primary rationale for code sharing is to expand one's service offerings in city-pair terms to increase sales.\n\nA more recent development is the airline alliance, which became prevalent in the late 1990s. These alliances can act as virtual mergers to get around government restrictions. Alliances of airlines such as Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam coordinate their passenger service programs (such as lounges and frequent-flyer programs), offer special interline tickets, and often engage in extensive codesharing (sometimes systemwide). These are increasingly integrated business combinations—sometimes including cross-equity arrangements—in which products, service standards, schedules, and airport facilities are standardized and combined for higher efficiency. One of the first airlines to start an alliance with another airline was KLM, who partnered with Northwest Airlines. Both airlines later entered the SkyTeam alliance after the fusion of KLM and Air France in 2004.\n\nOften the companies combine IT operations, or purchase fuel and aircraft as a bloc to achieve higher bargaining power. However, the alliances have been most successful at purchasing invisible supplies and services, such as fuel. Airlines usually prefer to purchase items visible to their passengers to differentiate themselves from local competitors. If an airline's main domestic competitor flies Boeing airliners, then the airline may prefer to use Airbus aircraft regardless of what the rest of the alliance chooses.\n\nFuel hedging\n\nFuel hedging is a contractual tool used by transportation companies like airlines to reduce their exposure to volatile and potentially rising fuel costs. Several low cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines adopt this practice. \n\nSouthwest is credited with maintaining strong business profits between 1999 and the early 2000s due to its fuel hedging policy. Many other airlines are replicating Southwest's hedging policy to control their fuel costs.\n\nEnvironmental impacts\n\nAircraft engines emit noise pollution, gases and particulate emissions, and contribute to global dimming.\n\nGrowth of the industry in recent years raised a number of ecological questions.\n\nDomestic air transport grew in China at 15.5 percent annually from 2001 to 2006. The rate of air travel globally increased at 3.7 percent per year over the same time. In the EU greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87% between 1990 and 2006. However it must be compared with the flights increase, only in UK, between 1990 and 2006 terminal passengers increased from 100 000 thousands to 250 000 thousands., according to AEA reports every year, 750 million passengers travel by European airlines, which also share 40% of merchandise value in and out of Europe. Without even pressure from \"green activists\", targeting lower ticket prices, generally, airlines do what is possible to cut the fuel consumption (and gas emissions connected therewith). Further, according to some reports, it can be concluded that the last piston-powered aircraft were as fuel-efficient as the average jet in 2005. \n\nDespite continuing efficiency improvements from the major aircraft manufacturers, the expanding demand for global air travel has resulted in growing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Currently, the aviation sector, including US domestic and global international travel, make approximately 1.6 percent of global anthropogenic GHG emissions per annum. North America accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world's GHG emissions from aviation fuel use. \n\nCO2 emissions from the jet fuel burned per passenger on an average 3200 km airline flight is about 353 kilograms (776 pounds). Loss of natural habitat potential associated with the jet fuel burned per passenger on a 3200 km airline flight is estimated to be 250 square meters (2700 square feet). \n\nIn the context of climate change and peak oil, there is a debate about possible taxation of air travel and the inclusion of aviation in an emissions trading scheme, with a view to ensuring that the total external costs of aviation are taken into account. \n\nThe airline industry is responsible for about 11 percent of greenhouse gases emitted by the U.S. transportation sector. Boeing estimates that biofuels could reduce flight-related greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent. The solution would be blending algae fuels with existing jet fuel: \n\n* Boeing and Air New Zealand are collaborating with leading Brazilian biofuel maker Tecbio, New Zealand's Aquaflow Bionomic and other jet biofuel developers around the world.\n* Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Green Fund are looking into the technology as part of a biofuel initiative. \n* KLM has made the first commercial flight with biofuel in 2009.\n\nThere are projects on electric aircraft, and some of them are fully operational as of 2013.\n\nCall signs\n\nEach operator of a scheduled or charter flight uses an airline call sign when communicating with airports or air traffic control centres. Most of these call-signs are derived from the airline's trade name, but for reasons of history, marketing, or the need to reduce ambiguity in spoken English (so that pilots do not mistakenly make navigational decisions based on instructions issued to a different aircraft), some airlines and air forces use call-signs less obviously connected with their trading name. For example, British Airways uses a Speedbird call-sign, named after the logo of its predecessor, BOAC, while SkyEurope used Relax.\n\nAirline personnel\n\nThe various types of airline personnel include:\nFlight operations personnel including flight safety personnel.\n* Flight crew, responsible for the operation of the aircraft. Flight crew members include:\n** Pilots (Captain and First Officer: some older aircraft also required a Flight Engineer and/or a Navigator)\n** Flight attendants, (led by a purser on larger aircraft)\n** In-flight security personnel on some airlines (most notably El Al)\n* Groundcrew, responsible for operations at airports. Ground crew members include:\n** Aerospace and avionics engineers responsible for certifying the aircraft for flight and management of aircraft maintenance\n*** Aerospace engineers, responsible for airframe, powerplant and electrical systems maintenance\n***Avionics engineers responsible for avionics and instruments maintenance\n** Airframe and powerplant technicians\n** Electric System technicians, responsible for maintenance of electrical systems\n**Avionics technicians, responsible for maintenance of avionics\n** Flight dispatchers\n** Baggage handlers\n** Ramp Agents\n** Remote centralised weight and balancing \n** Gate agents\n** Ticket agents\n** Passenger service agents (such as airline lounge employees)\n** Reservation agents, usually (but not always) at facilities outside the airport.\n** Crew schedulers\nAirlines follow a corporate structure where each broad area of operations (such as maintenance, flight operations(including flight safety),\nand passenger service) is supervised by a vice president. Larger airlines often appoint vice presidents to oversee each of the\nairline's hubs as well. Airlines employ lawyers to deal with regulatory procedures and other administrative tasks.\n\nIndustry trends\n\nThe pattern of ownership has been privatized in the recent years, that is, the ownership has gradually changed from governments to private and individual sectors or organizations. This occurs as regulators permit greater freedom and non-government ownership, in steps that are usually decades apart. This pattern is not seen for all airlines in all regions. \n\nThe overall trend of demand has been consistently increasing. In the 1950s and 1960s, annual growth rates of 15% or more were common. Annual growth of 5-6% persisted through the 1980s and 1990s. Growth rates are not consistent in all regions, but countries with a de-regulated airline industry have more competition and greater pricing freedom. This results in lower fares and sometimes dramatic spurts in traffic growth. The U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, India and other markets exhibit this trend. The industry has been observed to be cyclical in its financial performance. Four or five years of poor earnings precede five or six years of improvement. But profitability even in the good years is generally low, in the range of 2-3% net profit after interest and tax. In times of profit, airlines lease new generations of airplanes and upgrade services in response to higher demand. Since 1980, the industry has not earned back the cost of capital during the best of times. Conversely, in bad times losses can be dramatically worse. Warren Buffett once said that despite all the money that has been invested in all airlines, the net profit is less than zero. He believes it is one of the hardest businesses to manage. \n\nAs in many mature industries, consolidation is a trend. Airline groupings may consist of limited bilateral partnerships, long-term, multi-faceted alliances between carriers, equity arrangements, mergers, or takeovers. Since governments often restrict ownership and merger between companies in different countries, most consolidation takes place within a country. In the U.S., over 200 airlines have merged, been taken over, or gone out of business since deregulation in 1978. Many international airline managers are lobbying their governments to permit greater consolidation to achieve higher economy and efficiency.",
"Avianca Costa Rica, formerly known as Lacsa (Spanish: Lineas Aéreas Costarricenses S.A.), minority owned by the Synergy Group, is the national airline of Costa Rica and is based in San José. It operates international scheduled services to over 35 destinations in Central, North and South America. When it was a subsidiary of Grupo TACA, the airline was also known as TACA/LACSA. Since May 2013, when Grupo TACA was bought, Avianca Costa Rica is one of the seven nationally branded airlines (Avianca Ecuador, Avianca Honduras, etc.) in the Avianca Holdings group of Latin American airlines.\n\nHistory \n\nLacsa was established on 17 October 1945 by Pan American World Airways, the Costa Rican government and Costa Rican private interests. It started operations on 1 June 1946 and was designated the national carrier in 1949. Its domestic network was transferred to its wholly owned subsidiary Sansa in September 1959. \n\n \n\nLacsa operated the Douglas DC-6B four-engined piston airliner from 1960 until 1976 on their regular passenger, and eventually freight, scheduled flights to Miami International Airport. The airline introduced the first of their British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Eleven twin-engined jet airliners onto their Caribbean passenger route network in April 1967. \n\nThe airline also operated a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, Cayman Brac Airways (CBA) Ltd., which it sold a 51% controlling interest in the late 1960s to the Cayman Islands government which in turn used the air carrier to form Cayman Airways. Lacsa served Grand Cayman for many years as an intermediate stop on its services between San Jose, Costa Rica and Miami. \n\nSince 1999, the five airlines in the alliance began flying under the TACA brand. In 2008 a new TACA logo was introduced, followed by a new fleet of Embraer 190 airplanes registered in Costa Rica and operated under the Lacsa code. \n\nDestinations \n\nLacsa international destinations in 1973\n\nAccording to the May 31, 1973 Lacsa system timetable, the airline was serving the following international destinations: \n\n* Barranquilla, Colombia\n* Caracas, Venezuela\n* Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands\n* Maracaibo, Venezuela\n* Mexico City, Mexico\n* Miami, Florida\n* Panama City, Panama\n* San Andres Island, Colombia\n* San Jose, Costa Rica - Hub and airline headquarters\n* San Salvador, El Salvador\n\nThis same timetable states that all international flights were being operated with British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Eleven twin jets at this time with the exception of the San Jose-San Andres Island route which was being flown with a Convair 440 propliner.\n\nFleet \n\nLacsa services were previously flown exclusively by Airbus A320 family jetliners drawn from the pooled fleet of the former Grupo TACA. In 2008, a new fleet of Embraer 190 jets was introduced. \n\nCurrent\n\nLacsa passenger retired\n\n*Beechcraft 18 (C-45 model)\n* Boeing 727-100\n*Boeing 727-200\n*Boeing 737-200\n*British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Eleven (includes standard version as well as the stretched series 500 model)\n*Convair 340\n*Convair 440\n*Curtiss C-46\n*Douglas DC-3\n*Douglas DC-6B\n\nLacsa cargo retired \n\n*Lockheed L-188 Electra\n*Douglas DC-8\n\nIncidents\n\nOn May 23, 1988, a leased Boeing 727-100, registered TI-LRC and operating the route San Jose-Managua-Miami, collided with a fence at the end of the runway in the Juan Santamaría International Airport, crashed at a nearby field next to a highway, and caught fire. The excess of weight in the front part of the airplane was the cause of the accident. There were no fatalities out of the 23 occupants.\n\nOn 11 January 1998, Lacsa flight 691, an Airbus A320, veered off a runway at San Francisco International Airport during the takeoff roll. The aircraft left the runway at full speed, coming to rest in a field of mud. The runway was closed after the incident, reducing take-off capacity by 50 percent, leading to massive delays at the airport. None of the 122 passengers on board the aircraft sustained injuries, and stayed at a hotel until another aircraft could transport them to their destination, San José, Costa Rica. The cause of the incident was not determined."
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Who directed 2001: A Space Odyssey?
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"2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay, written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, was partially inspired by Clarke's short story \"The Sentinel\". Clarke concurrently wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, published soon after the film was released. The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer Hal after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. The film deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life. It is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. It uses sound and minimal dialogue in place of traditional narrative techniques; the soundtrack consists of classical music such as The Blue Danube and Also sprach Zarathustra.\n\nFinanced and distributed by American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed and edited almost entirely in England, using the studio facilities of the MGM-British Studios and those of Shepperton Studios, mostly because of the availability of much larger sound stages than in the United States. Production was subcontracted to Kubrick's production company and care was taken that the film would be sufficiently British to qualify for subsidy from the Eady Levy. Having already shot his previous two films in England, Kubrick decided to settle there permanently during filming.\n\nDespite initially receiving mixed reactions from critics and audiences, 2001: A Space Odyssey garnered a cult following and slowly became the highest-grossing North American film of 1968. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for its visual effects. A sequel directed by Peter Hyams was released in 1984.\n\nToday, 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The critics' polls in the 2002 and 2012 editions of Sight & Sound magazine ranked 2001: A Space Odyssey sixth in the top ten films of all time; it also tied for second place in the directors' poll of the same magazine. In 2010, it was named the greatest film of all time by The Moving Arts Film Journal. \n\nPlot\n\nIn an African desert millions of years ago, a tribe of man-apes faces starvation and competition for a water hole by a rival tribe. They awaken to find a featureless black monolith has appeared before them. Guided in some fashion by the Black Monolith, one man-ape realizes how to use a bone as a tool and weapon; the tribe learns to hunt for food, and kills the leader of their rivals, reclaiming the water hole.\n\nMillions of years later, a Pan Am space plane carries Dr. Heywood Floyd to a space station orbiting Earth for a layover on his trip to Clavius Base, a United States outpost on the moon. After a videophone call with his daughter, Floyd's Soviet scientist friend and her colleague ask about rumors of a mysterious epidemic at Clavius. Floyd declines to answer. At Clavius, Floyd heads a meeting of base personnel, apologizing for the epidemic cover story but stressing secrecy. His mission is to investigate a recently found artifact buried four million years ago. Floyd and others ride in a Moonbus to the artifact, which is a monolith identical to the one encountered by the man-apes. Sunlight strikes the monolith and a loud high-pitched radio signal is heard.\n\nEighteen months later, the United States spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter. On board are mission pilots and scientists Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Frank Poole along with three other scientists in cryogenic hibernation. Most of Discovery's operations are controlled by the ship's computer, HAL 9000, referred to by the crew as \"Hal\". Bowman and Poole watch Hal and themselves being interviewed on a BBC show about the mission, in which the computer states that he is \"foolproof and incapable of error.\" When asked by the host if Hal has genuine emotions, Bowman replies that he appears to, but that the truth is unknown. Later, Hal questions Bowman on the purpose of the mission, then reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device. The astronauts retrieve the component making use of an EVA pod but find nothing wrong with it. Hal suggests reinstalling the part and letting it fail so the problem can be found. Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their twin HAL 9000 indicate that Hal is in error. Hal insists that the problem, like previous issues ascribed to HAL series units, is due to human error. Concerned about Hal's behavior, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod to talk without Hal overhearing, and agree to disconnect Hal if he is proven wrong. Hal secretly follows their conversation by lip reading.\n\nWhile Poole attempts to replace the unit during a space walk, his EVA pod, controlled by Hal, rams him, severing his oxygen hose and setting him adrift. Bowman takes another pod to attempt rescue. Meanwhile, Hal turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, Hal refuses to let him in, stating that the astronauts' plan to deactivate him jeopardizes the mission. Bowman opens the ship's emergency airlock manually, enters the ship, and proceeds to Hal's processor core. Hal tries to reassure Bowman, then pleads with him to stop, and finally expresses fear. As Bowman deactivates the circuits controlling HAL's higher intellectual functions, HAL regresses to his earliest programmed memory, the song \"Daisy Bell\", which he sings for Bowman.\n\nWhen Hal is finally disconnected, a prerecorded video message from Floyd reveals the existence of the monolith on the moon, its purpose and origin unknown. With the exception of one short but extremely powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter, the object has been inert. At Jupiter, Bowman leaves Discovery One in an EVA pod to investigate another monolith discovered in orbit around the planet. The pod is pulled into a vortex of colored light, and Bowman races across vast distances of space, viewing bizarre cosmological phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colors.\n\nBowman later finds himself, still in the pod, in a bedroom appointed in the neoclassical style. He sees older versions of himself, his point of view switching each time, first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in the bed. A black monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a fetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light. The film ends as the new being floats in space beside the Earth, gazing at it.\n\nCast\n\n* Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman\n* Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole\n* William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood Floyd\n* Douglas Rain as the voice of the HAL 9000\n* Daniel Richter as the chief man-ape\n* Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov\n* Margaret Tyzack as Elena\n* Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen\n* Sean Sullivan as Dr. Roy Michaels \n* Frank Miller as mission controller\n* Edward Bishop as Lunar shuttle captain\n* Edwina Carroll as Aries stewardess\n* Penny Brahms as stewardess\n* Heather Downham as stewardess\n* Maggie d'Abo as stewardess (Space station elevator) (uncredited)\n* Chela Matthison as stewardess (Mrs. Turner, Space station reception) (uncredited)\n* Judy Keirn as Voiceprint identification girl (Space station) (uncredited)\n* Alan Gifford as Poole's father\n* Ann Gillis as Poole's mother\n* Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter (uncredited)\n* Kenneth Kendall as the BBC announcer (uncredited)\n\nDevelopment\n\nWriting\n\nMeeting of Kubrick and Clarke\n\nAfter completing Dr. Strangelove (1964), director Stanley Kubrick became fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and resolved to make \"the proverbial good science fiction movie\". Searching for a collaborator in the science fiction community, Kubrick was advised by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staffer Roger Caras, to talk to writer Arthur C. Clarke. Although convinced that Clarke was \"a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree\", Kubrick allowed Caras to cable the film proposal to Clarke, who lived in Ceylon. Clarke's cabled response stated that he was \"frightfully interested in working with enfant terrible\", and added \"what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?\" Meeting for the first time at Trader Vic's in New York on April 22, 1964, the two began discussing the project that would take up the next four years of their lives. Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with 2001, excerpts of which were published in 1972 as The Lost Worlds of 2001. \n\nSearch for source material\n\nKubrick told Clarke he wanted to make a film about \"Man's relationship to the universe\", and was, in Clarke's words, \"determined to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe ... even, if appropriate, terror\". Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories, and by May 1964, Kubrick had chosen \"The Sentinel\" as the source material for the film. In search of more material to expand the film's plot, the two spent the rest of 1964 reading books on science and anthropology, screening science fiction films, and brainstorming ideas. They spent two years transforming \"The Sentinel\" into a novel, and then into a script for 2001. Clarke said that his short story \"Encounter in the Dawn\" inspired the film's \"Dawn Of Man\" sequence. \n\nKubrick and Clarke privately referred to the project as How the Solar System Was Won as a reference to MGM's 1962 Cinerama epic, How the West Was Won. On February 23, 1965, Kubrick issued a press release announcing the title Journey Beyond The Stars. Other titles considered include Universe, Tunnel to the Stars, and Planetfall. In April 1965, eleven months after they began working on the project, Kubrick selected 2001: A Space Odyssey; Clarke said the title was \"entirely\" Kubrick's idea. Intending to set the film apart from the \"monsters and sex\" type of science fiction films of the time, Kubrick used Homer's The Odyssey as inspiration for the title. Kubrick said, \"[i]t occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our generation.\" \n\nParallel development of film and novel\n\nKubrick and Clarke planned to develop the 2001 novel first, free of the constraints of film, and then write the screenplay. They planned the writing credits to be \"Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick\" to reflect their preeminence in their respective fields. In practice, the screenplay developed in parallel to the novel, and elements were shared between both. In a 1970 interview, Kubrick said:\n\nThe screenplay credits were shared whereas the 2001 novel, released shortly after the film, was attributed to Clarke alone. Clarke wrote later that \"the nearest approximation to the complicated truth\" is that the screenplay should be credited to \"Kubrick and Clarke\" and the novel to \"Clarke and Kubrick\". \n\nClarke and Kubrick wrote the novel and screenplay simultaneously. Clarke opted for clearer explanations of the mysterious monolith and Star Gate in the novel; Kubrick made the film more cryptic by minimising dialogue and explanation. Kubrick said the film is \"basically a visual, nonverbal experience\" that \"hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting\". \n\nDepiction of alien life\n\nAstronomer Carl Sagan wrote in his book The Cosmic Connection that Clarke and Kubrick asked his opinion on how to best depict extraterrestrial intelligence. Sagan, while acknowledging Kubrick's desire to use actors to portray humanoid aliens for convenience's sake, argued that alien life forms were unlikely to bear any resemblance to terrestrial life, and that to do so would introduce \"at least an element of falseness\" to the film. Sagan proposed that the film suggest, rather than depict, extraterrestrial superintelligence. He attended the premiere and was \"pleased to see that I had been of some help.\" Kubrick hinted at the nature of the mysterious unseen alien race in 2001 by suggesting, in a 1968 interview, that given millions of years of evolution, they progressed from biological beings to \"immortal machine entities\", and then into \"beings of pure energy and spirit\"; beings with \"limitless capabilities and ungraspable intelligence\". \n\nStages of script and novel development\n\nThe script went through many stages. In early 1965, when backing was secured for the film, Clarke and Kubrick still had no firm idea of what would happen to Bowman after the Star Gate sequence. Initially all of Discoverys astronauts were to survive the journey; by October 3, Clarke and Kubrick had decided to leave Bowman the sole survivor and have him regress to infancy. By October 17, Kubrick had come up with what Clarke called a \"wild idea of slightly fag robots who create a Victorian environment to put our heroes at their ease.\" HAL 9000 was originally named Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom and had a feminine voice and persona.\n\nEarly drafts included a prologue containing interviews with scientists about extraterrestrial life, voice-over narration (a feature in all of Kubrick's previous films), a stronger emphasis on the prevailing Cold War balance of terror, and a different and more explicitly explained breakdown for HAL. Other changes include a different monolith for the \"Dawn of Man\" sequence, discarded when early prototypes did not photograph well; the use of Saturn as the final destination of the Discovery mission rather than Jupiter, discarded when the special effects team could not develop a convincing rendition of Saturn's rings; and the finale of the Star Child exploding nuclear weapons carried by Earth-orbiting satellites, which Kubrick discarded for its similarity to his previous film, Dr. Strangelove. The finale and many of the other discarded screenplay ideas survived into Clarke's novel.\n\nKubrick made further changes due to his desire to make the film more non-verbal, communicating at a visual and visceral level rather than through conventional narrative. Vincent LeBrutto writes that Clarke's novel has \"strong narrative structure\", while the film is a mainly visual experience where much remains symbolic. \n\nRemnants of early drafts in final film\n\nWhile many ideas were discarded in totality, at least two remnants of previous plot ideas remain in the final film.\n\nHAL's breakdown\n\nAlthough the film leaves it mysterious, early script drafts made clear that HAL's breakdown is triggered by authorities on Earth who order him to withhold information from the astronauts about the purpose of the mission (this is also explained in the film's sequel 2010). Frederick Ordway, Kubrick's science advisor and technical consultant, stated that in an earlier script Poole tells HAL there is \"... something about this mission that we weren't told. Something the rest of the crew knows and that you know. We would like to know whether this is true\", to which HAL responds: \"I'm sorry, Frank, but I don't think I can answer that question without knowing everything that all of you know.\" HAL then falsely predicts a failure of the hardware maintaining radio contact with Earth (the source of HAL's difficult orders) during the broadcast of Frank Poole's birthday greetings from his parents.\n\nThe final script removed this explanation, but it is hinted at when HAL asks David Bowman if Bowman is bothered by the \"oddities\" and \"tight security\" surrounding the mission. After Bowman concludes that HAL is dutifully drawing up the \"crew psychology report\", the computer makes his false prediction of hardware failure. Another hint occurs at the moment of HAL's deactivation when a video reveals the purpose of the mission.\n\nIn an interview with Joseph Gelmis in 1969, Kubrick stated that HAL \"had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility\". \n\nMilitary nature of orbiting satellites\n\nKubrick originally planned a voice-over to reveal that the satellites following a match cut from a bone-weapon are nuclear weapons, and that the Star Child would detonate the weapons at the end of the film. However, he decided this would create associations with his previous film Dr. Strangelove, and decided not to make it so obvious that they were \"war machines\". A few weeks before the release of the film, the U.S. and Soviet governments had agreed not to put any nuclear weapons into outer space.\n\nIn a book he wrote with Kubrick's assistance, Alexander Walker states that Kubrick eventually decided that as nuclear weapons the bombs had \"no place at all in the film's thematic development\", now being an \"orbiting red herring\" which would \"merely have raised irrelevant questions to suggest this as a reality of the twenty-first century\". \n\nKubrick scholar Michel Ciment, discussing Kubrick's attitude toward human aggression and instinct, observes: \"The bone cast into the air by the ape (now become a man) is transformed at the other extreme of civilization, by one of those abrupt ellipses characteristic of the director, into a spacecraft on its way to the moon.\" In contrast to Ciment's reading of a cut to a serene \"other extreme of civilization\", science fiction novelist Robert Sawyer, speaking in the Canadian documentary 2001 and Beyond, saw it as a cut from a bone to a nuclear weapons platform, explaining that \"what we see is not how far we've leaped ahead, what we see is that today, '2001', and four million years ago on the African veldt, it's exactly the same—the power of mankind is the power of its weapons. It's a continuation, not a discontinuity in that jump.\" \n\nDialogue\n\nThe film contains no dialogue for the first and last 20 minutes or so. By the time shooting began, Kubrick had removed much of the dialogue and narration; what remains is notable for its banality (making the computer Hal seem to have more emotion than the humans) juxtaposed with epic space scenes. \n\nThe first scenes of dialogue are Floyd's encounters on the space station: chit-chat with the colleague who greets him, his telephone call to his daughter, and the friendly but strained encounter with Soviet scientists. Later, en route to the monolith, Floyd engages in trite exchanges with his staff while a spectacular journey by Earth-light across the Lunar surface is shown. Hal is the only character who expresses anxiety, as well as feelings of pride and bewilderment.\n\nInfluence of Universe\n\nAccording to biographer Vincent Lobrutto, one of Kubrick's visual—and aural—inspirations was the 1960 National Film Board of Canada animated short documentary Universe. The 29 minute film, which had also proved popular at NASA for its realistic portrayal of outer space, achieved \"the standard of dynamic visionary realism that he was looking for.\" Wally Gentleman, one of the special effects artists on Universe, worked briefly on 2001. The short film's most notable influence may have been Kubrick's decision to cast the narrator of Universe, actor Douglas Rain, relatively unknown outside Canada, as the voice of HAL. \n\nProduction\n\nFilming\n\nPrincipal photography began December 29, 1965, in Stage H at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England. The studio was chosen because it could house the 60 x pit for the Tycho crater excavation scene, the first to be shot. The production moved in January 1966 to the smaller MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, where the live action and special effects filming was done, starting with the scenes involving Floyd on the Orion spaceplane; it was described as a \"huge throbbing nerve center ... with much the same frenetic atmosphere as a Cape Kennedy blockhouse during the final stages of Countdown.\"Lightman, Herb A. Filming 2001: A Space Odyssey. American Cinematographer, June 1968. Excerpted in: Castle, Alison (Editor). The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Taschen, 2005. ISBN 3-8228-2284-1 The only scene not filmed in a studio—and the last live-action scene shot for the film—was the skull-smashing sequence, in which Moonwatcher (Richter) wields his new-found bone \"weapon-tool\" against a pile of nearby animal bones. A small elevated platform was built in a field near the studio so that the camera could shoot upward with the sky as background, avoiding cars and trucks passing by in the distance. \n\nFilming of actors was completed in September 1967, and from June 1966 until March 1968 Kubrick spent most of his time working on the 205 special effects shots in the film. The director ordered the special effects technicians on 2001 to use the painstaking process of creating all visual effects seen in the film \"in camera\", avoiding degraded picture quality from the use of blue screen and traveling matte techniques. Although this technique, known as \"held takes\", resulted in a much better image, it meant exposed film would be stored for long periods of time between shots, sometimes as long as a year. In March 1968, Kubrick finished the 'pre-premiere' editing of the film, making his final cuts just days before the film's general release in April 1968.\n\nThe film was initially planned to be photographed in 3-film-strip Cinerama (like How the West Was Won), because it was a part of a production/distribution deal between MGM and Cinerama Releasing Corporation, but that was changed to Super Panavision 70 (which uses a single-strip 65 mm negative) on the advice of special photographic effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull, due to distortion problems with the 3-strip system. Color processing and 35 mm release prints were done using Technicolor's dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. on Metrocolor. The production was $4.5 million over the initial $6.0 million budget, and sixteen months behind schedule.\n\nRussian documentarian Pavel Klushantsev's 1957 film Road to the Stars is believed to have significantly influenced Kubrick's technique in 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly in its accurate depiction of weightlessness and a rotating space station. Encyclopedia Astronautica describes some scenes from 2001 as a \"shot-for-shot duplication of Road to the Stars\". Specific comparisons of shots from the two films have been analyzed by the filmmaker Alessandro Cima. A 1994 article in American Cinematographer says, \"When Stanley Kubrick made 2001: a Space Odyssey in 1968, he claimed to have been first to fly actor/astronauts on wires with the camera on the ground, shooting vertically while the actor's body covered the wires\" but observes that Klushantsev had preceded him in this. \n\nFor the opening sequence involving tribes of apes, professional mime Daniel Richter in addition to playing the lead ape was also responsible for choreographing the movements of the other man-apes, who were mostly portrayed by his standing mime troupe. \n\nSet design and furnishings\n\nKubrick involved himself in every aspect of production, even choosing the fabric for his actors' costumes, and selecting notable pieces of contemporary furniture for use in the film. When Floyd exits the Space Station V elevator, he is greeted by an attendant seated behind a slightly modified George Nelson Action Office desk from Herman Miller's 1964 \"Action Office\" series. First introduced in 1968, the Action Office-style \"cubicle\" would eventually occupy 70 percent of office space by the mid-2000s. Danish designer Arne Jacobsen designed the cutlery used by the Discovery astronauts in the film. \n\nOther examples of modern furniture in the film are the bright red Djinn chairs seen prominently throughout the space station and Eero Saarinen's 1956 pedestal tables. Olivier Mourgue, designer of the Djinn chair, has used the connection to 2001 in his advertising; a frame from the film's space station sequence and three production stills appear on the homepage of Mourgue's website. Shortly before Kubrick's death, film critic Alexander Walker informed Kubrick of Mourgue's use of the film, joking to him \"You're keeping the price up\". Commenting on their use in the film, Walker writes: \n\nDetailed instructions in relatively small print for various technological devices appear at several points in the film, the most visible of which are the lengthy instructions for the zero-gravity toilet on the Aries Moon shuttle. Similar detailed instructions for replacing the explosive bolts also appear on the hatches of the E.V.A. pods, most visibly in closeup just before Bowman's pod leaves the ship to rescue Frank Poole. \n\nThe film features an extensive use of Eurostile Bold Extended, Futura and other sans serif typefaces as design elements of the 2001 world. Computer displays show high resolution fonts, color and graphics—far in advance of computers in the 1960s when the film was made.\n\nSpecial effects\n\nFront projection \n\n2001 pioneered the use of front projection with retroreflective matting. Kubrick used the technique to produce the backdrops in the Africa scenes and the scene when astronauts walk on the moon. \n\nThe technique consisted of a separate scenery projector set at a right-angle to the camera, and a half-silvered mirror placed at an angle in front that reflected the projected image forward in line with the camera lens onto a backdrop made of retroreflective material. The reflective directional screen behind the actors could reflect light from the projected image a hundred times more efficiently than the foreground subject did. The lighting of the foreground subject had to be balanced with the image from the screen, making the image from the scenery projector on the subject too faint to record. The exception was the eyes of the leopard in the \"Dawn of Man\" sequence, which glowed orange from the projector illumination. Kubrick described this as \"a happy accident\". \n\nFront projection had been used in smaller settings before 2001, mostly for still photography or television production, using small still images and projectors. The expansive backdrops for the African scenes required a screen 40 ft tall and 110 ft wide, far larger than had been used before. When the reflective material was applied to the backdrop in 100 ft strips, variations at the seams of the strips led to visual artifacts; to solve this, the crew tore the material into smaller chunks and applied them in a random \"camouflage\" pattern on the backdrop. The existing projectors using 4 xx transparencies resulted in grainy images when projected that large, so the crew worked with MGM's special effects supervisor Tom Howard to build a custom projector using 8 xx transparencies, which required the largest water-cooled arc lamp available. The technique was used widely in the film industry afterwards until it was replaced by blue/green screen systems in the 1990s.\n\nModels \n\nTo heighten the reality of the film very intricate models of the various spacecraft and locations were built. Their sizes ranged from about two-foot long models of satellites and the Aries translunar shuttle up to a 55-foot long Discovery One spacecraft. \"In-camera\" techniques were again used as much as possible to combine models and background shots together to prevent degradation of the image through continual duplicating. \n\nIn shots where there was no perspective change, still shots of the models were photographed and positive paper prints were made. The image of the model was cut out of the photographic print and mounted on glass and filmed on an animation stand. The undeveloped film was re-wound to film the star background with the silhouette of the model photograph acting as a matte to block out where the spaceship image was.\n\nShots where the spacecraft had parts in motion or the perspective changed were shot by directly filming the model. For most shots the model was stationary and camera was driven along a track on a special mount, the motor of which was mechanically linked to the camera motor—making it possible to repeat camera moves and match speeds exactly. Elements of the scene were recorded on same piece of film in separate passes to combine the lit model, stars, planets, or other spacecraft in the same shot. In moving shots of the long Discovery One spacecraft, in order to keep the entire model in focus, multiple passes had to be made with the lighting on it blocked out section by section. In each pass the camera would be focused on the one lit section. Many matting techniques were tried to block out the stars behind the models, with film makers sometimes resorting to hand tracing frame by frame around the image of the spacecraft (rotoscoping) to create the matte. \n\nSome shots required exposing the film again to record previously filmed live action shots of the people appearing in the windows the spacecraft or structures, achieved by mounting projection devices inside the model or, when two dimensional photographs were used, projecting from the backside through a hole cut in the photograph.\n\nAll of the shots required multiple takes so that some film could be developed and printed to check exposure, density, alignment of elements, and to supply footage used in further elements such as matting.\n\nRotating sets \n\nFor spacecraft interior shots, ostensibly containing a giant centrifuge that produces artificial gravity, Kubrick had a 30 ST rotating \"ferris wheel\" built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000. The set was 38 ft in diameter and 10 ft wide. Various scenes in the Discovery centrifuge were shot by securing set pieces within the wheel, then rotating it while the actor walked or ran in sync with its motion, keeping him at the bottom of the wheel as it turned. The camera could be fixed to the inside of the rotating wheel to show the actor walking completely \"around\" the set, or mounted in such a way that the wheel rotated independently of the stationary camera, as in the jogging scene where the camera appears to alternately precede and follow the running actor. The shots where the actors appear on opposite sides of the wheel required one of the actors to be strapped securely into place at the \"top\" of the wheel as it moved to allow the other actor to walk to the \"bottom\" of the wheel to join him. The most notable case is when Bowman enters the centrifuge from the central hub on a ladder, and joins Poole, who is eating on the other side of the centrifuge. This required Gary Lockwood to be strapped into a seat while Keir Dullea walked toward him from the opposite side of the wheel as it turned with him. \nAnother rotating set appeared in an earlier sequence on board the Aries translunar shuttle. A stewardess is shown preparing in-flight meals, then carrying them into a circular walkway. Attached to the set as it rotates 180 degrees, the camera's point of view remains constant, and she appears to walk up the \"side\" of the circular walkway, and steps, now in an \"upside-down\" orientation, into a connecting hallway. \n\nZero gravity effects \n\nThe realistic-looking effects of the astronauts floating weightless in space and inside the spacecraft were accomplished by suspending the actors from wires attached to the top of the set, and placing the camera underneath them. The actors' bodies blocked the camera's view of the suspension wires, creating a very believable appearance of floating. For the shot of Poole floating into the pod's arms during Bowman's rescue attempt, a stuntman replaced a dummy on the wire to realistically portray the movements of an unconscious human, and was shot in slow motion to enhance the illusion of drifting through space. The scene showing Bowman entering the emergency airlock from the E.V.A. pod was done in a similar way: an off-camera stagehand, standing on a platform, held the wire suspending Dullea above the camera positioned at the bottom of the vertically configured airlock. At the proper moment, the stagehand first loosened his grip on the wire, causing Dullea to fall toward the camera, then, while holding the wire firmly, he jumped off the platform, causing Dullea to ascend back up toward the hatch. \n\nStar Gate sequence \n\nThe colored lights in the Star Gate sequence were accomplished by slit-scan photography of thousands of high-contrast images on film, including Op art paintings, architectural drawings, Moiré patterns, printed circuits, and crystal structures. Known to staff as \"Manhattan Project\", the shots of various nebula-like phenomena, including the expanding star field, were colored paints and chemicals swirling in a pool-like device known as a cloud tank, shot in slow-motion in a dark room. The live-action landscape shots in the 'Star Gate' sequence were filmed in the Hebridean islands, the mountains of northern Scotland, and Monument Valley. The coloring and negative-image effects were achieved by the use of different color filters in the process of making duplicate negatives. \n\nMusic\n\nMain article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack). See also: 2001: A Space Odyssey (score).\n\nMusic plays a crucial part in 2001, and not only because of the relatively sparse dialogue. From very early on in production, Kubrick decided that he wanted the film to be a primarily nonverbal experience, one that did not rely on the traditional techniques of narrative cinema, and in which music would play a vital role in evoking particular moods. About half the music in the film appears either before the first line of dialogue or after the final line. Almost no music is heard during any scenes with dialogue.\n\nThe film is notable for its innovative use of classical music taken from existing commercial recordings. Most feature films then and now are typically accompanied by elaborate film scores or songs written specially for them by professional composers. In the early stages of production, Kubrick had actually commissioned a score for 2001 from Hollywood composer Alex North, who had written the score for Spartacus and also worked on Dr. Strangelove. However, during postproduction, Kubrick chose to abandon North's music in favor of the now-familiar classical pieces he had earlier chosen as \"guide pieces\" for the soundtrack. North did not know of the abandonment of the score until after he saw the film's premiere screening. \n\nAlso engaged to score the film was composer Frank Cordell. Cordell stated in interviews that the score would primarily consist of arrangements of Gustav Mahler works. This score remains unreleased. Like North's score, Cordell's work was recorded at the now demolished Anvil, Denham studios. \n\n2001 is particularly remembered for using pieces of Johann Strauss II's best-known waltz, The Blue Danube, during the extended space-station docking and Lunar landing sequences. This is the result of the association that Kubrick made between the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes. It also makes use of the opening from the Richard Strauss tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra performed by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The use of Strauss's Zarathustra may be a reference to the theme of mankind's eventual replacement by supermen (Übermensch) in Nietzsche's work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Gayane's Adagio from Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suite is heard during the sections that introduce Bowman and Poole aboard the Discovery, conveying a somewhat lonely and mournful quality.\n\nIn addition to the majestic yet fairly traditional compositions by the two Strausses and Khachaturian, Kubrick used four highly modernistic compositions by György Ligeti that employ micropolyphony, the use of sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly. This technique was pioneered in Atmosphères, the only Ligeti piece heard in its entirety in the film. Ligeti admired Kubrick's film but, in addition to being irritated by Kubrick's failure to obtain permission directly from him, he was offended that his music was used in a film soundtrack shared by composers Johann and Richard Strauss. Other music used is Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, the second movement of his Requiem and an electronically altered form of his Aventures, the last of which was also used without Ligeti's permission and is not listed in the film's credits. \n\nHal's version of the popular song \"Daisy Bell\" (referred to by Hal as \"Daisy\" in the film) was inspired by a computer-synthesized arrangement by Max Mathews, which Arthur C. Clarke had heard in 1962 at the Bell Laboratories Murray Hill facility when he was, coincidentally, visiting friend and colleague John R. Pierce. At that time, a speech synthesis demonstration was being performed by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr., by using an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song \"Daisy Bell\" (\"Bicycle Built For Two\"); Max Mathews provided the musical accompaniment. Arthur C. Clarke was so impressed that he later used it in the screenplay and novel. \n\nMany non-English language versions of the film do not use the song \"Daisy\". In the French soundtrack, Hal sings the French folk song \"Au Clair de la Lune\" while being disconnected. In the German version, Hal sings the children's song \"Hänschen klein\" (\"Little Johnny\"), and in the Italian version Hal sings \"Giro giro tondo\" (Ring a Ring o' Roses). \n\nA recording of British light music composer Sidney Torch's \"Off Beat Moods Part 1\" was chosen by Kubrick as the theme for the fictitious BBC news programme \"The World Tonight\" seen aboard the Discovery. \n\nOn June 25, 2010, a version of the film specially remastered by Warner Bros, without the music soundtrack, opened the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Royal Society at Southbank Centre in cooperation with the British Film Institute. The score was played live by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Choir. \n\nOn June 14, 2013, a repeat presentation of the film accompanied by live orchestra and choir was performed at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, again accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch together with the choir Ex Cathedra. \n\nA presentation of the film accompanied by live orchestra and choir premiered in the United States on August 18, 2015 at The Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California, accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Brad Lubman together with the choir Los Angeles Master Chorale. \n\nEditing\n\nKubrick filmed several scenes that were deleted from the final film. These fall into two categories: scenes cut before any public screenings of the film, and scenes cut a few days after the world premiere on April 2, 1968. \n\nThe first ('pre-premiere') set of cuts included a school-room on the Lunar base—a painting class around a decorative fountain that included Kubrick's daughters, additional scenes of life on the base, and Floyd buying a bush baby from a department store via videophone for his daughter. Additionally, a ten-minute black-and-white opening sequence featuring interviews with actual scientists, including Freeman Dyson discussing off-Earth life, were removed after an early screening for MGM executives. The actual text survives in the book The Making of Kubrick's 2001 by Jerome Agel. \n\nThe second ('post-premiere') set of cuts included details about the daily life on Discovery: additional space-walks, astronaut Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor, elements from the Poole murder sequence including the entire space-walk preparation and shots of Hal turning off radio contact with Poole, and a close-up of Bowman picking up a slipper during his walk in the alien room. Agel describes the 19 minutes of post-premiere cuts, made on April 5–6, as coming from \"Dawn of Man, Orion, Poole exercising in the centrifuge, and Poole's pod exiting from Discovery.\" \n\nKubrick's rationale for editing the film was to tighten the narrative. Reviews suggested the film suffered too much by the radical departure from traditional cinematic story-telling conventions. Regarding the cuts, Kubrick stated, \"I didn't believe that the trims made a critical difference. ... The people who like it, like it no matter what its length, and the same holds true for the people who hate it\". As was typical of most films of that era released both as a \"road-show\" (in Cinerama format in the case of Space Odyssey) and subsequently put into general release (in seventy-millimetre in the case of Odyssey), the entrance music, intermission music (and intermission altogether), and postcredit exit music were cut from most prints of the latter version, although these have been restored to most DVD releases. \n\nAccording to Kubrick's brother-in-law Jan Harlan, the director was adamant the trims were never to be seen, and that he \"even burned the negatives\"—which he had kept in his garage—shortly before his death. This is confirmed by former Kubrick assistant Leon Vitali: \"I'll tell you right now, okay, on Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Barry Lyndon, some little parts of 2001, we had thousands of cans of negative outtakes and print, which we had stored in an area at his house where we worked out of, which he personally supervised the loading of it to a truck and then I went down to a big industrial waste lot and burned it. That's what he wanted.\"\n\nMissing cuts rediscovered\n\nIn December 2010, Douglas Trumbull announced that Warner Bros. had located seventeen minutes of lost footage, \"perfectly preserved\", in a Kansas salt mine vault that originated from the post-premiere cuts. No immediate plans have been announced for the footage. \n\nSoundtrack\n\nThe initial MGM soundtrack album release contained none of the material from the altered and uncredited rendition of Ligeti's \"Aventures\", used a different recording of \"Also sprach Zarathustra\" from that heard in the film, this time performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and a longer excerpt of \"Lux aeterna\" than that in the film.\n\nIn 1996, Turner Entertainment/Rhino Records released a new soundtrack on CD which included the material from \"Aventures\" and restored the version of \"Zarathustra\" used in the film, and used the shorter version of \"Lux aeterna\" from the film. As additional \"bonus tracks\" at the end, this CD includes the versions of \"Zarathustra\" and \"Lux aeterna\" on the old MGM soundtrack, an unaltered performance of \"Aventures\", and a nine-minute compilation of all of Hal's dialogue from the film.\n\nNorth's unused music had its first public appearance in Telarc's issue of the main theme on Hollywood's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, a compilation album by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. All the music North originally wrote was recorded commercially by North's friend and colleague Jerry Goldsmith with the National Philharmonic Orchestra and was released on Varèse Sarabande CDs shortly after Telarc's first theme release but before North's death. Eventually, a mono mix-down of North's original recordings, which had survived in the interim, would be released as a limited-edition CD by Intrada Records. \n\nRelease\n\nTheatrical run\n\nThe film's world premiere was on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. It opened two days later at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in Hollywood and the Loew's Capitol in New York. Kubrick then deleted nineteen minutes of footage from the film before its general release in five other U.S. cities on April 10, 1968, and internationally in five cities the following day, where it was shown in 70mm format, used a six-track stereo magnetic soundtrack, and projected in the 2.21:1 aspect ratio. The general release of the film in its 35mm anamorphic format took place in autumn 1968 and used either a four-track magnetic stereo soundtrack or an optical monaural soundtrack. \n\nThe original seventy-millimetre release, like many Super Panavision 70 films of the era such as Grand Prix, was advertised as being in \"Cinerama\" in cinemas equipped with special projection optics and a deeply curved screen. In standard cinemas, the film was identified as a seventy-millimetre production. The original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in seventy-millimetre Cinerama with six-track sound played continually for more than a year in several venues, and for one hundred and three weeks in Los Angeles. \n\nThe following year, 2001 was appointed by a United States Department of State committee to be the American entry at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was re-released in 1974, 1977, and again in 1980. Once 2001, the film's timeset, arrived, a restoration of the seventy-millimetre version was screened at the Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, and the production was also reissued to selected film houses in North America, Europe and Asia. \n\nHome video\n\nThe film has been released in several forms:\n* In 1980, MGM/CBS Home Video released the film on VHS and Betamax home video. \n* In 1983, it was released on LaserDisc by MGM in full screen.\n* In 1987, it was released on VHS by MGM/UA Home Video.\n* In 1989, The Criterion Collection released a 3-disc special LaserDisc edition with a transfer monitored by Kubrick himself.\n* In 1997, MGM released the film on DVD.\n* In 1999, it was re-released on VHS, and as part of the \"Stanley Kubrick Collection\" in both VHS format (1999) and DVD (2000) with remastered sound and picture. In some video releases, three title cards were added to the three \"blank screen\" moments; \"OVERTURE\" at the beginning, \"ENTR'ACTE\" during the intermission, and \"EXIT MUSIC\" after the closing credits. \n\nAdditionally, the film has been released in high definition on both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. \n\nThe film's distribution rights were transferred to Warner Bros. in 1999.\n\nReception\n\nBox-office\n\nThe film earned $8.5 million in theatrical gross rental from roadshow engagements throughout 1968, contributing to North American rentals of $16.4 million and worldwide rentals of $21.9 million during its original release. Reissues have brought its cumulative exhibition gross to $56.9 million in North America, and over $190 million worldwide.\n\nCritical reaction\n\nUpon release, 2001 polarized critical opinion, receiving both ecstatic praise and vehement derision. Some critics viewed the original 161-minute cut shown at premieres in Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, while others saw the nineteen-minute-shorter general release version that was in theatres from April 10, 1968 onwards.\n\nIn The New Yorker, Penelope Gilliatt said it was \"some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor ... The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing.\" Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was \"the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future ... it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film.\" Louise Sweeney of The Christian Science Monitor felt that 2001 was \"a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160-minute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth.\" Philip French wrote that the film was \"perhaps the first multi-million-dollar supercolossal movie since D.W. Griffith's Intolerance fifty years ago which can be regarded as the work of one man ...Space Odyssey is important as the high-water mark of science-fiction movie making, or at least of the genre's futuristic branch.\" The Boston Globe's review indicated that it was \"the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere ... The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life.\" Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, believing the film \"succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale.\" He later put it on his Top 10 list for Sight & Sound. Time provided at least seven different mini-reviews of the film in various issues in 1968, each one slightly more positive than the preceding one; in the final review dated December 27, 1968, the magazine called 2001 \"an epic film about the history and future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing.\" Director Martin Scorsese has also listed it as one of his favourite films of all time. Critic David Denby later compared Kubrick to the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, calling him \"a force of supernatural intelligence, appearing at great intervals amid high-pitched shrieks, who gives the world a violent kick up the next rung of the evolutionary ladder\". \n\nPauline Kael said it was \"a monumentally unimaginative movie\", and Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic called it \"a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull.\" Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that it was \"somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.\" Variety's 'Robe' believed the film was a \"[b]ig, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic ... A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark.\" Andrew Sarris called it \"one of the grimmest films I have ever seen in my life ...2001 is a disaster because it is much too abstract to make its abstract points.\" (Sarris reversed his opinion upon a second viewing of the film, and declared, \"2001 is indeed a major work by a major artist.\" ) John Simon felt it was \"a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ...2001, for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story.\" Eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. deemed the film \"morally pretentious, intellectually obscure and inordinately long ... a film out of control\". The BBC said that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon its initial release. \n\nScience fiction writers\n\nScience fiction writers had a range of reactions to the film. Ray Bradbury praised the film's photography, but disliked the banality of most of the dialogue, and believed that the audience does not care when Poole dies. Both he and Lester del Rey were put off by the film's feeling of sterility and blandness in all the human encounters amidst all the technological wonders, while both praised the pictorial element of the film. Del Rey was especially harsh, describing the film as dull, confusing, and boring, predicting \"[i]t will probably be a box-office disaster, too, and thus set major science-fiction movie making back another ten years.\" However, the film was praised by science-fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany who was impressed by how the film undercuts the audience's normal sense of space and orientation in several ways. Like Bradbury, Delany picked up on the banality of the dialogue (in Delany's phrasing the characters are saying nothing meaningful), but Delany regards this as a dramatic strength, a prelude to the rebirth at the conclusion of the film. Without analyzing the film in detail, Isaac Asimov spoke well of Space Odyssey in his autobiography, and other essays. The film won the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation, an award heavily voted on by science fiction fans and published science-fiction writers. James P. Hogan liked the film but complained about the ending that didn't make any sense to him, leading to a bet about whether he could write something better or not; \"I stole Arthur's plot idea shamelessly and produced Inherit the Stars.\" \n\nInfluence\n\nInfluence on film\n\nThe influence of 2001 on subsequent filmmakers is considerable. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and others, including many special effects technicians, discuss the impact the film has had on them in a featurette titled Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001, included in the 2007 DVD release of the film. Spielberg calls it his film generation's \"big bang\", while Lucas says it was \"hugely inspirational\", labeling Kubrick as \"the filmmaker's filmmaker\". Sydney Pollack refers to it as \"groundbreaking\", and William Friedkin states 2001 is \"the grandfather of all such films\". At the 2007 Venice film festival, director Ridley Scott stated he believed 2001 was the unbeatable film that in a sense killed the science fiction genre. Similarly, film critic Michel Ciment in his essay \"Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick\" stated, \"Kubrick has conceived a film which in one stroke has made the whole science fiction cinema obsolete.\" However, others credit 2001 with opening up a market for films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Blade Runner and Contact; proving that big-budget \"serious\" science-fiction films can be commercially successful, and establishing the \"sci-fi blockbuster\" as a Hollywood staple. Science magazine Discovers blogger Stephen Cass, discussing the considerable impact of the film on subsequent science-fiction, writes that \"the balletic spacecraft scenes set to sweeping classical music, the tarantula-soft tones of HAL 9000, and the ultimate alien artifact, the Monolith, have all become enduring cultural icons in their own right.\" \n\nInfluence on media\n\nOne commentator has suggested that the image of the Star Child and Earth has contributed to the rise of the \"whole earth\" icon as a symbol of the unity of humanity. Writing in The Asia Pacific Journal Robert Jacobs traces the history of this icon from early cartoons and drawings of Earth to photographs of Earth from early space missions, to its historic appearance on the cover of The Whole Earth Catalog. Noting that images of the entire planet recur several times in A Space Odyssey, Jacobs writes \n\nInfluence on technology\n\nIn August 2011, in response to Apple Inc.'s patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung, the latter argued that Apple's iPad was effectively modeled on the visual tablets that appear aboard spaceship Discovery in the Space Odyssey film, which constitute prior art. \n\n\"Siri\", Apple's natural language voice control system for the iPhone 4S, features a reference to the film: it responds \"I'm sorry I can't do that\" when asked to \"open the pod bay doors\". When asked repeatedly, it may say, \"Without your space helmet, you're going to find this rather... breathtaking.\"\n\nInspired by Clarke's visual tablet device, in 1994 a European Commission-funded R&D project code named \"NewsPAD\" developed and pilot tested a portable 'multimedia viewer' aiming for the realisation of an electronic multimedia 'newspaper' pointing the way to a future fully interactive and highly personalised information source. Involved partners were Acorn RISC Technologies UK, Archimedes GR, Carat FR, Ediciones Primera Plana ES, Institut Català de Tecnologia ES, and TechMAPP UK. \n\nAccolades and honors\n\nAwards\n\n2001 earned Stanley Kubrick an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, as well as nominations for Best Director and Original Screenplay (shared with Arthur C. Clarke). Anthony Masters was also nominated for Best Art Direction. An honorary award was made to John Chambers in that year for his make-up work on Planet of the Apes, and Clarke reports that he \"wondered, as loudly as possible, whether the judges had passed over 2001 because they thought we had used real ape-men\". The film won four Baftas, for Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Track and as Best Road Show, and was a nominee in the Best Film category. \n\nThe National Board of Review listed 2001 among the Top Ten Films of 1968, and Kansas City Film Critics gave it both the Best Film and Best Director awards. Kubrick earned the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and was nominated for both the Directors Guild of America Award, and the Laurel Award (on which 2001 was named the Best Road Show of 1968). Both the Cinema Writers Circle of Spain and the David di Donatello Awards in Italy named 2001 the best foreign production of 1968. \n\nTop film lists\n\n2001 was No. 15 on AFI's 2007 100 Years ... 100 Movies, was named No. 40 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills, was included on its 100 Years, 100 Quotes (\"Open the pod bay doors, Hal.\"), and Hal 9000 is the No. 13 villain in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. 2001 is the only science fiction film to make the Sight & Sound poll for ten best films, and tops the Online Film Critics Society list of \"greatest science fiction films of all time.\" In 1991, this film was deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Other lists that include the film are 50 Films to See Before You Die (#6), The Village Voice 100 Best Films of the 20th century (#11), the Sight & Sound Top Ten poll (#6), and Roger Ebert's Top Ten (1968) (#2). In 1995, the Vatican named it as one of the 45 best films ever made (and included it in a sub-list of the \"Top Ten Art Movies\" of all time.) \n\nIn 2011, the film was the third most screened film in secondary schools in the United Kingdom. \n\n;American Film Institute recognition\n* 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #22 \n* 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #40 \n* 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:\n** HAL 9000 – #13 Villain \n* 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:\n** \"Open the pod bay doors, HAL.\" – #78 \n** \"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid.\" – Nominated \n* 2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – #47 \n* 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #15 \n* 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 – #1 Science Fiction Film \n\nInterpretation\n\nSince its premiere, 2001: A Space Odyssey has been analyzed and interpreted by professional film critics, amateur writers and science fiction fans, virtually all of whom have mentioned its deliberate ambiguity. Questions about 2001 range from uncertainty about its deeper philosophical implications about humanity's origins and final destiny in the universe, to interpreting elements of the film's more enigmatic scenes such as the meaning of the monolith, or the final fate of astronaut David Bowman. There are also simpler and more mundane questions about what drives the plot, in particular the causes of Hal's breakdown (explained in earlier drafts but kept mysterious in the film). \n\nStanley Kubrick encouraged people to explore their own interpretations of the film and refused to offer an explanation of \"what really happened\" in the film, preferring instead to let audiences embrace their own ideas and theories. In a 1968 interview with Playboy magazine, Kubrick stated:\n\nIn a subsequent discussion of the film with Joseph Gelmis, Kubrick said his main aim was to avoid \"intellectual verbalization\" and reach \"the viewer's subconscious.\" However, he said he did not deliberately strive for ambiguity—it was simply an inevitable outcome of making the film nonverbal, though he acknowledged this ambiguity was an invaluable asset to the film. He was willing then to give a fairly straightforward explanation of the plot on what he called the \"simplest level,\" but unwilling to discuss the metaphysical interpretation of the film which he felt should be left up to the individual viewer. \n\nFor some readers, Arthur C. Clarke's more straightforward novelization of the script is key to interpreting the film. Clarke's novel explicitly identifies the monolith as a tool created by an alien race that has been through many stages of evolution, moving from organic form to biomechanical, and finally achieving a state of pure energy. These aliens travel the cosmos assisting lesser species to take evolutionary steps. Conversely, film critic Penelope Houston wrote in 1971 that because the novel differs in many key respects from the film, it perhaps should not be regarded as the skeleton key to unlock it. \n\nMultiple allegorical interpretations of 2001 have been proposed, including seeing it as a commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical tract Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or as an allegory of human conception, birth and death. The latter can be seen through the final moments of the film, which are defined by the image of the \"star child,\" an in utero fetus that draws on the work of Lennart Nilsson. The star child signifies a \"great new beginning,\" and is depicted naked and ungirded, but with its eyes wide open. Leonard F. Wheat sees Space Odyssey as a multi-layered allegory, commenting simultaneously on Nietzsche, Homer, and the relationship of man to machine.\n\nThe reasons for Hal's malfunction and subsequent malignant behavior have also elicited much discussion. He has been compared to Frankenstein's monster. In Clarke's novel, Hal malfunctions because of being ordered to lie to the crew of Discovery and withhold confidential information from them, despite being constructed for \"the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment\". Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that Hal, as the supposedly perfect computer, actually behaves in the most human fashion of all of the characters.\n\nRolling Stone reviewer Bob McClay sees the film as like a four-movement symphony, its story told with \"deliberate realism.\" Carolyn Geduld believes that what \"structurally unites all four episodes of the film\" is the monolith, the film's largest and most unresolvable enigma. Vincent LoBrutto's biography of Kubrick says that for many, Clarke's novel is the key to understanding the monolith. Similarly, Geduld observes that \"the monolith ... has a very simple explanation in Clarke's novel,\" though she later asserts that even the novel doesn't fully explain the ending.\n\nMcClay's Rolling Stone review describes a parallelism between the monolith's first appearance in which tool usage is imparted to the apes (thus 'beginning' mankind) and the completion of \"another evolution\" in the fourth and final encounter with the monolith. In a similar vein, Tim Dirks ends his synopsis saying \"[t]he cyclical evolution from ape to man to spaceman to angel-starchild-superman is complete.\" \n\nThe first and second encounters of humanity with the monolith have visual elements in common; both apes, and later astronauts, touch the monolith gingerly with their hands, and both sequences conclude with near-identical images of the Sun appearing directly over the monolith (the first with a crescent moon adjacent to it in the sky, the second with a near-identical crescent Earth in the same position), both echoing the Sun–Earth–Moon alignment seen at the very beginning of the film. The second encounter also suggests the triggering of the monolith's radio signal to Jupiter by the presence of humans, echoing the premise of Clarke's source story \"The Sentinel\".\n\nThe monolith is the subject of the film's final line of dialogue (spoken at the end of the \"Jupiter Mission\" segment): \"Its origin and purpose still a total mystery.\" Reviewers McClay and Roger Ebert wrote that the monolith is the main element of mystery in the film; Ebert described \"the shock of the monolith's straight edges and square corners among the weathered rocks,\" and the apes warily circling it as prefiguring man reaching \"for the stars.\" Patrick Webster suggests the final line relates to how the film should be approached as a whole, noting \"The line appends not merely to the discovery of the monolith on the Moon, but to our understanding of the film in the light of the ultimate questions it raises about the mystery of the universe.\" \n\nThe film conveys what some viewers have described as a sense of the sublime and numinous. Roger Ebert writes in his essay on 2001 in The Great Movies: In a book on architecture, Gregory Caicco writes that Space Odyssey illustrates how our quest for space is motivated by two contradictory desires, a \"desire for the sublime\" characterized by a need to encounter something totally other than ourselves—\"something numinous\"—and the conflicting desire for a beauty that makes us feel no longer \"lost in space,\" but at home. Similarly, an article in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, titled \"Sense of Wonder,\" describes how 2001 creates a \"numinous sense of wonder\" by portraying a universe that inspires a sense of awe, which at the same time we feel we can understand. Christopher Palmer wrote that there exists in the film a coexistence of \"the sublime and the banal,\" as the film implies that to get into space, mankind had to suspend the \"sense of wonder\" that motivated him to explore space to begin with. \n\nSequels and adaptations\n\nKubrick did not envision a sequel to 2001. Fearing the later exploitation and recycling of his material in other productions (as was done with the props from MGM's Forbidden Planet), he ordered all sets, props, miniatures, production blueprints, and prints of unused scenes destroyed. Most of these materials were lost, with some exceptions: a 2001 spacesuit backpack appeared in the \"Close Up\" episode of the Gerry Anderson series UFO, and one of Hal's eyepieces is in the possession of the author of Hal's Legacy, David G. Stork. In 2012 Lockheed engineer Adam Johnson, working with Frederick I. Ordway III, science adviser to Kubrick, wrote the book 2001: The Lost Science, which for the first time featured many of the blueprints of the spacecraft and film sets that previously had been thought destroyed.\n\nClarke wrote three sequel novels: 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), 2061: Odyssey Three (1987), and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). The only filmed sequel, 2010, was based on Clarke's 1982 novel and was released in 1984. Kubrick was not involved in the production of this film, which was directed by Peter Hyams in a more conventional style with more dialogue. Clarke saw it as a fitting adaptation of his novel, and had a brief cameo appearance in the film. As Kubrick had ordered all models and blueprints from 2001 destroyed, Hyams was forced to recreate these models from scratch for 2010. Hyams also claimed that he would not have made the film had he not received both Kubrick's and Clarke's blessings:\n\nThe other two novels have not been adapted for the screen, although actor Tom Hanks has expressed interest in possible adaptations. \n\nIn 2012, two screenplay adaptations of both 2061 and 3001 were posted on the 2001:Exhibit website, in the hopes of generating interest in both MGM and Warner Bros. to adapt the last two novels into films. \n\nBeginning in 1976, Marvel Comics published a comic adaptation of the film written and drawn by Jack Kirby, and a 10-issue monthly series expanding on the ideas of the film and novel, also created by Kirby.\n\nParodies and homages\n\n2001 has been the frequent subject of both parody and homage, sometimes extensively and other times briefly, employing both its distinctive music and iconic imagery.\n\nIn advertising and print\n\n* Mad magazine #125 (March 1969) featured a spoof called 201 Minutes of a Space Idiocy written by Dick DeBartolo and illustrated by Mort Drucker. In the final panels it is revealed that the monolith is a film script titled \"'How to Make an Incomprehensible Science Fiction Movie' by Stanley Kubrick\". It was reprinted in various special issues, in the MAD About the Sixties book, and partially in the book \"The Making of Kubrick's 2001\". \n* The August 1971 album Who's Next by The Who featured as its cover artwork a photograph of a concrete slab at Easington Colliery with the band apparently doing up their trouser zips. The decision to photograph this \"monolith\" image while on their way to a concert followed discussion between John Entwistle and Keith Moon about Kubrick's film. \n* Thought to be the first time Kubrick gave permission for his work to be re-used, Apple Inc.'s 1999 website advertisement \"It was a bug, Dave\" was made using footage from the film. Launched during the era of concerns over Y2K bugs, the ad implied that Hal's weird behavior was caused by a Y2K bug, before driving home the point that \"only Macintosh was designed to function perfectly\". \n\nIn film and television\n\n* Mel Brooks' satirical film History of the World, Part I opens with a parody of Kubrick's \"Dawn of Man\" sequence, followed by the parody of One Million Years BC, narrated by Orson Welles. DVDVerdict describes this parody as \"spot on\". A similar spoof of the \"Dawn of Man\" sequence also opened Ken Shapiro's 1974 comedy The Groove Tube in which the monolith was replaced by a television set. (The film is mostly a parody of television. Film and Filming held that after this wonderful opening, the film slid downhill.)\n* Woody Allen cast actor Douglas Rain (Hal in Kubrick's film) in an uncredited part as the voice of the controlling computer in the closing sequences of his science-fiction comedy Sleeper. \n* Matt Groening's animated series The Simpsons, of which Kubrick was a fan, and Futurama frequently reference 2001, along with other Kubrick films. The Simpsons had in the episode \"Deep Space Homer\" Bart throwing a felt-tip marker into the air; in slow motion it rotates, before a match cut replaces it with a cylindrical satellite. In 2004 Empire magazine listed this as the third best film parody of the entire run of the show. In the Futurama episode \"Love and Rocket\" a sentient spaceship revolts in a manner similar to Hal. Games Radar listed this as number 17 in its list of 20 Funniest Futurama parodies, while noting that Futurama has referenced Space Odyssey on several other occasions. \n* In the 2000 South Park episode \"Trapper Keeper\", an interaction between Eric Cartman and Kyle Broflovski parodies the conversation between Hal and Bowman within the inner core. \n* Peter Sellers starred in Hal Ashby's comedy-drama Being There about a simple-minded middle-aged gardener who has lived his entire life in the townhouse of his wealthy employer. In the scene where he first leaves the house and ventures into the wide world for the first time, the soundtrack plays a jazzy version of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra arranged by Eumir Deodato. Film critic James A. Davidson writing for the film journal Images suggests \"When Chance emerges from his home into the world, Ashby suggests his childlike nature by using Richard Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra as ironic background music, linking his hero with Kubrick's star baby in his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.\" \n* Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a scene (using actual footage from A Space Odyssey) in which the monolith morphs into a chocolate bar. Catholic News wrote that the film \"had subtle and obvious riffs on everything from the saccharine Disney \"Small World\" exhibit to Munchkinland to, most brilliantly, a hilarious takeoff on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.\" \n* Andrew Stanton, the director of WALL-E, revealed in an interview with Wired magazine that his film was in many ways his homage to Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner, Close Encounters and several other science-fiction films. The reviewer for USA Today described the resemblance of the spaceship's computer, Auto, to Hal. The same year saw the release of the much less successful film Eagle Eye, about which The Charlotte Observer said that, like 2001, it featured a \"red-eyed, calm-voiced supercomputer that took human life to protect what it felt were higher objectives\" \n* Commenting on the broader use of Ligeti's music beyond that by Kubrick, London Magazine in 2006 mentioned Monty Python's use of Ligeti in a 60-second spoof of Space Odyssey in the Flying Circus episode commonly labeled \"A Book at Bedtime\". \n* The poorly reviewed Canadian spoof 2001: A Space Travesty has been occasionally alluded to as a full parody of Kubrick's film, both because of its title and star Leslie Nielsen's many previous films which were full parodies of other films. However, Space Travesty only makes occasional references to Kubrick's material, its \"celebrities are really aliens\" jokes resembling those in Men in Black. Canadian reviewer Jim Slotek said, \"It's not really a spoof of 2001, or anything in particular. There's a brief homage at the start, and one scene in a shuttle en route to the Moon that uses The Blue Danube... The rest is a patched together plot.\" Among many complaints about the film, reviewer Berge Garabedian derided the lack of much substantive connection to the Kubrick film (the latter of which he said was \"funnier\"). \n* Among spoof references to several science-fiction films and shows, Airplane II features a computer called ROK 9000 in control of a Moon shuttle which malfunctions and kills crew members, which several reviewers found reminiscent of Hal. \n* Mystery Science Theater 3000 had the design of its main setting, the starship Satellite of Love, based on the bone-shaped satellite featured in the match cut from prehistoria to the future. The one-eyed design of the robot Gypsy led the show to do various scenes comparing it to HAL 9000, including a scene the 1996 feature film, where the opening featuring Mike Nelson jogging along the walls of the Satellite of Love parodies the scene where Frank Poole does the same in the Discovery. \n\nIn software and video games\n\n* 2001: A Space Odyssey has also been referenced in multiple video games (especially Metal Gear), usually with reference to either the monolith or Hal.\n* Several black monoliths can be found in EVE Online, marked by a beacon with name \"Black monolith\". Their purpose in game is unknown. The objects are described in-game as \"It's full of stars\", which is reference to the film's sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. \n* Video game director Hideo Kojima has also cited 2001: A Space Odyssey as his favorite movie of all time and is frequently referenced in the Metal Gear series; Otacon is named after Hal and Solid Snake's real name is Dave."
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Which is the largest of the Japanese Volcano Islands?
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"The was the historical Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan.\n\nImperial Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan led to its emergence as a world power and the establishment of a colonial empire. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s led to the rise of militarism, eventually culminating in Japan's membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific region. At the height of its power in 1942, the Empire ruled over a land area spanning , making it one of the largest maritime empires in history. \n\nAfter several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. After suffering many defeats and following the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Manchuria, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, the Empire surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, and a new constitution was created with American involvement in 1947, officially dissolving the Empire. Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the \"State of Japan\" or simply rendered \"Japan\" in English.\n\nThe Emperors during this time, which spanned the entire Meiji and Taishō, and the lesser part of the Shōwa eras, are now known in Japan by their posthumous names, which coincide with those era names: Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito), Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito), and Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito).\n\nTerminology\n\nThe historical state is frequently referred to as \"the Empire of Japan\" or \"the Japanese Empire\" or \"Imperial Japan\" in English. In Japanese it is referred to as , which translates to \"Greater Japanese Empire\" (Dai \"Great\", Nippon \"Japanese\", Teikoku \"Empire\").\n\nThis meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan and its surrounding areas. The nomenclature Empire of Japan had existed since the anti-Tokugawa domains, Satsuma and Chōshū, which founded their new government during the Meiji Restoration, with the intention of forming a modern state to resist western domination.\n\nDue to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun.\n\nMeiji Restoration\n\nAfter two centuries, the seclusion policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.\n\nThe following years saw increased foreign trade and interaction; commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the humiliating terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement, the sonnō jōi (literally \"Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians\"). \n\nIn March 1863, the \"order to expel barbarians\" was issued. Although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, by a party of samurai from Satsuma. The British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, The Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima. They responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardson's death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity. Shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also carried out the failed coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu. In early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito (Meiji).\n\nOn November 9, 1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, agreeing to \"be the instrument for carrying out\" imperial orders. The Tokugawa Shogunate had ended. However, while Yoshinobu's resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. Moreover, the shogunal government, the Tokugawa family in particular, remained a prominent force in the evolving political order and retained many executive powers, a prospect hard-liners from Satsuma and Chōshū found intolerable. \n\nOn January 3, 1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the imperial palace in Kyoto, and the following day had the fifteen-year-old Emperor Meiji declare his own restoration to full power. Although the majority of the imperial consultative assembly was happy with the formal declaration of direct rule by the court and tended to support a continued collaboration with the Tokugawa, Saigō Takamori threatened the assembly into abolishing the title \"shogun\" and ordered the confiscation of Yoshinobu's lands. \n\nOn January 17, 1868, Yoshinobu declared \"that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration and called on the court to rescind it\". On January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces. This decision was prompted by his learning of a series of arson attacks in Edo, starting with the burning of the outworks of Edo Castle, the main Tokugawa residence.\n\nBoshin War\n\nThe was fought between January 1868 and May 1869. The alliance of samurai from southern and western domains and court officials had now secured the cooperation of the young Emperor Meiji, who ordered the dissolution of the two-hundred-year-old Tokugawa Shogunate. Tokugawa Yoshinobu launched a military campaign to seize the emperor's court at Kyoto. However, the tide rapidly turned in favor of the smaller but relatively modernized imperial faction and resulted in defections of many daimyo to the Imperial side. The Battle of Toba–Fushimi was a decisive victory in which a combined army from Chōshū, Tosa, and Satsuma domains defeated the Tokugawa army. A series of battles were then fought in pursuit of supporters of the Shogunate; Edo surrendered to the Imperial forces and afterwards Yoshinobu personally surrendered. Yoshinobu was stripped of all his power by Emperor Meiji and most of Japan accepted the emperor's rule.\n\nPro-Tokugawa remnants, however, then retreated to northern Honshū (Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei) and later to Ezo (present-day Hokkaidō), where they established the breakaway Republic of Ezo. An expeditionary force was dispatched by the new government and the Ezo Republic forces were overwhelmed. The siege of Hakodate came to an end in May 1869 and the remaining forces surrendered.\n\nFive Charter Oath\n\nThe Charter Oath was made public at the enthronement of Emperor Meiji of Japan on April 7, 1868. The Oath outlined the main aims and the course of action to be followed during Emperor Meiji's reign, setting the legal stage for Japan's modernization. \n\nThe Meiji leaders also aimed to boost morale and win financial support for the new government. Its five provisions consisted of:\n*Establishment of deliberative assemblies.\n*Involvement of all classes in carrying out state affairs.\n*The revocation of sumptuary laws and class restrictions on employment.\n*Replacement of \"evil customs\" with the \"just laws of nature\".\n*An international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.\n\nMeiji era (1868–1912)\n\nJapan dispatched the Iwakura Mission in 1871. The mission traveled the world in order to renegotiate the unequal treaties with the United States and European countries that Japan had been forced into during the Tokugawa shogunate, and to gather information on western social and economic systems, in order to effect the modernization of Japan. Renegotiation of the unequal treaties was universally unsuccessful, but close observation of the American and European systems inspired members on their return to bring about modernization initiatives in Japan. Japan made territorial delimitation treaty with Russia in 1875, gaining all the Kuril islands in exchange for Sakhalin island. \n\nSeveral prominent writers, under the constant threat of assassination from their political foes, were influential in winning Japanese support for westernization. One such writer was Fukuzawa Yukichi, whose works included \"Conditions in the West,\" \"Leaving Asia\", and \"An Outline of a Theory of Civilization,\" which detailed Western society and his own philosophies. In the Meiji Restoration period, military and economic power was well emphasized. Military strength became the means for national development and stability. Imperial Japan became the only non-Western world power and a major force in east and southeast Asia in about 40 years as a result of industrialization and economic development.\n\nAs writer Albrecht Fürst von Urach comments in his booklet \"The Secret of Japan's Strength,\" which was written during the Axis powers period:\nThe rise of Japan to a world power during the past 80 years is the greatest miracle in world history. The mighty empires of antiquity, the major political institutions of the Middle Ages and the early modern era, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, all needed centuries to achieve their full strength. Japan's rise has been meteoric. After only 80 years, it is one of the few great powers that determine the fate of the world. \n\nThe sudden westernization, once it was adopted, changed almost all areas of Japanese society, ranging from armaments, arts, clothes, etiquette, judicial and political systems, language, etc. The Japanese government sent students to Western countries to observe and learn their practices, and also paid \"foreign advisors\" in a variety of fields to come to Japan to educate the populace. For instance, the judicial system and constitution were largely modeled on those of Germany. The government also outlawed customs linked to Japan's feudal past, such as publicly displaying and wearing katana and the top knot, both of which were characteristic of the samurai class, which was abolished together with the caste system. This would later bring the Meiji government into conflict with the Samurai.\n\nFile:Takamori Saigo.png|Saigō Takamori, one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history\nFile:Meiji tenno1.jpg|Emperor Meiji, the 122nd emperor of Japan\nFile:Iwakura mission.jpg|The mission major member. Left to right : Kido Takayoshi, Yamaguchi Masuka, Iwakura Tomomi, Itō Hirobumi, Ōkubo Toshimichi\nFile:Thomas Blake Glover.jpg|Merchant Thomas Blake Glover was a British merchant in Bakumatsu and received Japan's second highest order from Emperor Meiji in recognition of his contributions to Japan's industrialization.\nFile:HIH Princess Higashifushimi Kaneko.jpg|HIH Princess Kaneko Higashi-fushimi in western clothing\n\nConstitution\n\nThe constitution recognized the need for change and modernization after removal of the shogunate:\nWe, the Successor to the prosperous Throne of Our Predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear to the Imperial Founder of Our House and to Our other Imperial Ancestors that, in pursuance of a great policy co-extensive with the Heavens and with the Earth, We shall maintain and secure from decline the ancient form of government. ... In consideration of the progressive tendency of the course of human affairs and in parallel with the advance of civilization, We deem it expedient, in order to give clearness and distinctness to the instructions bequeathed by the Imperial Founder of Our House and by Our other Imperial Ancestors, to establish fundamental laws. ...\n\nImperial Japan was founded, de jure, after the 1889 signing of Constitution of the Empire of Japan. The constitution formalized much of the Empire's political structure and gave many responsibilities and powers to the Emperor.\n\nArticle 4. The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution.\n\nArticle 6. The Emperor gives sanction to laws, and orders them to be promulgated and executed.\n\nArticle 11. The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and Navy. \n\nImperial Diet\n\nIn 1890, the Imperial Diet was established in response to the Meiji Constitution. The Diet consisted of the House of Representatives of Japan and the House of Peers. Both houses opened seats for colonial people as well as Japanese. The Imperial Diet continued until 1947.\n\nEconomic development\n\nThe process of modernization was closely monitored and heavily subsidized by the Meiji government, enhancing the power of the great zaibatsu firms such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi. Hand in hand, the zaibatsu and government guided the nation, borrowing technology from the West. Japan gradually took control of much of Asia's market for manufactured goods, beginning with textiles. The economic structure became very mercantilistic, importing raw materials and exporting finished products — a reflection of Japan's relative scarcity of raw materials.\n\nEconomic reforms included a unified modern currency based on the yen, banking, commercial and tax laws, stock exchanges, and a communications network. Establishment of a modern institutional framework conducive to an advanced capitalist economy took time but was completed by the 1890s. By this time, the government had largely relinquished direct control of the modernization process, primarily for budgetary reasons. Many of the former daimyo, whose pensions had been paid in a lump sum, benefited greatly through investments they made in emerging industries.\n\nThe government was initially involved in economic modernization, providing a number of \"model factories\" to facilitate the transition to the modern period. After the first twenty years of the Meiji period, the industrial economy expanded rapidly until about 1920 with inputs of advanced Western technology and large private investments.\n\nJapan emerged from the Tokugawa-Meiji transition as the first Asian industrialized nation. From the onset, the Meiji rulers embraced the concept of a market economy and adopted British and North American forms of free enterprise capitalism. Rapid growth and structural change characterized Japan's two periods of economic development after 1868. Initially, the economy grew only moderately and relied heavily on traditional Japanese agriculture to finance modern industrial infrastructure. By the time the Russo-Japanese War began in 1904, 65% of employment and 38% of the gross domestic product (GDP) were still based on agriculture, but modern industry had begun to expand substantially. By the late 1920s, manufacturing and mining amounted to 34% of GDP, compared with 20% for all of agriculture. Transportation and communications developed to sustain heavy industrial development.\n\nFrom 1894, Japan built an extensive empire that included Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, and parts of northern China. The Japanese regarded this sphere of influence as a political and economic necessity, which prevented foreign states from strangling Japan by blocking its access to raw materials and crucial sea-lanes. Japan's large military force was regarded as essential to the empire's defense and prosperity by obtaining natural resources that the Japanese islands lacked.\n\nFirst Sino-Japanese War\n\nPrior to its engagement in World War I, the Empire of Japan fought in two significant wars after its establishment following the Meiji Revolution. The first was the First Sino-Japanese War, fought in 1894 and 1895. The war revolved around the issue of control and influence over Korea under the rule of the Joseon Dynasty. A peasant rebellion led to a request by the Korean government for the Qing Dynasty to send in troops to stabilize the country. The Empire of Japan responded by sending their own force to Korea and installing a puppet government in Seoul. China objected and war ensued. In a brief affair with Japanese ground troops routing Chinese forces on the Liaodong Peninsula, and the near destruction of the Chinese navy in the Battle of the Yalu River. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed between Japan and China, which ceded the Liaodong Peninsula and the island of Taiwan to Japan. After the peace treaty, Russia, Germany, and France forced Japan to withdraw from Liaodong Peninsula. Soon afterwards Russia occupied the Liaodong Peninsula, built the Port Arthur fortress, and based the Russian Pacific Fleet in the port. Germany occupied Jiaozhou Bay, built Tsingtao fortress and based the German East Asia Squadron in this port.\n\nBoxer rebellion\n\nIn 1900, Japan and many western countries dispatched forces to China to protect their citizens and Chinese Christians from the Boxer Uprising. After the uprising, Japan and the western countries signed the Boxer Protocol with China, which permitted them to station troops on Chinese soil to protect their citizens. After the treaty, Russia continued to occupy all of Manchuria.\n\nRusso-Japanese War\n\nThe Russo-Japanese War was a conflict for control of Korea and parts of Manchuria between the Russian Empire and Empire of Japan that took place from 1904 to 1905. The war is significant as it was the first modern war in which an Asian country defeated a European power. The victory greatly raised Japan's stature in the world of global politics. The war is marked by the Japanese opposition of Russian interests in Korea, Manchuria, and China, notably, the Liaodong Peninsula, controlled by the city of Port Arthur.\n\nOriginally, in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Port Arthur had been given to Japan. This part of the treaty was overruled by Western powers, which gave the port to the Russian Empire, furthering Russian interests in the region. These interests came into conflict with Japanese interests. The war began with a surprise attack on the Russian Eastern fleet stationed at Port Arthur, which was followed by the Battle of Port Arthur. Those elements that attempted escape were defeated by the Japanese navy under Admiral Togo Heihachiro at the Battle of the Yellow Sea. Following a late start, the Russian Baltic fleet was denied passage through the British-controlled Suez Canal. The fleet arrived on the scene a year later, only to be annihilated in the Battle of Tsushima. While the ground war did not fare as poorly for the Russians, the Japanese forces were significantly more aggressive than their Russian counterparts and gained a political advantage that culminated with the Treaty of Portsmouth, negotiated in the United States by the American president Theodore Roosevelt. As a result, Russia lost the part of Sakhalin Island south of 50 degrees North latitude (which became the Karafuto Prefecture), as well as many mineral rights in Manchuria. In addition, Russia's defeat cleared the way for Japan to annex Korea outright in 1910.\n\nAnnexation of Korea\n\nIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, various Western countries actively competed for influence, trade, and territory in East Asia, and Japan sought to join these modern colonial powers. The newly modernised Meiji government of Japan turned to Korea, then in the sphere of influence of China's Qing Dynasty. The Japanese government initially sought to separate Korea from Qing and make Korea a Japanese satellite in order to further their security and national interests. \n\nIn January 1876, following the Meiji Restoration, Japan employed gunboat diplomacy to pressure Korea, under the Joseon Dynasty, to sign the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, which granted extraterritorial rights to Japanese citizens and opened three Korean ports to Japanese trade. The rights granted to Japan under this unequal treaty,[http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707220222.html A reckless adventure in Taiwan amid Meiji Restoration turmoil], THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, Retrieved on July 22, 2007. were similar to those granted western powers in Japan following the visit of Commodore Perry. Japanese involvement in Korea increased during the 1890s, a period of political upheaval.\n\nKorea was occupied and declared a Japanese protectorate following the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, and officially annexed in 1910 through the annexation treaty.\n\nIn Korea, the period is usually described as a time of Japanese \"forced occupation\" (Hangul: ; Ilje gangjeomgi, Hanja: 日帝强占期). Other terms used for it include \"Japanese Imperial Period\" (Hangul: , Ilje sidae, Hanja: 日帝時代) or \"Japanese administration\" (Hangul: , Wae jeong, ). In Japan, a more common description is . Korea was officially part of the Empire of Japan for 35 years, from August 22, 1910, until the formal Japanese rule ended on September 2, 1945, upon the surrender of Japan. The 1905 and 1910 treaties were eventually declared \"null and void\" by both Japan and South Korea in 1965.\n\nTaishō era (1912–1926)\n\nWorld War I\n\nJapan entered World War I in 1914, seizing the opportunity of Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. Japanese and allied British Empire forces soon moved to occupy Tsingtao fortress, the German East Asia Squadron base, German-leased territories in China's Shandong Province as well as the Marianas, Caroline, and Marshall Islands in the Pacific, which were part of German New Guinea. The swift invasion in the German territory of the Kiautschou Bay concession, and the Siege of Tsingtao proved successful. The German colonial troops surrendered on November 7, 1915. Japan then gained the German holdings.\n\nWith its Western allies, notably the United Kingdom, heavily involved in the war in Europe, Japan dispatched a Naval fleet to the Mediterranean Sea to aid allied shipping against German U-boat attacks. Japan sought further to consolidate its position in China by presenting the Twenty-One Demands to China in January 1915. In the face of slow negotiations with the Chinese government, widespread anti-Japanese sentiment in China, and international condemnation, Japan withdrew the final group of demands, and treaties were signed in May 1915.\n\nIn 1919, Japan proposed a clause on racial equality to be included in the League of Nations covenant at the Paris Peace Conference. The clause was rejected by several Western countries and was not forwarded for larger discussion at the full meeting of the conference. The rejection was an important factor in the coming years in turning Japan away from cooperation with West and towards nationalistic policies. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was ended in 1923.\n\nSiberian Intervention\n\nAfter the fall of the Tsarist regime and the later provisional regime in 1917, the new Bolshevik government signed a separate peace treaty with Germany. After this the Russians fought amongst themselves in a multi-sided civil war.\n\nIn July 1918, President Wilson asked the Japanese government to supply 7,000 troops as part of an international coalition of 25,000 troops planned to support the American Expeditionary Force Siberia. Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake agreed to send 12,000 troops but under the Japanese command rather than as part of an international coalition. The Japanese had several hidden motives for the venture, which included an intense hostility and fear of communism; a determination to recoup historical losses to Russia; and the desire to settle the \"northern problem\" in Japan's security, either through the creation of a buffer state or through outright territorial acquisition.\n\nBy November 1918, more than 70,000 Japanese troops under Chief of Staff Yui Mitsue had occupied all ports and major towns in the Russian Maritime Provinces and eastern Siberia. Japan received 765 Polish orphans from Siberia. \n\nIn June 1920, around 450 Japanese civilians and 350 Japanese soldiers, along with Russian White Army supporters, were massacred by partisan forces associated with the Red Army at Nikolayevsk on the Amur River; the United States and its allied coalition partners consequently withdrew from Vladivostok after the capture and execution of White Army leader Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak by the Red Army. However, the Japanese decided to stay, primarily due to fears of the spread of Communism so close to Japan and Japanese-controlled Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese army provided military support to the Japanese-backed Provisional Priamurye Government based in Vladivostok against the Moscow-backed Far Eastern Republic.\n\nThe continued Japanese presence concerned the United States, which suspected that Japan had territorial designs on Siberia and the Russian Far East. Subjected to intense diplomatic pressure by the United States and Great Britain, and facing increasing domestic opposition due to the economic and human cost, the administration of Prime Minister Katō Tomosaburō withdrew the Japanese forces in October 1922. Japanese casualties from the expedition were 5,000 dead from combat or illness, with the expedition costing over 900 million yen.\n\n\"Taishō Democracy\"\n\nThe election of Katō Komei as Prime Minister of Japan continued democratic reforms that had been advocated by influential individuals on the left. This culminated in the passage of universal male suffrage in March 1925. This bill gave all male subjects over the age of 25 the right to vote, provided they had lived in their electoral districts for at least one year and were not homeless. The electorate thereby increased from 3.3 million to 12.5 million. \n\nEarly Shōwa (1926–1937)\n\nExpansion of democracy\n\nIn 1932, Park Chun-kum was elected to the House of Representatives in the Japanese general election as a first colonial people. In 1935, democracy was introduced in Taiwan and in response to Taiwanese public opinion, local assemblies were established. In 1942, 38 colonial people were elected to local assemblies of the Japanese homeland.\n\nMilitary and social organizations\n\nImportant institutional links existed between the party in government (Kōdōha) and military and political organizations, such as the Imperial Young Federation and the \"Political Department\" of the Kempeitai. Amongst the himitsu kessha (secret societies), the Kokuryu-kai (Black Dragon Society) and Kokka Shakai Shugi Gakumei (National Socialist League) also had close ties to the government. The Tonarigumi (residents committee) groups, the Nation Service Society (national government trade union), and Imperial Farmers Association were all allied as well. Other organizations and groups related with the government in wartime were: Double Leaf Society, Kokuhonsha, Taisei Yokusankai, Imperial Youth Corps, Keishichō (to 1945), Shintoist Rites Research Council, Treaty Faction, Fleet Faction, and Volunteer Fighting Corps.\n\nNationalist factors\n\nSadao Araki was an important figurehead and founder of the Army party and the most important right-wing thinker in his time. His first ideological works date from his leadership of the Kōdōha (Imperial Benevolent Rule or Action Group), opposed by the Tōseiha (Control Group) led by General Kazushige Ugaki. He linked the ancient (bushido code) and contemporary local and European fascist ideals (see Japanese fascism), to form the ideological basis of the movement (Shōwa nationalism).\n\nFrom September 1932, the Japanese were becoming more locked into the course that would lead them into the Second World War, with Araki leading the way. Totalitarianism, militarism, and expansionism were to become the rule, with fewer voices able to speak against it. In a September 23 news conference, Araki first mentioned the philosophy of \"Kōdōha\" (The Imperial Way Faction). The concept of Kodo linked the Emperor, the people, land, and morality as indivisible. This led to the creation of a \"new\" Shinto and increased Emperor worship.\n\nOn February 26, 1936, a coup d'état was attempted (the February 26 Incident). Launched by the ultranationalist Kōdōha faction with the military, it ultimately failed due to the intervention of the Emperor. Kōdōha members were purged from the top military positions and the Tōseiha faction gained dominance. However, both factions believed in expansionism, a strong military, and a coming war. Furthermore, Kōdōha members, while removed from the military, still had political influence within the government.\n\nThe state was being transformed to serve the Army and the Emperor. Symbolic katana swords came back into fashion as the martial embodiment of these beliefs, and the Nambu pistol became its contemporary equivalent, with the implicit message that the Army doctrine of close combat would prevail. The final objective, as envisioned by Army thinkers such as Sadao Araki and right-wing line followers, was a return to the old Shogunate system, but in the form of a contemporary Military Shogunate. In such a government the Emperor would once more be a figurehead (as in the Edo period). Real power would fall to a leader very similar to a führer or duce, though with the power less nakedly held. On the other hand, the traditionalist Navy militarists defended the Emperor and a constitutional monarchy with a significant religious aspect.\n\nA third point of view was supported by Prince Chichibu, a brother of Emperor Shōwa, who repeatedly counseled him to implement a direct imperial rule, even if that meant suspending the constitution. \n\nWith the launching of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in 1940 by Prime minister Fumimaro Konoe, Japan would turn to a form of government that resembled totalitarianism. This unique style of government, very similar to fascism, was known as Japanese nationalism.\n\nEconomic factors\n\nAt same time, the zaibatsu trading groups (principally Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and Yasuda) looked towards great future expansion. Their main concern was a shortage of raw materials. Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye combined social concerns with the needs of capital, and planned for expansion.\n\nThe main goals of Japan's expansionism were acquisition and protection of spheres of influence, maintenance of territorial integrity, acquisition of raw materials, and access to Asian markets. Western nations, notably Great Britain, France, and the United States, had for long exhibited great interest in the commercial opportunities in China and other parts of Asia. These opportunities had attracted Western investment because of the availability of raw materials for both domestic production and re-export to Asia. Japan desired these opportunities in planning the development of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.\n\nThe Great Depression, just as in many other countries, hindered Japan's economic growth. The Japanese Empire's main problem lay in that rapid industrial expansion had turned the country into a major manufacturing and industrial power that required raw materials; however, these had to be obtained from overseas, as there was a critical lack of natural resources on the home islands.\n\nIn the 1920s and 1930s, Japan needed to import raw materials such as iron, rubber, and oil to maintain strong economic growth. Most of these resources came from the United States. The Japanese felt that acquiring resource-rich territories would establish economic self-sufficiency and independence, and they also hoped to jump-start the nation's economy in the midst of the depression. As a result, Japan set its sights on East Asia, specifically Manchuria with its many resources; Japan needed these resources to continue its economic development and maintain national integrity.\n\nLate Shōwa (1931–1947) – expansionism and war\n\nPrewar expansionism\n\nManchuria\n\nWith little resistance, Japan invaded and conquered Manchuria in 1931. Japan claimed that this invasion was a liberation of the Manchus from the Chinese, although the majority of the population were Han Chinese as a result of the large scale settlement of Chinese in Manchuria in the 19th century. Japan then established a puppet regime called Manchukuo, and installed the former Emperor of China, Puyi, as the official head of state. Jehol, a Chinese territory bordering Manchuria, was also taken in 1933. This puppet regime had to carry on a protracted pacification campaign against the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies in Manchuria. In 1936, Japan created a similar Mongolian puppet state in Inner Mongolia named Mengjiang (Chinese: 蒙疆), which was also predominantly Chinese as a result of recent Han immigration to the area. Japanese, Koreans, and Taiwanese were banned from immigration to North America and Australia. Manchukuo opened the immigration of Asians, and the Japanese population subsequently grew to 850,000.\n\nSecond Sino-Japanese War\n\nJapan invaded China in 1937, creating what was essentially a three-way war between Japan, Mao Zedong's communists, and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists. On December 13 of that same year, the Nationalist capital of Nanking surrendered to Japanese troops. In the event known as the Nanking Massacre, Japanese troops massacred a large number of the defending garrison. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 people, including civilians, may have been killed, although the actual numbers are uncertain and the government of the People's Republic of China has never undertaken a full accounting of the massacres. In total, an estimated 20 million Chinese, mostly civilians, were killed during World War II. A puppet state was also set up in China quickly afterwards, headed by Wang Jingwei. The second Sino-Japanese war continued into World War II with the Communists and Nationalists in a temporary and uneasy nominal alliance against the Japanese.\n\nClashes with the Soviet Union\n\nIn 1938, the Japanese 19th Division entered territory claimed by the Soviet Union, leading to the Battle of Lake Khasan. This incursion was founded in the Japanese belief that the Soviet Union misinterpreted the demarcation of the boundary, as stipulated in the Treaty of Peking, between Imperial Russia and Manchu China (and subsequent supplementary agreements on demarcation), and furthermore, that the demarcation markers were tampered with.\n\nOn May 11, 1939, in the Nomonhan Incident (Battle of Khalkhin Gol), a Mongolian cavalry unit of some 70 to 90 men entered the disputed area in search of grazing for their horses, and encountered Manchukuoan cavalry, who drove them out. Two days later the Mongolian force returned and the Manchukoans were unable to evict them.\n\nThe Japanese IJA 23rd Division and other units of the Kwantung Army then became involved. Joseph Stalin ordered Stavka, the Red Army's high command, to develop a plan for a counterstrike against the Japanese. In late August, Georgy Zhukov employed encircling tactics that made skillful use of superior artillery, armor, and air forces; this offensive nearly annihilated the 23rd Division and decimated the IJA 7th Division. On September 15 an armistice was arranged. Nearly two years later, on April 13, 1941, the parties signed a Neutrality Pact, in which the Soviet Union pledged to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of Manchukuo, while Japan agreed similarly for the Mongolian People's Republic.\n\nTripartite Pact\n\nIn 1938, Japan prohibited the expulsion of the Jews in Japan, Manchuria, and China in accordance with the spirit of racial equality on which Japan had insisted for many years.\n\nThe Second Sino-Japanese War had seen tensions rise between Imperial Japan and the United States; events such as the Panay incident and the Nanking Massacre turned American public opinion against Japan. With the occupation of French Indochina in the years of 1940–41, and with the continuing war in China, the United States placed embargoes on Japan of strategic materials such as scrap metal and oil, which were vitally needed for the war effort. The Japanese were faced with the option of either withdrawing from China and losing face or seizing and securing new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich, European-controlled colonies of South East Asia—specifically British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia).\n\nOn September 27, 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Their objectives were to \"establish and maintain a new order of things\" in their respective world regions and spheres of influence, with Nazi Germany in Europe, Imperial Japan in Asia, and Fascist Italy in North Africa. The signatories of this alliance become known as the Axis Powers. The pact also called for mutual protection—if any one of the member powers was attacked by a country not already at war, excluding the Soviet Union—and for technological and economic cooperation between the signatories.\n\nFor the sake of their own people and nation, Prime Minister Konoe formed the Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) on October 12, 1940 as their own ruling party in Japan, avoiding the influences of German Nazism and Italian Fascism.\n\nPacific War\n\nIn the Pacific War, many of the islands became dominions of the Empire.\n\nAttack on Pearl Harbor\n\nThe decision by Japan to attack the United States remains controversial. Study groups in Japan had predicted ultimate disaster in a war between Japan and the U.S., and the Japanese economy was already straining to keep up with the demands from the war with China. However, the U.S. had placed an oil embargo on Japan and Japan felt that the United States' demands were unacceptable. Facing an oil embargo by the United States as well as dwindling domestic reserves, the Japanese government decided to execute a plan developed by the military branch largely led by Osami Nagano and Isoroku Yamamoto to bomb the United States naval base in Hawaii, thereby bringing the United States to World War II on the side of the Allies. On September 4, 1941, the Japanese Cabinet met to consider the war plans prepared by Imperial General Headquarters, and decided:\nOur Empire, for the purpose of self-defense and self-preservation, will complete preparations for war ... [and is] ... resolved to go to war with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands if necessary. Our Empire will concurrently take all possible diplomatic measures vis-a-vis the United States and Great Britain, and thereby endeavor to obtain our objectives ... In the event that there is no prospect of our demands being met by the first ten days of October through the diplomatic negotiations mentioned above, we will immediately decide to commence hostilities against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.\n\nThe Imperial Japanese Navy made its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces sustained significant losses. The primary objective of the attack was to incapacitate the United States long enough for Japan to establish its long-planned Southeast Asian empire and defensible buffer zones. However, as Admiral Yamamoto feared, the attack produced little lasting damage to the US Navy with priority targets like the Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers out at sea and vital shore facilities, whose destruction could have crippled the fleet on their own, were ignored. Of more serious consequences, the U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied against the Empire of Japan. The United States entered the European Theatre and Pacific Theater in full force. Four days later, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy declared war on the United States, merging the separate conflicts.\n\nJapanese offensives (1941–42)\n\nFollowing the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched offensives against Allied forces in South East Asia, with simultaneous attacks on Hong Kong, British Malaya and the Philippines.\n\nThe South-East Asian Campaign was preceded by years of propaganda and espionage activities carried out in the region by the Japanese Empire. The Japanese espoused their vision of a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and an Asia for Asians to the people of South East Asia, who had lived under European rule for generations. As a result, many inhabitants in some of the colonies (particularly Indonesia) actually sided with the Japanese invaders for anti-colonial reasons. In particular the ethnic Chinese, who had witnessed the effects of a Japanese occupation in their homeland, did not side with the Japanese. The brutality of the Japanese in the newly conquered colonies would soon turn most people against them.\n\nHong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on December 25. In Malaya the Japanese overwhelmed an Allied army composed of British, Indian, Australian and Malay forces. The Japanese were quickly able to advance down the Malayan Peninsula, forcing the Allied forces to retreat towards Singapore. The Allies lacked aircover and tanks; the Japanese had total air superiority. The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse on December 10, 1941 led to the east coast of Malaya being exposed to Japanese landings and the elimination of British naval power in the area. By the end of January 1942, the last Allied forces crossed the strait of Johore and into Singapore.\n\nIn the Philippines, the Japanese pushed the combined Filipino-American force towards the Bataan peninsula and later the island of Corregidor. By January 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and President Manuel L. Quezon were forced to flee in the face of Japanese advance. This marked among one of the worst defeats suffered by the Americans, leaving over 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war in the custody of the Japanese.\n\nOn February 15, 1942, Singapore, due to the overwhelming superiority of Japanese forces and encirclement tactics, fell to the Japanese, causing the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. An estimated 80,000 Indian, Australian and British troops were taken as prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken in the Japanese invasion of Malaya (modern day Malaysia). Many were later used as forced labour constructing the Burma Railway, the site of the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai.\n\nImmediately following their invasion of British Malaya, the Japanese military carried out a purge of the Chinese population in Malaya and Singapore. Over the course of a month following their victory at Singapore, the Japanese are believed to have killed tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese perceived to be hostile to the new regime.\n\nThe Japanese then seized the key oil production zones of Borneo, Central Java, Malang, Cepu, Sumatra, and Dutch New Guinea of the late Dutch East Indies, defeating the Dutch forces. The Japanese then consolidated their lines of supply through capturing key islands of the Pacific, including Guadalcanal.\n\nPath to defeat (1942–45)\n\nJapanese military strategists were keenly aware of the unfavorable discrepancy between the industrial potential of the Japanese Empire and that of the United States. Because of this they reasoned that Japanese success hinged on their ability to extend the strategic advantage gained at Pearl Harbor with additional rapid strategic victories.\n\nThe Japanese Command reasoned that only decisive destruction of the United States' Pacific Fleet and conquest of its remote outposts would ensure that the Japanese Empire would not be overwhelmed by America's industrial might. In May 1942, failure to decisively defeat the Allies at the Battle of the Coral Sea, in spite of Japanese numerical superiority, equated to a strategic defeat for Imperial Japan.\n\nThis setback was followed in June 1942 by the catastrophic loss of a four carrier task force at the Battle of Midway. Midway was a decisive defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and proved to be the turning point of the war. Australian land forces defeated Japanese Marines in New Guinea at the Battle of Milne Bay in September 1942, which was the first land defeat suffered by the Japanese in the Pacific. Further defeats by the Allies at Guadalcanal in September 1942, and New Guinea in 1943 put the Empire of Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war.\n\nDuring 1943 and 1944, Allied forces, backed by the industrial might and vast raw material resources of the United States, advanced steadily towards Japan. The Sixth United States Army, led by General MacArthur, landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944. In the subsequent months, during the Philippines Campaign (1944–45), the combined United States forces, together with the native guerrilla units, liberated the Philippines.\n\nBy 1944, the Allies had seized or bypassed and neutralized many of Japan's strategic bases through amphibious landings and bombardment. This, coupled with the losses inflicted by Allied submarines on Japanese shipping routes began to strangle Japan's economy and undermine its ability to supply its army. By early 1945, the U.S. Marines had wrested control of the Ogasawara Islands in several hard-fought battles such as the Battle of Iwo Jima, marking the beginning of the fall of the islands of Japan.\n\nAir raids on Japan\n\nAfter securing airfields in Saipan and Guam in the summer of 1944, the United States Army Air Forces undertook an intense strategic bombing campaign, using incendiary bombs, burning Japanese cities in an effort to pulverize Japan's industry and shatter its morale. The Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, led to the deaths of approximately 100,000 civilians. Approximately 350,000–500,000 civilians died in 66 other Japanese cities as a result of the incendiary bombing campaign on Japan. Concurrent to these attacks, Japan's vital coastal shipping operations were severely hampered with extensive aerial mining by the U.S.'s Operation Starvation. Regardless, these efforts did not succeed in persuading the Japanese military to surrender. In mid-August 1945, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These atomic bombings were the first and only used against the enemy in warfare. These two bombs killed approximately 120,000 to 140,000 combatants and non-combatants in a matter of minutes, and as many again died as a result of nuclear radiation in the following weeks, months and years. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945.\n\nRe-entry of the Soviet Union\n\nAt the Yalta agreement, the USA, the UK, and the USSR had agreed that the USSR would enter the war on Japan within three months of the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. This Soviet-Japanese War (1945) led to the rapid fall of Japan's Manchurian occupation, Soviet occupation of south Sakhalin Island, and a real, imminent threat of Soviet invasion of the home islands of Japan. This was a significant factor for some internal parties in the Japanese decision to surrender to the USA and gain some protection, rather than face simultaneous Soviet invasion as well as defeat by the USA. Likewise, the superior numbers of the armies of the Soviet Union in Europe was a factor in the US decision to demonstrate the use of atomic weapons to the USSR, just as the allied victory in Europe was evolving into division of Germany and Berlin, the division of Europe with the Iron Curtain and the subsequent Cold War.\n\nDefeat and surrender\n\nHaving ignored (mokusatsu) the Potsdam Declaration, the Empire of Japan surrendered and ended World War II, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a declaration of war by the Soviet Union. In a national radio address on August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender to the Japanese people by Gyokuon-hōsō.\n\nAfter World War II\n\nOccupation of Japan\n\nA period known as Occupied Japan followed after the war, largely spearheaded by United States General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to revise the Japanese constitution and de-militarize Japan. The American occupation, with economic and political assistance, continued well into the 1950s. Allied forces ordered Japan to abolish the Meiji Constitution and enforce the Constitution of Japan, then rename the Empire of Japan as Japan on May 3, 1947. Japan adopted a parliamentary-based political system, while the Emperor changed to symbolic status.\n\nAmerican General of the Army Douglas MacArthur later commended the new Japanese government that he helped establish and the new Japanese period when he was about to send the American forces to the Korean War:\nThe Japanese people, since the war, have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history. With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have, from the ashes left in war's wake, erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the supremacy of individual liberty and personal dignity; and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice. Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and will not again fail the universal trust. ... I sent all four of our occupation divisions to the Korean battlefront without the slightest qualms as to the effect of the resulting power vacuum upon Japan. The results fully justified my faith. I know of no nation more serene, orderly, and industrious, nor in which higher hopes can be entertained for future constructive service in the advance of the human race.\n\nFor historian John W. Dower, however, In retrospect, apart from the military officer corps, the purge of alleged militarists and ultranationalists that was conducted under the Occupation had relatively small impact on the long-term composition of men of influence in the public and private sectors. The purge initially brought new blood into the political parties, but this was offset by the return of huge numbers of formerly purged conservative politicians to national as well as local politics in the early 1950s. In the bureaucracy, the purge was negligible from the outset. ... In the economic sector, the purge similarly was only mildly disruptive, affecting less than sixteen hundred individuals spread among some four hundred companies. Everywhere one looks, the corridors of power in postwar Japan are crowded with men whose talents had already been recognized during the war years, and who found the same talents highly prized in the 'new' Japan. \n\nRepatriation\n\nThere was a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Japanese Empire during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and Karafuto. Unlike emigrants to the Americas, Japanese going to the colonies occupied a higher rather than lower social niche upon their arrival. \n\nIn 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese in Taiwan. By the end of World War II, there were over 850,000 Japanese in Korea and more than 2 million in China, most of whom were farmers in Manchukuo (the Japanese had a plan to bring in 5 million Japanese settlers into\nManchukuo). \n\nIn the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Pacific Mandate was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese. By December 1941, Saipan had a population of more than 30,000 people, including 25,000 Japanese. There were over 400,000 people living on Karafuto (southern Sakhalin) when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean extraction. When Japan lost the Kuril Islands, 17,000 Japanese were expelled, most from the southern islands. \n\nAfter World War II, most of these overseas Japanese repatriated to Japan. The Allied powers repatriated over 6 million Japanese nationals from colonies and battlefields throughout Asia. Only a few remained overseas, often involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army and forced to work in Siberia. \n\nWar crimes\n\nMany political and military Japanese leaders were convicted for war crimes before the Tokyo tribunal and other Allied tribunals in Asia. However, all members of the imperial family implicated in the war, such as Emperor Shōwa and his brothers, cousins and uncles such as Prince Chichibu, Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu and Prince Asaka Yasuhiko, were exonerated from criminal prosecutions by Douglas MacArthur.\n\nThe Japanese military before and during World War II committed numerous atrocities against combatants and non-combatants. Its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prior to a declaration of war and without warning killed 2,403 neutral military personnel and civilians and wounded 1,247 others. Large scale massacres, rapes, and looting against civilians were committed, most notably the Sook Ching and the Nanking Massacre, and the use of around 200,000 \"comfort women\", who were forced to serve as prostitutes for the Japanese military. \n\nThe Imperial Japanese Army also engaged in the execution and harsh treatment of Allied prisoners of war. Biological experiments were conducted by Unit 731 on prisoners of war as well as civilians; this included the use of biological and chemical weapons authorized by Emperor Shōwa himself. According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed in Far East Asia by Japanese germ warfare and human experiments was estimated to be around 580,000. The members of Unit 731, including Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii, received immunity from General MacArthur in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. The deal was concluded in 1948. \n\nInfluential personnel\n\nPolitical\n\nIn the administration of Japan dominated by the military political movement during World War II, the civil central government was under the management of military men and their right-wing civilian allies, along with members of the nobility and Imperial Family. The Emperor was in the center of this power structure as supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Armed Forces and head of state.\n\nMilitary\n\nThe military of Imperial Japan was divided into two main branches: the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Army. To coordinate operations, the Imperial General Headquarters, headed by the Emperor, was established in 1893. Prominent generals and leaders:\n*Imperial Japanese Navy: Navy of Japan\n**Admiral Count Itō Sukeyuki (1843–1914)\n**Admiral Viscount Inoue Yoshika (1845–1929)\n**Admiral Marquis Tōgō Heihachirō (1847–1934) Battle of Tsushima\n**Admiral Prince Arisugawa Takahito (1862–1913)\n**Admiral Baron Ijuin Gorō (1852–1921)\n**Admiral Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito (1867–1922)\n**Admiral Baron Shimamura Hayao (1858–1923)\n**Admiral Baron Katō Tomosaburō (1861–1923)\n**Admiral Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu (1876–1946)\n**Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884–1943) Attack on Pearl Harbor, Battle of Midway\n**Admiral Osami Nagano (1880–1947)\n**Admiral Mineichi Koga (1885–1944)\n**Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo (1887–1944) Attack on Pearl Harbor, Battle of Midway \n*Imperial Japanese Army: Army of Japan\n**Marshal Prince Yamagata Aritomo: Chief of staff of the Army, Prime Minister of Japan\n**Marshal Prince Ōyama Iwao: Chief of staff of the Army\n**General Viscount Kodama Gentarō: Chief of staff of the Army\n**Marshal Viscount Uehara Yūsaku: Chief of staff of the Army\n**Marshal Prince Kotohito Kan'in: Chief of staff of the Army\n**Marshal Hajime Sugiyama: Chief of staff of the Army\n**General Kuniaki Koiso: Prime Minister of Japan\n**General Hideki Tōjō: Prime Minister of Japan\n**General Yoshijirō Umezu: Chief of staff of the Army\n\nTimeline\n\n*1926: Emperor Taishō dies (December 25).\n*1927: Tanaka Giichi becomes prime minister (April 20).\n*1928: Emperor Shōwa is formally installed as emperor (November 10).\n*1929: Osachi Hamaguchi becomes prime minister (July 2).\n*1930: Hamaguchi is wounded in an assassination attempt (November 14).\n*1931: Hamaguchi dies and Wakatsuki Reijirō becomes prime minister (April 14). Japan occupies Manchuria after the Mukden Incident (September 18). Inukai Tsuyoshi becomes prime minister (December 13) and increases funding for the military in China.\n*1932: After an attack on Japanese monks in Shanghai (January 18), Japanese forces shell the city (January 29). Manchukuo is established with Henry Pu Yi as emperor (February 29). Inukai is assassinated during a coup attempt and Saitō Makoto becomes prime minister (May 15). Japan is censured by the League of Nations (December 7).\n*1933: Japan leaves the League of Nations (March 27).\n*1934: Keisuke Okada becomes prime minister (July 8). Japan withdraws from the Washington Naval Treaty (December 29).\n*1936: Coup attempt (February 26 Incident). Kōki Hirota becomes prime minister (March 9). Japan signs its first pact with Germany (November 25) and occupies Tsingtao (December 3). Mengjiang established in Inner Mongolia.\n*1937: Senjūrō Hayashi becomes prime minister (February 2). Prince Fumimaro Konoe becomes prime minister (June 4). Battle of Lugou Bridge (July 7). Japan captures Beijing (July 31). Japanese troops occupy Nanjing (December 13), beginning the Nanjing Massacre.\n*1938: Battle of Taierzhuang (March 24). Canton falls to Japanese forces (October 21).\n*1939: Hiranuma Kiichirō becomes prime minister (January 5). Abe Nobuyuki becomes prime minister (August 30).\n*1940: Mitsumasa Yonai becomes prime minister (January 16). Konoe becomes prime minister for a second term (July 22). Hundred Regiments Offensive (August–September). Japan occupies Indochina in the wake of the fall of Paris, and signs the Tripartite Pact (September 27).\n*1941: General Hideki Tōjō becomes prime minister (October 18). Japanese naval forces attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (December 7), prompting the United States to declare war on Japan (December 8). Japan conquers Hong Kong (December 25).\n*1942: Battle of Ambon (January 30 – February 3). Battle of Palembang (February 13–15). Singapore surrenders to Japan (February 15). Japan bombs Australia (February 19). Indian Ocean raid (March 31 – April 10). Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (April 18). Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4–8). U.S. and Filipino forces in the Battle of the Philippines (1942) surrender (May 8). Japan defeated at the Battle of Midway (June 6). Allied victory in the Battle of Milne Bay (September 5). Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (October 25–27). \n*1943: Allied victory in Battle of Guadalcanal (February 9). Japan defeated at Battle of Tarawa (November 23).\n*1944: Tojo resigns and Kuniaki Koiso becomes prime minister (July 22). Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23–26).\n*1945: U.S. bombers begin firebombing of major Japanese cities. Japan defeated at Battle of Iwo Jima (March 26). Admiral Kantarō Suzuki becomes prime minister (April 7). Japan defeated at Battle of Okinawa (June 21). U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), The Soviet Union and Mongolia invade Japanese colonies of Manchukuo, Mengjiang (Inner Mongolia), Korea, Sakhalin and Kuril Islands (August 9–September 2). Japan surrenders (September 2): Allied occupation begins.\n*1947: Constitution of Japan comes into force.\n\nEmperors",
"Not to be confused with volcanic island.\n\nThe is a group of three Japanese islands south of the Bonin Islands that belong to the municipality of Ogasawara. The islands are all active volcanoes lying atop an island arc that stretches south to the Marianas. They have an area of and a population of 380.\n\nGeography \n\nThe Volcano Islands are:\n*Kita Iwo Jima (北硫黄島 Kita-Iō-jima or Kita-Iō-tō, literally North Sulphur Island), , (Sakaki-ga-mine)\n*Iwo Jima (硫黄島 Iō-jima or Iō-tō, literally Sulphur Island) , (Suribachi-yama)\n*Minami Iwo Jima (南硫黄島 Minami-Iō-jima or Minami-Iō-tō, literally South Sulphur Island) , \nFarther north but in the same volcanic arc is:\n*Nishino-shima (西之島, literally Western Island), \n\nThere is a Japan Self-Defense Forces air base on Iwo Jima with a staff of 380. It is located in the village of Minami (Iwo Jima village). Other than that, the islands are uninhabited.\n\nHistory \n\nThe first recorded sighting by Europeans was in October 1543 by Spanish navigator Bernardo de la Torre on board of carrack San Juan de Letrán when trying to return from Sarangani to New Spain. Iwo Jima was charted as Sufre, the old Spanish term for sulphur.\n\nThe islands were uninhabited until 1889, when the two northern islands were settled by Japanese settlers from the Izu Islands. They were annexed by Japan in 1891.\n\nThe population was about 1,100 in 1939, distributed among five settlements: Higashi, Minami, Nishi, Kita and Motoyama (meaning \"East\", \"South\", \"West\", \"North\" and \"Mountain of Origin\", or central mountain) on Iwo Jima; and two settlements on Kita Iwo Jima: Ishino-mura (\"Ishino village\"; Ishino is a surname) and Nishi-mura (\"West village\"). The municipal administration office was located in Higashi until 1940, when the municipality was integrated into the administration of Ogasawara, Tokyo.\n\nIwo Jima was the site of the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, and the island group came under United States administration. The Volcano Islands were reverted to Japanese administration in 1968."
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Ezzard Charles was a world champion in which sport?
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tc_50
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Ezzard Mack Charles (July 7, 1921 – May 28, 1975) was an American professional boxer and former World Heavyweight Champion.\n\nCharles defeated numerous Hall of Fame fighters in three different weight classes. He retired with a record of 93 wins, 25 losses and 1 draw.\n\nCareer \n\nHe was born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, but is commonly thought of as a Cincinnatian. Charles graduated from Woodward High School in Cincinnati where he was already becoming a well-known fighter. Known as \"The Cincinnati Cobra\", Charles fought many notable opponents in both the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, eventually winning the World Championship in the latter. Although he never won the Light Heavyweight title, The Ring has rated him as the greatest light heavyweight of all time.\n\nCareer beginnings and military service \n\nCharles started his career as a featherweight in the amateurs, where he had a record of 42–0. In 1938, he won the Diamond Belt Middleweight Championship. He followed this up in 1939 by winning the Chicago Golden Gloves tournament of champions. He won the national AAU Middleweight Championship in 1939. He turned pro in 1940, knocking out Melody Johnson in the 4th round. Charles won all of his first 15 fights before being defeated by veteran Ken Overlin. Victories over future Hall of Famers Teddy Yarosz and the much avoided Charley Burley had started to solidify Charles as a top contender in the middleweight division. However, he served in the U.S. military during World War II and was unable to fight professionally in 1945.\n\nWorld heavyweight champion \n\nHe returned to boxing after the war as a light heavyweight, picking up many notable wins over leading light heavyweights, as well as heavyweight contenders Archie Moore, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall and Elmer Ray. Shortly after his knock-out of Moore in their third and final meeting, tragedy struck. Charles fought a young contender named Sam Baroudi, knocking him out in Round 10. Baroudi died of the injuries he sustained in this bout. Charles was so devastated he almost gave up fighting. Charles was unable to secure a title shot at light heavyweight and moved up to heavyweight. After knocking out Joe Baksi and Johnny Haynes, Charles won the vacant National Boxing Association World Heavyweight title when he outpointed Jersey Joe Walcott over 15 rounds on June 22, 1949. The following year, he outpointed his idol and former World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis to become the recognized Lineal Champion. Successful defenses against Walcott, Lee Oma and Joey Maxim would follow.\n\nCharles vs. Marciano \n\nIn 1951, Charles fought Walcott a third time and lost the title by knockout in the seventh round. Charles lost a controversial decision in their fourth and final bout. If Charles had won this fight, he would have become the first man in history to regain the heavyweight championship. Remaining a top contender with wins over Rex Layne, Tommy Harrison and Coley Wallace, Charles knocked out Bob Satterfield in an eliminator bout for the right to challenge Heavyweight Champion Rocky Marciano. His two stirring battles with Marciano are regarded as ring classics. In the first bout, held in June 1954, he valiantly took Rocky the distance, going down on points in a vintage heavyweight bout. Charles is the only man ever to last the full 15-round distance against Marciano. A number of fans and boxing writers felt that Charles deserved the decision. In their September rematch, Charles landed a severe blow that literally split Marciano's nose in half. Marciano's cornermen were unable to stop the bleeding and the referee almost halted the contest until Marciano rallied with an 8th round knockout.\n\nLater career \n\nFinancial problems forced Charles to continue fighting, losing 13 of his final 23 fights (He held a record of 83 wins, 12 losses and 1 draws before financial problems became a factor in his career). He retired with a record of 93-25-1 (52 KOs).\n\nCharles was also a respected double bass player who played with some of the jazz greats in the 1940s and 1950s at such notable places as Birdland (jazz composer George Russell wrote the famous tune \"Ezz-Thetic\" in his honor). He was very close with Rocky Marciano and a neighbor and friend of Muhammad Ali when they both lived on 85th Street in Chicago. Charles also starred in one motion picture: Mau Mau Drums, an independent (and unreleased) jungle-adventure film shot in and around Cincinnati in 1960 by filmmaker Earl Schwieterman.\n\nDeath \n\nIn 1968, Charles was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which was called \"Lou Gehrig's disease\". The disease affected Charles legs and eventually left him completely disabled. A fund raiser was held to assist Charles and many of his former opponents spoke on his behalf. Rocky Marciano in particular called Charles the bravest man he ever fought. The former boxer spent his last days in a nursing home. A chilling 1973 commercial showed Charles in his wheelchair horribly disabled by the disease. Charles died on May 28, 1975 in Chicago\n\nLegacy \n\nIn 1976, Cincinnati honored Charles by changing the name of Lincoln Park Drive to Ezzard Charles Drive. This was the street of his residence during the height of his career. \n\nHe was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.\n\nIn 2002, Charles was ranked #13 on The Ring magazine's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years.\n\nIn 2006, Ezzard Charles was named the 11th greatest fighter of all time by the IBRO (International Boxing Research Organisation). \n\nThe \"Cincinnati Cobra\" was a master boxer of extraordinary skill and ability. He had speed, agility, fast hands and excellent footwork. Charles possessed a masterful jab and was a superb combination puncher. He was at his peak as a light-heavyweight. His record is quite impressive. Against top rate opposition like Archie Moore, Charley Burley, Lloyd Marshall, Jimmy Bivins, and Joey Maxim he was an impressive 16-2 combined. Despite being a natural light-heavy he won the heavyweight title and made 9 successful title defenses. Nearly 25% of voters had Charles in the top 10. Half of the voters had him in the top 15. Two thirds of voters had him inside the top 20.\n\nIn 2007, ESPN online ranks Ezzard Charles as the 27th greatest boxer of all time, ahead of such notable fighters as Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes and Jake LaMotta. \n\nIn 2009, Boxing magazine listed Ezzard Charles as the greatest Light Heavyweight fighter ever, ahead of the likes of Archie Moore, Bob Foster, Michael Spinks and Gene Tunney. \n\nProminent boxing historian Bert Sugar listed Charles as the 7th greatest Heavyweight of all time.\n\nProfessional boxing record \n\n|-\n| style\"text-align:center;\" colspan\n\"8\"|93 Wins (52 knockouts, 41 decisions), 25 Losses \n|- style=\"text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3;\"\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Res.\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Record\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Opponent\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Type\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Round\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Date\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Location\n| style=\"border-style:none none solid solid; \"|Notes\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|93–16\n|align=left| Toxie Hall\n|\n|10\n|1955-12-06\n|align=left| Rochester, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|92–16\n|align=left| Toxie Hall\n|\n|10\n|1955-11-14\n|align=left| Providence, Rhode Island, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|92–15\n|align=left| Tommy Hurricane Jackson\n|\n|\n|1955-08-31\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|92–14\n|align=left| Tommy Hurricane Jackson \n|\n|10 \n|1955-08-03\n|align=left| Syracuse, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|92–13\n|align=left| Paul Andrews \n|\n|10 \n|1955-07-13\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|91–13\n|align=left| Johnny Holman\n|\n|10 \n|1955-06-08\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|90–13\n|align=left| Johnny Holman \n|\n|9\n|1955-04-27 \n|align=left| Miami Beach, Florida, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|90-12\n|align=left| Vern Escoe \n|\n|10\n|1955-04-11\n|align=left| Edmonton, Alberta, Canada \n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|89–12\n|align=left| Charley Norkus \n|\n|10 \n|1955-02-18\n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|88–12\n|align=left| Rocky Marciano \n|\n|8 \n|1954-09-17\n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|88–11\n|align=left| Rocky Marciano \n|\n|\n|1954-06-17\n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|88–10\n|align=left| Bob Satterfield \n|\n|2 \n|1954-01-13\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|87–10\n|align=left| Coley Wallace\n|\n|10\n|1953-12-16\n|align=left| San Francisco, California, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|86–10\n|align=left| Harold Johnson\n|\n|10\n|1953-09-08\n|align=left| Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|86–9\n|align=left| Nino Valdez\n|\n|12\n|1953-08-11\n|align=left| Miami Beach, Florida, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|86–8\n|align=left| Larry Watson\n|\n|5 \n|1953-05-26\n|align=left| Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|85–8\n|align=left| Billy Gilliam\n|\n|10 \n|1953-05-12\n|align=left| Toledo, Ohio, United States\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|84–8\n|align=left| Rex Layne\n|\n|10 \n|1953-04-01\n|align=left| San Francisco, California, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|83–8\n|align=left| Tommy Harrison\n|\n|12\n|1953-02-04\n|align=left| MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|82–8\n|align=left| Wesbury Bascom \n|\n|9 \n|1953-01-14\n|align=left| St.Louis, Missouri, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|81–8\n|align=left| Frank Buford \n|\n|7 \n|1952-12-15\n|align=left| Boston, Massachusetts, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|80–8\n|align=left| Jimmy Bivins \n|\n|10\n|1952-11-26\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|79–8\n|align=left| Cesar Brion \n|\n|10 \n|1952-10-24 \n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|78–8\n|align=left| Bernie Reynolds \n|\n|2 \n|1952-10-08 \n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|77–8\n|align=left| Rex Layne \n|\n|10\n|1952-08-08\n|align=left| Ogden, Utah, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|77–7\n|align=left| Jersey Joe Walcott \n|\n|15 \n|1952-06-05\n|align=left| Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|77–6\n|align=left| Joe Kahut \n|\n|8 \n|1951-12-21\n|align=left| Portland, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|76–6\n|align=left| Joey Maxim\n|\n|15\n|1951-12-12\n|align=left| San Francisco, California, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|75–6\n|align=left| Rex Layne\n|\n|11 \n|1951-10-10\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|74–6\n|align=left| Jersey Joe Walcott\n|\n|7 \n|1951-07-18\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|74–5\n|align=left| Joey Maxim\n|\n|15 \n|1951-05-30\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|73–5\n|align=left| Jersey Joe Walcott\n|\n|15 \n|1951-03-07\n|align=left| Detroit, Michigan, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|72–5\n|align=left| Lee Oma\n|\n|10 \n|1951-01-12 \n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|71–5\n|align=left| Nick Barone\n|\n|11\n|1950-12-05\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|70–5\n|align=left| Joe Louis\n|\n|15 \n|1950-09-27\n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|69–5\n|align=left| Freddie Beshore\n|\n|14 \n|1950-08-15\n|align=left| Buffalo, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|68–5\n|align=left| Pat Valentino\n|\n|8 \n|1949-10-14\n|align=left| San Francisco, California, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|67–5\n|align=left| Gus Lesnevich\n|\n|7 \n|1949-08-10 \n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|66–5\n|align=left| Jersey Joe Walcott\n|\n|15 \n|1949-06-22\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|65–5\n|align=left| Joey Maxim\n|\n|15 \n|1949-02-28\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|64–5\n|align=left| Johnny Haynes\n|\n|8 \n|1949-02-07 \n|align=left| Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|63–5\n|align=left| Joe Baksi\n|\n|11 \n|1948-12-10\n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|62–5\n|align=left| Walter Hafer\n|\n|7 \n|1948-11-14\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|61–5\n|align=left| Jimmy Bivins\n|\n|10 \n|1948-10-13\n|align=left| Washington, D.C., United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|60–5\n|align=left| Erv Sarvin\n|\n|10 \n|1948-05-20\n|align=left| Buffalo, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|59–5\n|align=left| Elmer Ray \n|\n|9 \n|1948-05-07\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|58–5\n|align=left| Sam Baroudi \n| \n|10 \n|1948-02-20\n|align=left| Chicago, Illinois, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|57–5\n|align=left| Archie Moore \n|\n|8 \n|1948-01-13\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|56–5\n|align=left| Hilton \"Fitzie\" Fitzpatrick\n|\n|4 \n|1947-12-02\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|55-5\n|align=left| Teddy Randolph \n|\n|10 \n|1947-11-03 \n|align=left| Buffalo, New York, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|54–5\n|align=left| Clarence Jones\n|\n|1 \n|1947-10-27\n|align=left| Huntington, West Virginia, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|53–5\n|align=left| Al Smith\n|\n|4 \n|1947-10-16\n|align=left| Akron, Ohio, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|52–5\n|align=left| Lloyd Marshall \n|\n|2 \n|1947-09-29\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|51–5\n|align=left| Joe Matisi \n|\n|10\n|1947-09-16\n|align=left| Buffalo, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|50–5\n|align=left| Elmer Ray\n|\n|10 \n|1947-07-25 \n|align=left| New York, New York, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|50–4\n|align=left| Hilton \"Fitzie\" Fitzpatrick\n|\n|5 \n|1947-07-14\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|49-4\n|align=left| Archie Moore\n|\n|10\n|1947-07-14\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|48–4\n|align=left| Erv Sarlin\n|\n|10 \n|1947-05-05\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|47-4\n|align=left| Jimmy Bivins\n|\n|4 \n|1947-03-10 \n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|46–4\n|align=left| \"Oakland\" Billy Smith \n|\n|5 \n|1947-02-17\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|45–4\n|align=left| Jimmy Bivins\n|\n|10 \n|1946-11-12\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|44–4\n|align=left| \"Oakland\" Billy Smith\n|\n|10\n|1946-09-23 \n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|43–4\n|align=left| Lloyd Marshall\n|\n|6 \n|1946-07-29\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|42–4\n|align=left| Shelton Bell\n|\n|5 \n|1946-06-13\n|align=left| Youngstown, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|41–4\n|align=left| Archie Moore\n|\n|10\n|1946-05-20\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|40–4\n|align=left| Tommy \"Lee\" Hubert \n|\n|4 \n|1946-05-13\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|39–4\n|align=left| George Parks\n|\n|6 \n|1946-04-15\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|- align=center\n|Win\n|38–4\n|align=left| Billy Duncan\n|\n|4 \n|1946-04-01\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|37–4\n|align=left| Tommy \"Lee\" Hubert\n|\n|10 \n|1946-03-25\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|36–4\n|align=left| Al Sheridan\n| \n|2 \n|1946-02-18\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|35–4\n|align=left| Lloyd Marshall \n|\n|8 \n|1943-03-31\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|loss\n|35–3\n|align=left| Jimmy Bivins\n|\n|10 \n|1943-01-07\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|35–2\n|align=left| Joey Maxim\n|\n|10 \n|1942-12-01\n|align=left| Cleveland, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|34–2\n|align=left| Joey Maxim\n|\n|10\n|1942-10-27\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|33–2\n|align=left| Mose Brown\n|\n|6 \n|1942-09-15\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|32–2\n|align=left| Jose Basora\n|\n|5 \n|1942-08-17\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|31–2\n|align=left| Booker Beckwith\n|\n|9 \n|1942-06-27\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|30–2\n|align=left| Steve Mamakos\n|\n|1 \n|1942-06-14\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|29–2\n|align=left| Charley Burley\n|\n|10 \n|1942-06-29\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|28–2\n|align=left| Charley Burley\n|\n|10\n|1942-05-25\n|align=left| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|27–2\n|align=left| Evelio \"Kid\" Tunero\n|\n|10\n|1942-05-13\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|27–1\n|align=left| Billy Pryor\n|\n|10\n|1942-04-08\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|26–1\n|align=left| Ken Overlin\n|\n|10 \n|1942-03-02 \n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|25–1\n|align=left| Anton Christoforidis\n|\n|3 \n|1942-01-13\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|24–1\n|align=left| Teddy Yarosz\n|\n|10 \n| 1941-11-07\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|23–1\n|align=left| Pat Mangini\n|\n|1 \n|1941-09-13\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|22–1\n|align=left| Al Gilbert\n|\n|6 \n|1941-07-21\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Loss\n|21–1\n|align=left| Ken Overlin\n|\n|10 \n|1941-06-09\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|21–0\n|align=left| Rudy Kazole\n|\n|10\n|1941-05-12\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|20–0\n|align=left| Joe Sutka\n|\n|10 \n|1941-03-31\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|19–0\n|align=left| Floyd Howard\n|\n|7 \n|1941-03-10\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|18–0\n|align=left| Slaka Cavrich\n|\n|2 \n|1941-02-22\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|17–0\n|align=left| Billy Bengal \n|\n|10 \n|1941-02-10\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|16–0\n|align=left| Charlie Jerome\n|\n|2 \n|1940-12-02\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|15–0\n|align=left| Fidel Navarro\n|\n|1 \n|1940-11-31\n|align=left| Columbus, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|14–0\n|align=left| Bill Hood\n|\n|2 \n|1940-10-03\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|13–0\n|align=left| Martin Simmons\n|\n|10 \n|1940-09-23\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|12–0\n|align=left| Bradley Lewis\n|\n|3 \n|1940-06-24\n|align=left| San Francisco, California, United States\n\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|11–0\n|align=left| John Reeves\n|\n|4 \n|1940-06-12\n|align=left| Columbus, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|10–0\n|align=left| Frankie Williams\n|\n|7 \n|1940-06-05 \n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|9–0\n|align=left| Pat Wright\n|\n|4 \n|1940-05-17 \n|align=left| Middletown, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|8–0\n|align=left| Eddie Fowler\n|\n|3 \n|1940-05-10\n|align=left| Portsmouth, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|7–0\n|align=left| Remo Fernandez\n|\n|6\n|1940-04-24\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|6–0\n|align=left| Charley Banks\n|\n|2\n|1940-04-16\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|5–0\n|align=left| Kid Ash\n|\n|3 \n|1940-04-10\n|align=left| Portsmouth, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|4–0\n|align=left| Charley Banks\n|\n|6 \n|1940-04-02\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|3–0\n|align=left| John Reeves\n|\n|6 \n|1940-03-27\n|align=left| Cincinnati, Ohio, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|2–0\n|align=left| Jimmy Brown \n|\n|2\n|1940-03-20 \n|align=left| Reading, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left|\n|- align=center\n|Win\n|1–0\n|align=left| Medley Johnson\n|\n|3 \n|1940-03-15 \n|align=left| Middletown, Pennsylvania, United States\n|align=left| \n|}",
"Olympic sports are sports contested in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The 2012 Summer Olympics included 26 sports, with two additional sports due to be added to the 2016 Summer Olympics. The 2014 Winter Olympics included seven sports. The number and kinds of events may change slightly from one Olympiad to another. Each Olympic sport is represented by an international governing body, namely an International Federation (IF). The International Olympic Committee (IOC) establishes a hierarchy of sports, disciplines, and events. According to this hierarchy, the Olympic sports can be subdivided into multiple disciplines, which are often assumed to be distinct sports. Examples include swimming and water polo (disciplines of Aquatics, represented by the International Swimming Federation), or figure skating and speed skating (disciplines of Skating, represented by the International Skating Union). In their turn, disciplines can be subdivided into events, for which medals are actually awarded. A sport or discipline is included in the Olympic program if the IOC determines it is widely practiced around the world, that is, the number of countries that compete in a given sport is the indicator of the sport's prevalence. The IOC's requirements reflect participation in the Olympic Games as well—more stringent toward men (as they are represented in higher numbers) and Summer sports (as more nations compete in the Summer Olympics).\n\nPrevious Olympic Games included sports which are no longer present on the current program, like polo and tug of war. These sports, known as \"discontinued sports\", were later removed either because of lack of interest or absence of an appropriate governing body. Archery and tennis are examples of sports that were competed at the early Games and were later dropped by the IOC, but managed to return to the Olympic program (in 1972 and 1988, respectively). Demonstration sports have often been included in the Olympic Games, usually to promote a local sport from the host country or to gauge interest and support for the sport. Some such sports, like baseball and curling, were added to the official Olympic program (in 1992 and 1998, respectively). Baseball, however, was discontinued after the 2008 Summer Olympics.\n\nOlympic sports definitions\n\nThe term \"sport\" in Olympic terminology refers to all the events that are sanctioned by one international sport federation, a definition that may be different from the common meaning of the word sport. One sport, by Olympic definition, may be divided into several disciplines, which are often regarded as separate sports in common language.\n\nFor example: Aquatics is a summer Olympic sport that includes six disciplines: Swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, water polo, open water swimming, and high diving (the last of which is a non-Olympic discipline), since all these disciplines are governed at international level by the International Swimming Federation. Skating is a winter Olympic sport represented by the International Skating Union, and includes four disciplines: figure skating, speed skating (on a traditional long track), short track speed skating and synchronized skating (the latter is a non-Olympic discipline). The sport with the largest number of Olympic disciplines is skiing, with six: alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, nordic combined, snowboarding and freestyle skiing.\n\nOther notable multi-discipline sports are gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and trampoline), cycling (road, track, mountain and BMX), volleyball (indoors and beach), wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman), canoeing (flatwater and slalom) and bobsleigh (includes skeleton). The disciplines listed here are only those contested in the Olympics—gymnastics has two non-Olympic disciplines, while cycling and wrestling have three each.\n\nIt should also be noted that the IOC definition of a \"discipline\" may differ from that used by an international federation. For example, the IOC considers artistic gymnastics a single discipline, but the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) classifies men's and women's artistic gymnastics as separate disciplines. Similarly, the IOC considers freestyle wrestling to be a single discipline, but United World Wrestling uses \"freestyle wrestling\" strictly for the men's version, classifying women's freestyle wrestling as the separate discipline of \"female wrestling\". \n\nOn some occasions, notably in the case of snowboarding, the IOC agreed to add sports which previously had a separate international federation to the Olympics on condition that they dissolve their governing body and instead affiliate with an existing Olympic sport federation, therefore not increasing the number of Olympic sports.\n\nAn event, by IOC definition, is a competition that leads to the award of medals. Therefore, the sport of aquatics includes a total of 46 Olympic events, of which 32 are in the discipline of swimming, eight in diving, and two each in synchronized swimming, water polo, and open water swimming. The number of events per sport ranges from a minimum of two (until 2008 there were sports with only one event) to a maximum of 47 in athletics, which despite its large number of events and its diversity is not divided into disciplines.\n\nChanges in Olympic sports\n\nThe list of Olympic sports has changed considerably during the course of Olympic history, and has gradually increased until the early 2000s, when the IOC decided to cap the number of sports in the Summer Olympics at 28.\n\nThe only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic program are athletics, aquatics (the discipline of swimming has been in every Olympics), cycling, fencing, and gymnastics (the discipline of artistic gymnastics has been in every Olympics).\n\nThe only winter sports that were included in all Winter Olympic Games are skiing (only nordic skiing), skating (figure skating and speed skating) and ice hockey. Figure skating and ice hockey were also included in the Summer Olympics before the Winter Olympics were introduced in 1924.\n\nFor most of the 20th century, demonstration sports were included in many Olympic Games, usually to promote a non-Olympic sport popular in the host country, or to gauge interest and support for the sport.\nThe competitions and ceremonies in these sports were identical to official Olympic sports, except that the medals were not counted in the official record.\nSome demonstration sports, like baseball and curling, were later added to the official Olympic program.\nThis changed when the International Olympic Committee decided in 1989 to eliminate demonstration sports from Olympics Games after 1992. An exception was made in 2008, when the Beijing Organizing Committee received permission to organize a wushu tournament. \n\nA sport or discipline may be included in the Olympic program if the IOC determines that it is widely practiced around the world, that is, the number of countries and continents that regularly compete in a given sport is the indicator of the sport's prevalence. The requirements for winter sports are considerably lower than for summer sports since many fewer nations compete in winter sports. The IOC also has lower requirements for inclusion of sports and disciplines for women for the same reason. \nWomen are still barred from several disciplines; but on the other hand, there are women-only disciplines, such as rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.\n\nSports that depend primarily on mechanical propulsion, such as motor sports, may not be considered for recognition as Olympic sports, though there were power-boating events in the early days of the Olympics before this rule was enacted by the IOC. Part of the story of the founding of aviation sports' international governing body, the FAI, originated from an IOC meeting in Brussels, Belgium on June 10, 1905. \n\nThese criteria are only a threshold for consideration as Olympic sport. In order to be admitted to the Olympic program, the IOC Session has to approve its inclusion. There are many sports that easily make the required numbers but are not recognized as Olympic sports, mainly because the IOC has decided to put a limit on the number of sports, as well as events and athletes, in the Summer Olympics in order not to increase them from the 28 sports, 300 events and 10,000 athletes of the 2000 Summer Olympics.\n\nNo such limits exist in the Winter Olympics and the number of events and athletes continue to increase, but no sport has been added since 1998. The latest winter sport added to the Winter Olympics was curling in 1998.\n\nPrevious Olympic Games included sports which are no longer present on the current program, like polo and tug of war. In the early days of the modern Olympics, the organizers were able to decide which sports or disciplines were included on the program, until the IOC took control of the program in 1924. As a result, a number of sports were on the Olympic program for relatively brief periods before 1924. These sports, known as discontinued sports, were removed because of lack of interest or absence of an appropriate governing body, or because they became fully professional at the time that the Olympic Games were strictly for amateurs, as in the case of tennis.\nSeveral discontinued sports, such as archery and tennis, were later readmitted to the Olympic program (in 1972 and 1984, respectively). Curling, which was an official sport in 1924 and then discontinued, was reinstated as Olympic sport in 1998.\n\nThe Olympic Charter decrees that Olympic sports for each edition of the Olympic Games should be decided at an IOC Session no later than seven years prior to the Games.\n\nChanges since 2000\n\nThe only sports that have been dropped from the Olympics since 1936 are baseball and softball, which were both voted out by the IOC Session in Singapore on July 11, 2005, a decision that was reaffirmed on February 9, 2006. These sports were last included in 2008, although officially they remain recognized as Olympic sports in the Olympic Charter. Therefore, the number of sports in the 2012 Summer Olympics was dropped from 28 to 26.\n\nFollowing the addition of women's boxing in 2012, and women's ski jumping in 2014, there are no Olympic sports that are only for men in those Games.\n\nTwo discontinued sports, golf and rugby, are due to return for the 2016 Summer Olympics. On August 13, 2009, the IOC Executive Board proposed that golf and rugby sevens be added to the Olympic program for the 2016 Games. On 9 October 2009, during the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, the IOC voted to admit both sports as official Olympic sports and to include them in the 2016 Summer Olympics. The IOC voted 81–8 in favor of including rugby sevens and 63–27 in favor of reinstating golf, thus bringing the number of sports back to 28. \n\nIn February 2013, the IOC considered dropping a sport from the 2020 Summer Olympics to make way for a new sport. Modern pentathlon and taekwondo were thought to be vulnerable, but instead the IOC recommended dismissing wrestling. On September 8, 2013, the IOC added wrestling to the 2020 and 2024 Summer Games. \n\nSummer Olympics\n\nAt the first Olympic Games, nine sports were contested. Since then, the number of sports contested at the Summer Olympic Games has gradually risen to twenty-eight on the program for 2000-2008. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, however, the number of sports fell back to twenty-six following an IOC decision in 2005 to remove baseball and softball from the Olympic program. These sports retain their status as Olympic sports with the possibility of a return to the Olympic program in future games. At the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen on 9 October 2009, the IOC voted to reinstate both golf and rugby to the Olympic program, meaning that the number of sports to be contested in 2016 will once again be 28. \n\nIn order for a sport or discipline to be considered for inclusion in the list of Summer Olympics sports, it must be widely practiced in at least 75 countries, spread over four continents.\n\nCurrent and discontinued summer program\n\nThe following sports (or disciplines of a sport) make up the current and discontinued Summer Olympic Games official program and are listed alphabetically according to the name used by the IOC. The discontinued sports were previously part of the Summer Olympic Games program as official sports, but are no longer on the current program. The figures in each cell indicate the number of events for each sport contested at the respective Games; a bullet () denotes that the sport was contested as a demonstration sport.\n\nSeven of the 28 sports consist of multiple disciplines. Disciplines from the same sport are grouped under the same color:\n\n Aquatics –\n Canoeing/Kayak –\n Cycling –\n Gymnastics –\n Volleyball –\n Equestrian –\n Wrestling\n\nDemonstration summer sports\n\nThe following sports or disciplines have been demonstrated at the Summer Olympic Games for the years shown, but have never been included on the official Olympic program:\n\n* American football (1932)\n* Australian football (1956)\n* Ballooning (1900)\n* Bowling (1988)\n* Boules (1900)\n* Budō (1964)\n* Finnish baseball (1952)\n* Glima (1912)\n* Gliding (1936)\n* Kaatsen (1928)\n* Korfball (1920 and 1928)\n* La canne (1924)\n* Surf lifesaving (1900)\n* Longue paume (1900)\n* Motorsport (1900)\n* Roller hockey (1992)\n* Savate (1924)\n* Swedish (Ling) gymnastics (1948)\n* Weight training with dumbbells (1904)\n* Water skiing (1972)\n\nGliding was promoted from demonstration sport to an official Olympic sport in 1936 in time for the 1940 Summer Olympics, but the Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II. \n\nClassification of Olympic sports for revenue share\n\nSummer Olympic sports are divided into categories based on popularity, gauged by: television viewing figures (40%), internet popularity (20%), public surveys (15%), ticket requests (10%), press coverage (10%), and number of national federations (5%). The category determines the share the sport's International Federation receives of Olympic revenue. \n\nThe current categories are listed below. Category A represents the most popular sports; category E lists either the sports that are the least popular or that are new to the Olympics (golf and rugby).\n\nWinter Olympics\n\nBefore 1924, when the first Winter Olympic Games were celebrated, sports held on ice, like figure skating and ice hockey, were held at the Summer Olympics. These two sports made their debuts at the 1908 and the 1920 Summer Olympics, respectively, but were permanently integrated in the Winter Olympics program as of the first edition. The International Winter Sports Week, later dubbed the I Olympic Winter Games and retroactively recognized as such by the IOC, consisted of nine sports. The number of sports contested at the Winter Olympics has since been decreased to seven, comprising a total of fifteen disciplines. \n\nA sport or discipline must be widely practiced in at least 25 countries on three continents in order to be included on the Winter Olympics program.\n\nCurrent winter program\n\nThe following sports (or disciplines of a sport) make up the current Winter Olympic Games official program and are listed alphabetically, according to the name used by the IOC. The figures in each cell indicate the number of events for each sport that were contested at the respective Games (the red cells indicate that those sports were held at the Summer Games); a bullet denotes that the sport was contested as a demonstration sport. On some occasions, both official medal events and demonstration events were contested in the same sport at the same Games.\n\nThree out of the seven sports consist of multiple disciplines. Disciplines from the same sport are grouped under the same color:\n\n Skating –\n Skiing –\n Bobsleigh\n\n1 As military patrol, see below.\n\nDemonstration winter sports\n\nThe following sports have been demonstrated at the Winter Olympic Games for the years shown, but have never been included on the official Olympic program:\n\n* Bandy (1952)\n* Disabled skiing (1984 and 1988)\n* Ice stock sport (1936, 1964)\n* Military patrol (1928, 1936 and 1948)\n* Ski ballet (acroski) (1988 and 1992)\n* Skijoring (1928)\n* Sled-dog racing (1932)\n* Speed skiing (1992)\n* Winter Pentathlon (1948)\n\nMilitary patrol was an official skiing event in 1924 but the IOC currently considers it an event of biathlon in those games, and not as a separate sport. Ski ballet, similarly, was simply a demonstration event falling under the scope of freestyle skiing. Disabled sports are now part of the Winter Paralympic Games.\n\nRecognized international federations\n\nMany sports are not recognized as Olympic sports although their governing bodies are recognized by the IOC. Such sports, if eligible under the terms of the Olympic Charter, may apply for inclusion in the program of future Games, through a recommendation by the IOC Olympic Programme Commission, followed by a decision of the IOC Executive Board and a vote of the IOC Session. When Olympic demonstration sports were allowed, a sport usually appeared as such before being officially admitted. An International Sport Federation (IF) is responsible for ensuring that the sport's activities follow the Olympic Charter. When a sport is recognized the IF become an official Olympic sport federation and can assemble with other Olympic IFs in the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF, for summer sports contested in the Olympic Games), Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWS, for winter sports contested in the Olympic Games) or Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF, for sports not contested in the Olympic Games). A number of recognized sports are included in the program of the World Games, a multi-sport event run by the International World Games Association, an organization that operates under the patronage of the IOC. Since the start of the World Games in 1981, a number of sports, including badminton, taekwondo and triathlon have all subsequently been incorporated into the Olympic program.\n\nThe governing bodies of the following sports, though not contested in the Olympic Games, are recognized by the IOC: \n\n* Air sports1,3\n* American football \n* Auto racing3\n* Bandy\n* Baseball and Softball1,2,4\n* Billiard sports1\n* Boules1\n* Bowling1\n* Bridge\n* Chess\n* Cricket2\n* Dance sport1\n* Floorball\n* Karate1\n* Korfball1\n* Lifesaving1\n* Motorcycle racing3\n* Mountaineering and Climbing1\n* Netball\n* Orienteering1\n* Pelota Vasca\n* Polo2\n* Powerboating3\n* Racquetball1\n* Roller sports1\n* Ski Mountaineering\n* Sport climbing\n* Squash1\n* Sumo1\n* Surfing\n* Tug of war1,2\n* Underwater sports1 \n* Ultimate (Flying disc)1 \n* Water ski3\n* Wushu\n\n1 Official sport at the World Games\n2 Discontinued Olympic sport\n3 Ineligible to be included because the Olympic Charter bans sports with motorization elements\n4 The governing bodies for baseball and softball merged into a single international federation in 2013."
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Who was the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), nicknamed Slim, Lucky Lindy, and The Lone Eagle, was an American aviator, author, inventor, military officer, explorer, and social activist. In 1927, at the age of 25, Lindbergh emerged from the virtual obscurity of a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo nonstop flight from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France. He flew the distance of nearly in a single-seat, single-engine, purpose-built Ryan monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh was the 19th person to make a Transatlantic flight, the first being the Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown from Newfoundland in 1919, but Lindbergh's flight was almost twice the distance. The record-setting flight took hours. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.\n\nIn the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, his infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the \"Crime of the Century\". It was described by journalist H. L. Mencken as \"the biggest story since the resurrection\" and prompted Congress to make kidnapping a federal crime and give the Federal Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction over such cases. The kidnapping eventually led to the Lindbergh family being \"driven into voluntary exile\" in Europe, to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to \"seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria\" in America. The Lindberghs returned to the United States in April 1939.\n\nBefore the United States formally entered World War II, some accused Lindbergh of being a fascist sympathizer. He supported the isolationist America First movement, which advocated that America remain neutral during the war, as had his father, Congressman Charles August Lindbergh, during World War I. This conflicted with the Franklin Roosevelt administration's official policy, which sought to protect Britain from a German takeover. Lindbergh subsequently resigned his commission as a colonel in the United States Army Air Forces in April 1941 after being publicly rebuked by President Roosevelt for his isolationist views. Nevertheless, Lindbergh publicly supported the war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant, though President Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission. In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, inventor, and environmentalist.\n\nEarly years\n\nAlthough born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1902, Lindbergh spent most of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. He was the third child of Charles August Lindbergh (birth name Carl Månsson; 1859–1924) who had emigrated from Sweden to Melrose, Minnesota as an infant, and his only child with his second wife, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh (1876–1954), of Detroit. Charles' parents separated in 1909 when he was seven. Lindbergh's father, a U.S. Congressman (R-MN-6) from 1907 to 1917, was one of the relatively few Congressmen to oppose the entry of the U.S. into World War I (although his congressional term ended a month prior to the House of Representatives voting to declare war on Germany). Mrs. Lindbergh was a chemistry teacher at Cass Technical High School in Detroit and later at Little Falls High School from which her son graduated on June 5, 1918. Lindbergh also attended over a dozen other schools from Washington, D.C., to California, during his childhood and teenage years (none for more than a year or two), including the Force School and Sidwell Friends School while living in Washington with his father, and Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California, while living there with his mother. Although he enrolled in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in late 1920, Lindbergh dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year and then headed for Lincoln, Nebraska, in March 1922 to begin flight training. \n\nEarly aviation career\n\nFrom an early age, Lindbergh had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation, including his family's Saxon Six automobile, and later his Excelsior motorbike. By the time he started college as a mechanical engineering student, he had also become fascinated with flying, though he \"had never been close enough to a plane to touch it.\" After quitting college in February 1922, Lindbergh enrolled as a student at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school in Lincoln two months later and flew for the first time in his life on April 9, 1922, when he took to the air as a passenger in a two-seat Lincoln Standard \"Tourabout\" biplane trainer piloted by Otto Timm. \n\nA few days later, Lindbergh took his first formal flying lesson in that same machine with instructor-pilot Ira O. Biffle, although the then 20-year-old student pilot was never permitted to \"solo\" during his time at the school because he could not afford to post a bond that the company President Ray Page insisted upon in the event the novice flyer were to damage the school's only trainer in the process. To both gain some needed flight experience and earn money for additional instruction, Lindbergh left Lincoln in June to spend the next few months barnstorming across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana as a wing walker and parachutist with E.G. Bahl and later H.L. Lynch. During this time, he also briefly held a job as an airplane mechanic in Billings, Montana, working at the Billings Municipal Airport (later renamed Billings Logan International Airport). \n\nWith the onset of winter, however, Lindbergh left flying and returned to his father's home in Minnesota. His return to the air and first solo flight would, therefore, not come until half a year later in May 1923 at Souther Field in Americus, Georgia, a former Army flight training field, where he had come to buy a World War I surplus Curtiss JN-4 \"Jenny\" biplane. Though Lindbergh had not touched an airplane in more than six months, he had already secretly decided he was ready to take to the air by himself. After a half-hour of dual time with a pilot who was visiting the field to pick up another surplus JN-4, Lindbergh flew solo for the first time in the Jenny he had just purchased for $500. After spending another week or so at the field to \"practice\" (thereby acquiring five hours of \"pilot in command\" time), Lindbergh took off from Americus for Montgomery, Alabama, on his first solo cross-country flight, and went on to spend much of the rest of 1923 engaged in almost nonstop barnstorming under the name of \"Daredevil Lindbergh\". Unlike the previous year, however, this time Lindbergh did so in his \"own ship\"—and as a pilot. A few weeks after leaving Americus, the young airman also achieved another key aviation milestone when he made his first flight at night near Lake Village, Arkansas. \n\nWhile barnstorming in Lone Rock, WI Lindbergh helped local physician Dr. Bertha Reynolds make two emergency calls by transporting her across the Wisconsin River to patients in Clyde and Plain, which she otherwise could not have reached due to Spring flooding. Lindbergh damaged his Jenny on several occasions over the summer by breaking the propeller on landing, including such as on May 18, 1923, just outside Maben, Mississippi. His most serious accident came when he ran into a ditch in a farm field in Glencoe, Minnesota, on June 3, 1923, while flying his father (who was then running for the U.S. Senate) to a campaign stop. The accident grounded him for a week until he could repair his plane. Lindbergh flew his Jenny to Iowa in October, where he sold it to a flying student. (Found stored in a barn in Iowa almost half a century later, Lindbergh's dismantled Jenny was carefully restored in the early 1970s and is now on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York, adjacent to the site once occupied by Roosevelt Field, from which Lindbergh took off on his flight to Paris in 1927.) After selling the Jenny, Lindbergh returned to Lincoln by train. There, he joined Leon Klink and continued to barnstorm through the South for the next few months in Klink's Curtiss JN-4C \"Canuck\" (the Canadian version of the Jenny). Lindbergh also \"cracked up\" this aircraft once when his engine failed shortly after take-off in Pensacola, Florida, but again he managed to repair the damage himself. \n\nFollowing a few months of barnstorming through the South, the two pilots parted company in San Antonio, Texas, where Lindbergh had been ordered to report to Brooks Field on March 19, 1924, to begin a year of military flight training with the United States Army Air Service both there and later at nearby Kelly Field. Late in his training, Lindbergh experienced his most serious flying accident on March 5, 1925, eight days before graduation. He was involved in a midair collision with another Army S.E.5 while practicing aerial combat maneuvers and was forced to bail out. Only 18 of the 104 cadets who started flight training a year earlier remained when Lindbergh graduated first overall in his class in March 1925, thereby earning his Army pilot's wings and a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Service Reserve Corps. \n\nLindbergh later said that this year of Army flight training was critically important in his development as both a focused, goal-oriented individual, and as a skillful and resourceful aviator. With the Army not then in need of additional active-duty pilots, however, immediately following graduation, Lindbergh returned to civilian aviation as a barnstormer and flight instructor, although as a reserve officer, he also continued to do some part-time military flying by joining the 110th Observation Squadron, 35th Division, Missouri National Guard, in St. Louis in November 1925. He was soon promoted to 1st Lieutenant. \n\nAir Mail pilot, pioneer, and promoter\n\nIn October 1925, Lindbergh was hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation (RAC) in St. Louis (where he had been working as a flight instructor) to first lay out, and then serve as chief pilot for the newly designated 278 mi Contract Air Mail Route #2 (CAM-2) to provide service between St. Louis and Chicago (Maywood Field) with two intermediate stops in Springfield and Peoria, Illinois. Operating from RAC's home base at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field in Anglum, Missouri, Lindbergh and three other RAC pilots, Philip R. Love, Thomas P. Nelson, and Harlan A. \"Bud\" Gurney, flew the mail over CAM-2 in a fleet of four modified war-surplus de Havilland DH-4 biplanes.\n\nCoincidentally, in 1925, just before he signed on to fly with CAM, Lindbergh had applied to serve as a pilot on CDR (later RADM) Richard E. Byrd's famed North Pole expedition, but apparently his bid came too late.Berg [http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781101494288,00.html?Lindbergh_A._Scott_Berg 1995, p. 95.]\n\nTwo days before he opened service on the route on April 15, 1926, with its first early-morning southbound flight from Chicago to St. Louis, Lindbergh officially became authorized to be entrusted with the \"care, custody, and conveyance\" of U.S. Mails by formally subscribing and swearing to the Post Office Department's 1874 Oath of Mail Messengers. Twice during the 10 months he flew CAM-2, Lindbergh would be called upon to exhibit his faithfulness to that oath after temporarily losing custody and control of mails he was transporting when he was forced to bail out of his mail plane owing to bad weather, equipment problems, and/or fuel exhaustion. In the two incidents, which both occurred while he was approaching Chicago at night, Lindbergh came down by parachute near small farming communities in northeastern Illinois. On September 16, 1926, he came down about 60 mi southwest of Chicago near the town of Wedron, while six weeks later, on November 3, 1926, Lindbergh bailed out again about 70 mi further south, hitting the ground in another farm field west of the city of Bloomington near the town of Covell. After landing without serious injury on both occasions, Lindbergh's first concern was to immediately locate the wreckage of his crashed mail planes, make sure the bags of mail were promptly secured and salvaged, and then see that they were entrained or trucked on to Chicago with as little delay as possible. Lindbergh continued on as chief pilot of CAM-2 until mid-February 1927, when he left for San Diego, California, to oversee the design and construction of the Spirit of St. Louis. \n\nAlthough Lindbergh never returned to service as a regular U.S. Air Mail pilot, he used the immense fame his New York to Paris flight brought him to help promote the use of the U.S. Air Mail Service. While he carried no official mail in the Spirit to Paris or during the subsequent three-month, 48-state Guggenheim tour, at the request of Capt. Basil L. Rowe, the owner and chief pilot of West Indian Aerial Express (later Pan Am's chief pilot, as well) and a fellow Air Mail pioneer and advocate, in February 1928, Lindbergh carried a small amount (about 3,000 pieces) of special souvenir mail between Santo Domingo, R.D., Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Havana, Cuba, in the Spirit of St. Louis. These rare Lindbergh-flown \"Good Will Tour\" covers remain very highly prized by collectors of Air Mail postal history, especially as many of the Port-au-Prince to Havana covers were later destroyed during a hurricane that struck Havana in 1931. Those cities were the last three stops he and the Spirit made during their 7800 mi \"Good Will Tour\" of Latin America and the Caribbean between December 13, 1927, and February 8, 1928. The final two legs of the 48-day tour were also the only flights on which officially sanctioned, postally franked mail was ever carried in the Spirit of St. Louis. \n\nExactly two weeks after completing his Latin American tour, Lindbergh \"returned\" to flying CAM-2 for two days so he could pilot a series of special flights over his old route on February 20 (northbound) and February 21 (southbound). Known as \"Horseshoe Mail\" because each piece received a rubber stamp cachet of a large horseshoe with the legend \"LINDBERGH AGAIN FLIES THE AIR MAIL\" and \"CHICAGO ST. LOUIS C.A.M. 2\", there was such huge demand for covers carried on these flights that three mailplanes were used to fly it between St. Louis to Chicago that were flown by Lindbergh and fellow CAM-2 pilots Thomas Nelson, Philip Love, Bud Gurney, E.L. Sloniger, and L.H. Smith. At each stop on the route, Lindbergh switched planes so it could be said that he flew each one of the tens of thousands of self-addressed souvenir covers sent in from all over the nation and the world. After being flown, the covers were backstamped and returned to their senders as a further means to promote awareness and the use of the Air Mail Service. \n\nIn 1929–31, Lindbergh carried much smaller numbers of souvenir covers on the first flights over routes in Latin America and the Caribbean, which he had earlier laid out as a consultant to Pan American Airways to be then flown under contract to the Post Office Department as Foreign Air Mail (FAM) routes 5 and 6. Collectors still seek Lindberghiana—these covers and other artifacts associated with or carried on flights piloted by Lindbergh. \n\nThe Orteig Prize, Spirit of St. Louis, and New York–Paris flight\n\nDesignated as an award to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris within five years after its establishment, the $25,000 Orteig Prize was first offered by the French-born New York hotelier (Lafayette Hotel) Raymond Orteig on May 19, 1919. Although that initial time limit lapsed without a serious challenger, the state of aviation technology had advanced sufficiently by 1924 to prompt Orteig to extend his offer for another five years, and this time it began to attract an impressive grouping of well-known, highly experienced, and well-financed contenders. The one exception among these competitors, however, was the still boyish-looking Lindbergh. A 25-year-old relative latecomer to the race, in relation to the others, Lindbergh was also virtually anonymous as an aviation figure. He not only had considerably less overall flying experience (and none over water) than the others, but also Lindbergh's efforts were being financed only by a single $15,000 bank loan, a $1,000 donation from his employer as an Air Mail pilot, and his own modest savings. \n\nThe first of the well-known challengers to attempt a flight was famed World War I French flying ace René Fonck. On September 21, 1926, he attempted to fly eastbound from Roosevelt Field in New York in a three-engine Sikorsky S-35, but never got off the ground as his grossly overloaded (by 10,000 lb) transport biplane crashed and burned on takeoff when its landing gear collapsed. Unlike the later weight-conscious Lindbergh, Fonck wanted to arrive in Paris in sumptuous style and carried a sofa and refrigerator in his Sikorsky. While Fonck escaped the flames, his two crew members, Charles N. Clavier and Jacob Islamoff, died in the fire. U.S. Naval aviators LCDR Noel Davis and LT Stanton H. Wooster were also killed in a takeoff accident at Langley Field, Virginia, on April 26, 1927, while testing the three-engine Keystone Pathfinder biplane, American Legion, that they intended to use for the flight. Less than two weeks later, the first contenders to actually get airborne were French war heroes Captain Charles Nungesser and his navigator, François Coli, who departed from Paris – Le Bourget Airport on May 8, 1927, on a westbound flight in the Levasseur PL 8 seaplane The White Bird (L'Oiseau Blanc). Contact was lost with them over the coast of Ireland, however, and they were never seen or heard from again. \n\nAmerican air racer Clarence D. Chamberlin and Arctic explorer Richard E. Byrd were also in the race. Although he did not win, Chamberlin and his passenger, Charles A. Levine, made the far less-well-remembered second successful nonstop, single-pilot flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean in the single-engine Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Miss Columbia (N-X-237), leaving Roosevelt Field on June 4, 1927, two weeks after Lindbergh's flight and landing in Eisleben, Germany 43 hours and 31 minutes later on June 6, 1927. Ironically, the Chamberlin monoplane was the same one the Lindbergh group had originally intended to purchase for his attempt, but passed on when the manufacturer insisted on selecting the pilot. Byrd followed suit in the Fokker F.VII trimotor, America, flying with three others from Roosevelt Field on June 29, 1927. Although they reached Paris on July 1, 1927, Byrd was unable to land because of poor weather and was forced to return to the Normandy coast where he ditched the trimotor high-wing monoplane in the surf near the French village of Ver-sur-Mer. \n\nAcquiring the Spirit of St. Louis\n\nAs an otherwise unknown young Contract Air Mail pilot, acquiring financing to buy a plane and meet the other expenses related to the overall New York to Paris effort had been a major challenge for Lindbergh, who began with only $2,000 of his own money from his savings and his $175 biweekly salary earned flying the U.S. Air Mail for RAC. Eventually, he was able to secure local funding for the purchase of the Spirit, however, by way of a $15,000 State National Bank of St. Louis loan made on February 18, 1927, to St. Louis businessmen Harry H. Knight and Harold M. Bixby, the project's two principal backers and trustees. Another $1,000 was donated by Frank Robertson of RAC on the same day, giving Lindbergh and his backers a relatively modest $18,000 with which to compete against his much more highly funded rivals for the $25,000 Orteig Prize. \n\nThe group tried to buy an \"off-the-peg\" single or multiengine monoplane from Wright Aeronautical (Wright-Bellanca) of Paterson, New Jersey; then Travel Air of Wichita, Kansas; and finally Charles Levine's and Giuseppi Bellanca's newly formed Columbia Aircraft Corporation of Hempstead, New York. However, the manufacturers would not agree to a sale unless they were allowed to select the pilot. The group thus turned to B.F. Mahoney's much smaller Ryan Aircraft Company in San Diego, which agreed to design and build such a monoplane \"from the ground up\" for $10,580, and on February 25, a deal was formally struck. Dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis, the fabric-covered, single-seat, single-engine \"Ryan NYP\" high-wing monoplane (CAB registration: N-X-211) was designed jointly by Lindbergh and the Ryan Company's chief engineer, Donald A. Hall. The Spirit flew for the first time just two months later, on April 28, 1927, and after completing a series of test flights, Lindbergh took off from San Diego on May 10 for St. Louis and on to Roosevelt Field on New York's Long Island from which he would take off for Paris just 10 days later. \n\nMay 20–21, 1927: Lindbergh's New York to Paris flight\n\nSix well-known aviators had already lost their lives in pursuit of the Orteig Prize when Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on his successful attempt in the early morning of Friday, May 20, 1927. Prior to fueling The Spirit, Lindbergh's crew had strained and restrained the Shell Aviation fuel to eliminate as much sediment as possible. This was to prevent any fuel line blockages during the flight. Burdened by its heavy load of 450 U.S. gallons (1,704 liters) of gasoline weighing about 2,710 lb (1,230 kg), and hampered by a muddy, rain-soaked runway, Lindbergh's Wright Whirlwind-powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 am (07:52) takeoff run, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the Spirit to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field \"by about twenty feet [six meters] with a fair reserve of flying speed\". Over the next 33.5 hours, he and the Spirit—which Lindbergh always jointly referred to as \"WE\"—faced many challenges, including skimming over both storm clouds at 10000 ft and wave tops at as low at 10 ft, fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (whenever visible), and dead reckoning before landing at Le Bourget Airport at 10:22 pm (22:22) on Saturday, May 21. The airfield was not marked on his map and Lindbergh knew only that it was some seven miles northeast of the city. He initially mistook the airfield for some large industrial complex with bright lights spreading out in all directions. The lights were, in fact, the headlights of tens of thousands of cars all driven by eager spectators now caught in \"the largest traffic jam in Parisian history.\" \n\nA crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads for \"nearly half an hour\". While some damage was done to the Spirit (especially to the fine linen, silver-painted fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually \"rescued\" from the mob by a group of French military fliers, soldiers, and police, who took them both to safety in a nearby hangar. From that moment on, the previously little-known former U.S. Air Mail pilot had, by his successful flight, achieved virtually instantaneous—and lifelong—world fame. \n\nThe records set by Lindbergh's flight were officially certified by Carl Schory, Secretary of the National Aeronautic Association based on the readings from a sealed barograph Schory had placed in Lindbergh's plane and subsequently verified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) (the World Air Sports Federation). On August 31, 1927, the flight was \"certified as the Class-C World Record for nonstop flight\" for the distance of 5809 km. \nWhile Lindbergh was the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, he was not the first aviator to complete a transatlantic flight in a heavier-than-air aircraft. That had been done first in stages between May 8 and 30, 1919, by the crew of the Navy-Curtiss NC-4 flying boat, which took 24 days to complete its journey from Jamaica Bay at Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, to Plymouth, England, via Halifax, Nova Scotia, Trepassey Bay (Newfoundland), Horta (Azores), and Lisbon, Portugal. \n\nThe world's first nonstop transatlantic flight (albeit over a route far shorter than Lindbergh's, 1890 mi vs. 3600 smi) was achieved on June 14–15, 1919, by two British aviators, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber from Lester's Field near St. John's, Newfoundland on June 14 and arrived at Clifden, Ireland, the following day. Both men were knighted at Buckingham Palace by King George V, in recognition of their pioneering achievement. \n\nThe lighter-than-air U.S. Navy airship made a nonstop delivery flight crossing from the Zeppelin Company works in Friedrichshafen, Germany, to the U.S. Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey, from October 12 to 15, 1924. \n\nImmediate aftermath of the flight\n\nThe adulation and celebration of Lindbergh that emerged after the solo Atlantic flight were unprecedented. People were \"behaving as though Lindbergh had walked on water, not flown over it.\"A. Scott Berg, as cited in Belfiore 2007, p. 17. Every major newspaper, magazine, and radio show in the U.S. wanted to interview him, and he was flooded with job offers from numerous companies, think tanks, and universities.\n\nThe French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone not a head of state. Lindbergh also made a series of brief flights in Europe to Belgium and Great Britain in the quickly recovered Spirit (portions of its linen skin had been torn from it by souvenir hunters at Le Bourget) before returning to the United States. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French Légion d'honneur on the young Capt. Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the United States Navy cruiser on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft including pursuit planes, bombers, and the rigid airship , escorted him up the Potomac River to the Washington Navy Yard on the Anacostia River in southeast Washington, D.C., where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross. On the same day Lindbergh and the Spirit arrived in Washington, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of the flight. The day after he landed in Paris, his mother's house in Detroit was surrounded by a crowd estimated at about 1,000 persons in celebration of the flight to Paris. \n\nLindbergh flew from Washington to New York City on June 13, 1927 arriving at the Battery in lower Manhattan and traveling up Broadway to City Hall where he was received at a ceremony hosted by Mayor Jimmy Walker. A massive ticker-tape parade followed running up Park Row, Centre St., and Lafayette St. to Astor Place, west on Ninth St. to Fifth Ave., up Fifth to 60th St., and then through Central Park on East Drive to Central Park Mall where he was honored at another ceremony hosted by New York Governor Al Smith attended by a crowd of 200,000. It was estimated by city officials that upwards of 4,000,000 persons saw Lindbergh that day. That evening, Lindbergh, accompanied by his mother and Mayor Walker, was the guest of honor at a banquet and dance, with 500 guests, held at Clarence MacKay's Long Island estate, Harbor Hill. Lindbergh and his mother slipped away early, telling no one, causing a panicked MacKay to have the estate searched for the missing pilot. \n\nThe following night, Lindbergh was honored with a grand banquet at the Hotel Commodore given by the Mayor's Committee on Receptions of the City of New York and attended by some 3,700 people. He was officially awarded the check for the prize on June 16. The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aviation industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously, as Lindbergh became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities, including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, an appointment made by President Herbert Hoover. Within a year of his flight, a quarter of Americans (an estimated 30 million) personally saw Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Over the remainder of 1927, applications for pilot's licenses in the U.S. tripled, the number of licensed aircraft quadrupled, and U.S. airline passengers grew between 1926 and 1929 from 5,782 to 173,405. Lindbergh later charted both polar and South American air routes, developed techniques for high-altitude flying, and during World War II, demonstrated how to increase flying range by developing techniques of refining flight attitudes and leaning fuel mixture to decrease the rate of gasoline consumption and improving efficiency.\n\nOn December 14, 1927, a Special Act of Congress awarded Lindbergh the Medal of Honor despite the fact that it was almost always awarded for heroism in combat. It was presented to Lindbergh by President Coolidge at the White House on March 21, 1928. Other noncombat awards of the Medal of Honor were made to aviators Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett, as well as arctic explorer Adolphus W. Greely.\n\nAfter his transatlantic flight, Lindbergh wrote a letter to the director of Longines, describing in detail a watch that would make navigation easier for pilots. The watch was manufactured to his design and is still produced today. \n\nLindbergh was selected as the first Time magazine \"Man of the Year\" (for 1927), appearing in its cover on January 2, 1928, and remains the youngest individual (age 25) to receive the designation. He also appeared on Times cover on June 13, 1938 (with Dr. Alexis Carrel) and June 19, 1939, and his kidnapped infant son, Charles Jr, was on the cover on May 2, 1932. \n\nThe winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award, Elinor Smith Sullivan, said that before Lindbergh's flight, \"people seemed to think we [aviators] were from outer space or something. But after Charles Lindbergh's flight, we could do no wrong. It's hard to describe the impact Lindbergh had on people. Even the first walk on the moon doesn't come close. The twenties was such an innocent time, and people were still so religious—I think they felt like this man was sent by God to do this. And it changed aviation forever because all of a sudden the Wall Streeters were banging on doors looking for airplanes to invest in. We'd been standing on our heads trying to get them to notice us but after Lindbergh, suddenly everyone wanted to fly, and there weren't enough planes to carry them.\" \n\n\"WE\", the U.S. and Latin American \"Tours\", and the Spirit retires\n\nBarely two months after Lindbergh had completed the flight to Paris,\"WE\", the first of what would be 15 books he would eventually author or significantly contribute to over his lifetime, was released on July 27, 1927 by G.P. Putnam's Sons (The Knickerbocker Press), the New York publishing house run by prominent promoter and aviation enthusiast George P. Putnam (1887-1950) who later promoted the career (and eventually married) another almost equally famous flyer of the era, the ill-fated American aviatrix Amelia Earhart. An \"instant\" autobiography of the suddenly world famous young aviator, the 318-page book was an immediate best seller.\n\nThe first edition dustjacket notes that Lindbergh wrote the book to provide the public with his \"own story of his life and his transatlantic flight together with his views on the future of aviation\". It also says that the book's simple, one-word \"flying pronoun\" title \"WE\" referred to Lindbergh's view of a deep \"spiritual partnership\" that had developed \"between himself and his airplane during the dark hours of his flight\". Putnam's had selected the title without its author's knowledge or approval, however, and Lindbergh would forever complain about that interpretation of its meaning was wrong. Instead he said that \"we\" referred to himself and his financial backers in St. Louis, not his airplane, as the press had people believing, although his frequent unconscious use of the phrase seemed to suggest otherwise. \n\nBy mid September \"WE\" had sold close to 190,000 copies at $2.50 apiece, and limited edition of 1,000 autographed copies also sold out quickly at $25 each. The book was also soon translated into most major languages and remained at the top of best-seller lists well into 1928. With dozens of printings made and more than 650,000 copies sold in the first year, \"WE\" earned Lindbergh more than $250,000. The book's great commercial success was considerably aided by its publication coinciding with the start of his three-month tour of the United States in the Spirit on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. No other author before or since ever had such an extensive, highly publicized tour that helped promote a book than did Lindbergh's \"We\" of himself and the Spirit during their 22,350-mile, July 20 to October 23, 1927 tour of the U.S., visiting 82 cities in all 48 states during which the nation's nascent aviation superhero delivered 147 speeches and rode 1290 mi in parades. The nation became obsessed with Lindbergh during the tour in which he was seen in person by more than 30 million Americans, a quarter of the nation's then population.\n\nPrior to retiring the Spirit, Lindbergh made a second tour to 16 Latin America countries from December 13, 1927, to February 8, 1928. Dubbed the \"Good Will Tour\", it included stops in México (where he also met his future wife, Anne, the daughter of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow), Guatemala, British Honduras, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Canal Zone, Colombia, Venezuela, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba, covering 9,390 miles in 116:30 of flight time. A year and two days after it had made its first flight, Lindbergh flew the Spirit from St. Louis to Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., and donated it to the Smithsonian Institution, where it has remained on static public display ever since. Over the previous 367 days, Lindbergh and the Spirit had logged 489:28 of flight time together while making 174 flights to all 48 states and 19 foreign countries. \n\n\"1927 marked the breakout year of commercial aviation in the United States [and] the beginning of what came to be called the Lindbergh boom. In April, the month before Lindbergh's flight, 97000 lb of mail flew on airplanes. In September, that figure was up 50 percent, to 146000 lb. The number of applicants for pilots' licenses tripled that year,\" and the number of airplanes quadrupled.\n\nFollowing his flight to Paris, Lindbergh, together with Pan American World Airways head Juan Trippe, had interest in developing a great circle air route across Alaska and Siberia to China and Japan. In the summer of 1931, with Trippe's support, Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh flew from Long Island to Nome, Alaska and from there to Siberia, Japan and China. The route was not available for commercial service until after World War II, as prewar aircraft could not fly from Alaska to Japan nonstop, and the U.S. government had not officially recognized the Soviet government. While in China, the Lindberghs volunteered themselves to help in disaster investigation and relief effort for the infamous Central China flood of 1931. This was later documented in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's book North to the Orient.\n\nPersonal life\n\nAnne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) was the daughter of Dwight Morrow who, as partner at J.P. Morgan & Co., had acted as financial adviser to Lindbergh and who had been appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico in 1927. Lindbergh was invited by Morrow on a goodwill tour to Mexico, and he met Anne in Mexico City in December 1927.\n\nThe couple were married on May 27, 1929 in Engelwood and managed to keep the location of their honeymoon a secret despite the best efforts of paparazzi to find them. They went on to have six children: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (1930–1932); Jon Morrow Lindbergh (b. August 16, 1932); Land Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1937), who studied anthropology at Stanford University and married Susan Miller in San Diego; Anne Lindbergh (1940–1993); Scott Lindbergh (b. 1942); and Reeve Lindbergh (b. 1945), a writer. Lindbergh also taught his wife how to fly and did much of his exploring and charting of air routes with her.\n\nLindbergh saw his children for only a few months a year. He kept track of each child's infractions, which included such activities as gum-chewing. He insisted that Anne track all her household expenditures, including even 15 cents spent for rubber bands, in account books. \n\nAccording to a Biography Channel profile on Lindbergh, she was the only woman whom he had ever asked out on a date. In Lindbergh's autobiography, he derides womanizing pilots he met as \"barnstormers,\" and Army cadets for their \"facile\" approach to relationships. Lindbergh wrote that the ideal romance was stable and long term, with a woman with keen intellect, good health, and strong genes. Lindbergh said his \"experience in breeding animals on our farm had taught me the importance of good heredity.\" \n\nAlmost three decades after Lindbergh's death in 1974 and years after his widow's passing in 2001, their children and the public learned that from the late 1950s until his death, Lindbergh had maintained three secret families in Europe that included seven out-of-wedlock children borne by three different mothers. In late July 2003, one of the largest national daily newspapers in Germany, Munich's Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that Lindbergh had fathered three children by German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer (1926–2003), who had lived in the small Bavarian town of Geretsried just south of Munich. By the time of the publication of German biographer Rudolf Schröck's book Das Doppelleben des Charles A. Lindbergh (The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh) two years later, however, it had been further revealed that Lindbergh had also fathered four other such children in Germany and Switzerland with two more mistresses. Beginning in March 1957, Lindbergh had established romantic relationships with Brigitte Hesshaimer; her sister, Mariette, a painter living in Grimisuat in the Swiss canton Valais with whom he had two children; and with Valeska, an East Prussian aristocrat who was his private secretary in Europe and lived in Baden-Baden with whom he had two more children, a son born in 1959 and a daughter in 1961. All seven children had been born between 1958 and 1967. \n\nTen days before he died on August 26, 1974, Lindbergh wrote letters from his New York hospital bed to each of his three European mistresses, imploring them to maintain the \"utmost secrecy\" about their relationships after his death. The three women (none of whom ever married) all managed to keep their affairs secret even from their children, who during his lifetime (and for almost a decade after), did not know the true identity of their father whom they had only known by the alias \"Careu Kent\" and seen only when he visited for a few days once or twice per year. However, after finding and reading a magazine article about Lindbergh in the mid-1980s, Brigitte's daughter Astrid learned her father's true identity and later discovered snapshots and more than 150 love letters written to her mother by Lindbergh between 1957 and 1974. After both Brigitte and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had died, Astrid finally publicly disclosed the identity of her and her brothers' father. On November 23, 2003, DNA tests confirmed that Lindbergh had fathered Dyrk, Astrid, and David, Brigitte's three children. \n\nIn April 2008, Reeve Lindbergh, his youngest child with his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, published Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures, a book of essays that includes her learning in late July 2003 the truth about her father's secret European families and writing in her personal journal on August 8, 2003, \"This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)\" A year later, she traveled to Europe to meet all seven of her half siblings and understand an expanded meaning of family. \n\n\"The Crime of the Century\"\n\nOn the evening of March 1, 1932, in what the press of the time came to sensationally refer to as \"The Crime of the Century\" an intruder abducted 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. from his crib in the second-story nursery of his family's rural home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell. While a 10-week nationwide search for the child was being undertaken, ransom negotiations were also conducted simultaneously with a self-identified kidnapper by a volunteer intermediary, Dr. John F. Condon (\"Jafsie\"). These resulted in the payment on April 2 of $50,000 in cash, part of which was made in soon-to-be withdrawn (and thus more easily traceable) Gold certificates, the serial numbers of which had been recorded, in exchange for information about the child's whereabouts that proved to be false. The child's remains were found by chance by a passing truckdriver six weeks later on May 12 in roadside woodlands near Mount Rose, New Jersey. \n\nIn response to the highly publicized crime, Congress passed the so-called \"Lindbergh Law\" on June 13, which made kidnapping a federal offense under certain circumstances. Known formally as the \"Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932\" ((a)(1)), the new statute provided for federal jurisdiction over all future kidnappings in which any victim(s) were taken across state lines and/or (as had occurred in the Lindbergh case) the kidnapper(s) used \"the mail or any means, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce in committing or in furtherance of the commission of the offense\", including as a means to demand a ransom. \n\nThe assiduous tracing of the serial numbers of $10 and $20 gold certificates passed in the New York City area over the next year and a half eventually led police to Richard Hauptmann, a 34-year-old German immigrant carpenter, who was arrested near his home in the Bronx, New York, on September 19, 1934. (Hauptmann was identified by the license plate number of his automobile, which a gas station attendant had written on the bill after receiving it from him in payment for services.) A stash containing $13,760 of the ransom money was subsequently found hidden in his garage. Charged with kidnapping, extortion, and first-degree murder, Hauptmann went on trial in a circus-like atmosphere in Flemington, New Jersey, on January 2, 1935. Six weeks later, he was convicted on all counts when, following 11 hours of deliberation, the jury delivered its verdict late on the night of February 13, after which Judge Thomas Trenchard immediately sentenced Hauptmann to death. Although he continued to adamantly maintain his innocence, all of Hauptmann's appeals and petitions for clemency were rejected by early December 1935. Despite a last-minute attempt by New Jersey Governor Harold G. Hoffman (who believed Hauptmann was guilty, but expressed doubts that he could have acted alone) to convince him to confess to the crimes in exchange for getting his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, the by then 36-year-old Hauptmann refused and was electrocuted at Trenton State Prison on April 3, 1936. \n\nSelf exile in Europe (1936–1939)\n\nAn intensely private man when it came to his family life, Lindbergh became exasperated by the unrelenting press and public attention focused on them in the wake of the kidnapping and Hauptmann trial. Particularly concerned for the physical safety of their then three-year-old second son, Jon, by late 1935, the Lindberghs came secretly to the decision to go into voluntary exile in Europe. Consequently, in the predawn hours of Sunday, December 22, 1935, the family \"sailed furtively\" from Pier 60 (West 20th St, Manhattan) for Liverpool, England, as the only three passengers on board the United States Lines freighter SS American Importer. To help maintain the strict secrecy Lindbergh insisted upon for their departure, the family traveled under assumed names and using diplomatic passports that had been issued a week earlier through the personal intervention of Treasury Secretary Ogden Mills. \n\nNews of the Lindberghs' \"flight to Europe\" did not become public until a full day later by way of an exclusive front-page story by The New York Times aviation editor Lauren \"Deac\" Lyman, a longtime family friend, supporter, and confidant, published in the paper's final Monday morning edition. At Lindbergh's request, however, Lyman intentionally withheld the identity of the ship, as well as its time and port of departure, from that initial account. While Lyman finally revealed the information in his follow-up story published the next day when the ship was already two days out to sea, radiograms sent to Lindbergh on the American Importer were nevertheless all returned with the notation \"Addressee not aboard\".\n\nAlthough Lindbergh had \"offered no public explanation\" for the family's unannounced departure, shortly before they sailed, he had told Lyman in a private interview: \"We Americans are a primitive people. We do not have discipline. Our moral standards are low. It shows up in the private lives of people we know — their drinking and 'behavior with women'. It shows in the newspapers, the morbid curiosity over crimes and murder trials. Americans seem to have little respect for law, or the rights of others.\"Butterfield, Roger. \"Lindbergh: A Stubborn Young Man of Strange Ideas Becomes the Leader of the Wartime Opposition.\" Life, August 11, 1941. For those reasons, Lindbergh told Lyman, he had decided to take his family to England to \"seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria\" that surrounded him in America. The Lindberghs arrived in Liverpool on December 31, 1935, where they secluded themselves before later departing for South Wales to stay with relatives. \n\nThe family eventually rented \"Long Barn\" in Sevenoaks Weald, Kent, England. One newspaper wrote that Lindbergh \"won immediate popularity by announcing he intended to purchase his supplies 'right in the village, from local tradesmen.' The reserve of the villagers, most of whom had decided in advance he would be a blustering, boastful young American, is melting.\" At the time of Hauptmann's execution, local police almost sealed off the area surrounding Long Barn with \"orders to regard as suspects anyone except residents who approached within a mile of the home.\" Lindbergh later described his three years in the Kent village as \"among the happiest days of my life.\" In 1938, the family moved to Île Illiec, a small four-acre island Lindbergh purchased off the Breton coast of France. \n\nAlthough Charles and Anne Lindbergh had made a brief unannounced holiday visit to the U.S. in December 1937, the family (including a third son, Land, born in London in May 1937) continued to live and travel extensively in Europe for more than three years before finally returning to reside again in the United States in April 1939, settling in a rented seaside estate at Lloyd Neck, Long Island, New York. The timing of the family's return came primarily as the result of a personal request by General H. H. (\"Hap\") Arnold, the chief of the United States Army Air Corps in which Lindbergh was a colonel in the reserves, for him to accept a temporary call-up to active duty to help evaluate that service's readiness for a potential war. His duties included evaluating new aircraft types in development, recruitment procedures, and finding a site for a new air force research institute and other potential air bases. Assigned a Curtiss P-36 fighter, he toured various facilities, reporting back to Wright Field. Lindbergh's brief four-month tour was also his first period of active military service since his graduation from the Army's Flight School 14 years earlier in 1925.\n\nPre-war activities\n\nIn 1929, Lindbergh became interested in the work of rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard. By helping Goddard secure an endowment from Daniel Guggenheim in 1930, Lindbergh allowed Goddard to expand his research and development. Throughout his life, Lindbergh remained a key advocate of Goddard's work. \n\nIn 1930, Lindbergh's sister-in-law developed a fatal heart condition. Lindbergh began to wonder why hearts could not be repaired with surgery. Starting in early 1931 at the Rockefeller Institute and continuing during his time living in France, Lindbergh studied the perfusion of organs outside the body with Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel. Although perfused organs were said to have survived surprisingly well, all showed progressive degenerative changes within a few days. Lindbergh's invention, a glass perfusion pump, named the \"Model T\" pump, is credited with making future heart surgeries possible. In this early stage, the pump was far from perfected. In 1938, Lindbergh and Carrel described an artificial heart in the book in which they summarized their work, The Culture of Organs, but it was decades before one was built. In later years, Lindbergh's pump was further developed by others, eventually leading to the construction of the first heart-lung machine. \n\nAt the behest of the U.S. military, Lindbergh traveled several times to Germany to report on German aviation and the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) from 1936 to 1938. Hanna Reitsch demonstrated the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter to Lindbergh in 1937.Reitsch, H., 1955, The Sky My Kingdom, London: Biddles Limited, Guildford and King's Lynn, ISBN 1853672629\n\nLindbergh toured German aviation facilities, where the commander of the Luftwaffe, SA-Gruppenführer Hermann Göring convinced Lindbergh the Luftwaffe was far more powerful than it was. With the approval of Göring and Ernst Udet, Lindbergh was the first American permitted to examine the Luftwaffe's newest bomber, the Junkers Ju 88, and Germany's front-line fighter aircraft, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Lindbergh received the unprecedented opportunity to pilot the Bf 109. Lindbergh said of the fighter that he knew \"of no other pursuit plane which combines simplicity of construction with such excellent performance characteristics.\" Colonel Lindbergh inspected all the types of military aircraft Germany was to use in 1939 and 1940. \n\nLindbergh reported to the U.S. military that Germany was leading in metal construction, low-wing designs, dirigibles, and diesel engines. Lindbergh also undertook a survey of aviation in the Soviet Union in 1938, and his findings were included in air intelligence reports long before the outbreak of World War II. The American ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson, invited Lindbergh to dinner with Göring at the American embassy in Berlin in 1938. The dinner included diplomats and three of the greatest minds of German aviation, Ernst Heinkel, Adolf Baeumker, and Dr. Willy Messerschmitt. For Lindbergh's 1927 flight and services to aviation, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, Göring presented him with the Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle. (Henry Ford received the same award earlier in July.) Lindbergh's acceptance of the medal caused controversy after Kristallnacht, an anti-Jewish pogrom that broke out in Germany a few weeks later. Lindbergh declined to return the medal, later writing (according to A. Scott Berg): \"It seems to me that the returning of decorations, which were given in times of peace and as a gesture of friendship, can have no constructive effect. If I were to return the German medal, it seems to me that it would be an unnecessary insult. Even if war develops between us, I can see no gain in indulging in a spitting contest before that war begins.\" \n\nMunich crisis\n\nAt the urging of U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, Lindbergh wrote a secret memo to the British warning that if Britain and France responded militarily to German dictator Adolf Hitler's violation of the Munich Agreement in 1938, it would be suicide. Lindbergh stated that France's military strength was inadequate and that Britain had an outdated military overly reliant upon naval power. He recommended they urgently strengthen their air arsenal to force Hitler to turn his ambitions eastward to a war against \"Asiatic Communism.\" \n\nIn a controversial 1939 Reader's Digest article, Lindbergh said, \"Our civilization depends on peace among Western nations ... and therefore on united strength, for Peace is a virgin who dare not show her face without Strength, her father, for protection.\" Lindbergh deplored the rivalry between Germany and Britain, but favored a war between Germany and Russia. Some controversy exists as to how accurate his reports concerning the Luftwaffe were, but Cole reports the consensus among British and American officials was that they were slightly exaggerated but badly needed.\n\nFollowing the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, many favored military aid, a suggestion Lindbergh rejected. \"I do not believe that repealing the arms embargo would assist democracy in Europe.\". Lindbergh specifically opposed military aid to assist England in 1939. \"If we repeal the arms embargo with the idea of assisting one of the warring sides to overcome the other, then why mislead ourselves by talk of neutrality? He suggested any military assistance to England might be done for improper financial reasons- \"To those who argue that we could make a profit and build up our own industry by selling munitions abroad, I reply that we in America have not yet reached a point where we wish to capitalize on the destruction and death of war.\"\n\nAmerica First involvement\n\nIn late 1940, he became spokesman of the antiwar America First Committee. He soon became its most prominent public spokesman, speaking to overflowing crowds in Madison Square Garden in New York City and Soldier Field in Chicago. His speeches were heard by millions. During this time, Lindbergh lived in Lloyd Neck, on Long Island, New York.\n\nLindbergh argued that America did not have any business attacking Germany and believed in upholding the Monroe Doctrine, which his interventionist rivals felt was outdated. In his autobiography, he wrote:\n\nIn his January 23, 1941, testimony in opposition to the Lend-Lease bill before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Lindbergh proposed that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany. President Roosevelt publicly criticized Lindbergh's views on neutrality three months later during a White House press conference on April 25, 1941, as being those of a \"defeatist and appeaser\" and compared him to U.S. Rep. Clement L. Vallandigham (D-OH), the leader of the \"Copperhead\" movement that had opposed the American Civil War. Three days later, Lindbergh resigned his commission as a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps in an April 28 letter to the President in which he said he could find \"no honorable alternative\" to his taking such an action after Roosevelt had publicly questioned his loyalty. \n\nIn a speech at an America First rally at the Des Moines Coliseum on September 11, 1941, \"Who Are the War Agitators?\", Lindbergh claimed the three groups, \"pressing this country toward war [are] the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration\", and said of Jewish groups,\n\nIn the speech, he warned of the Jewish people's \"large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government\". He used the term \"Jewish race\" in the speech, the same terminology that had been used by Nazis. He went on to condemn Nazi Germany's antisemitism: \"No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany.\" Lindbergh declared,\n\nThe speech was heavily criticized as being anti-Semitic. In response, Lindbergh stated again he was not anti-Semitic, but he did not back away from his statements.\n\nLindbergh's wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, had concerns about the reaction to the speech and how it would affect his reputation, wrongfully in her view. From her diary:\n\nInterventionists created pamphlets pointing out his efforts were praised in Nazi Germany and included quotations such as \"Racial strength is vital; politics, a luxury\". They included pictures of him and other America Firsters using the stiff-armed Bellamy salute (a hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy to accompany his Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag); the photos were taken from an angle not showing the flag, so to observers it was indistinguishable from the Hitler salute. \n\nPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt disliked Lindbergh's outspoken opposition to intervention and his administration's policies, such as the Lend-Lease Act, and said to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in May 1940, \"if I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this, I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.\" On April 26, 1941, Roosevelt wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson: \"When I read Lindbergh's speech I felt that it could not have been better put if it had been written by Goebbels himself. What a pity that this youngster has completely abandoned his belief in our form of government and has accepted Nazi methods because apparently they are efficient.\" \n\nIn his book written after the war, Lindbergh said that no one he met in pre-wartime Nazi Germany did not believe the country would be better off without the Jews, though some condemned the means used to achieve that goal. \n\nThoughts on race and racism\n\nLindbergh elucidated his beliefs about the white race in an article he published in Reader's Digest in 1939:\n\nLindbergh's speeches and writings reflected his adoption of Nazi views on race and religion. He wrote in his memoirs that all of the Germans he met thought the country would be better off without its Jews. \n\nBecause of his trips to Nazi Germany, combined with a belief in eugenics, Lindbergh was suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer.\n\nLindbergh's reaction to Kristallnacht was entrusted to his diary: \"I do not understand these riots on the part of the Germans,\" he wrote. \"It seems so contrary to their sense of order and intelligence. They have undoubtedly had a difficult 'Jewish problem', but why is it necessary to handle it so unreasonably?\" Lindbergh had planned to move to Berlin for the winter of 1938–39, after Kristallnacht, a time when many Americans reacted with revulsion at Nazi barbarism. He had provisionally found a house in Wannsee, but after Nazi friends discouraged him from leasing it because it had been formerly owned by Jews, it was recommended that he contact Albert Speer, who said he would build the Lindberghs a house anywhere they wanted. On the advice of his close friend, the eugenicist Alexis Carrel, he cancelled the trip.\n\nIn his diaries, he wrote: \"We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence ... Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country.\"\n\nNazi classification and racial definition\n\nLindbergh's anticommunism resonated deeply with many Americans, while eugenics and Nordicism enjoyed social acceptance.\n\nAlthough Lindbergh considered Hitler a fanatic and avowed a belief in American democracy, he clearly stated elsewhere that he believed the survival of the white race was more important than the survival of democracy in Europe: \"Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology,\" he declared. Critics have noticed an apparent influence of German philosopher Oswald Spengler on Lindbergh. Spengler was a conservative authoritarian and during the interwar era, was widely read throughout the Western World, though by this point he had fallen out of favor with the Nazis because he had not wholly subscribed to their theories of racial purity.\n\nLindbergh developed a long-term friendship with the automobile pioneer Henry Ford, who was well known for his anti-Semitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent. In a famous comment about Lindbergh to Detroit's former FBI field office special agent in charge in July 1940, Ford said: \"When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews.\" \n\nLindbergh considered Russia a \"semi-Asiatic\" country compared to Germany, and he believed Communism was an ideology that would destroy the West's \"racial strength\" and replace everyone of European descent with \"a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown.\" He stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia. He preferred Nordics, but he believed, after Soviet Communism was defeated, Russia would be a valuable ally against potential aggression from East Asia. \n\nLindbergh said certain races have \"demonstrated superior ability in the design, manufacture, and operation of machines.\" He further said, \"The growth of our western civilization has been closely related to this superiority.\" Lindbergh admired \"the German genius for science and organization, the English genius for government and commerce, the French genius for living and the understanding of life.\" He believed that \"in America they can be blended to form the greatest genius of all.\" His message was popular throughout many Northern communities and especially well received in the Midwest, while the American South was anglophilic and supported a pro-British foreign policy. The South was the most pro-British and interventionist part of the country. \n\nHolocaust researcher and investigative journalist Max Wallace, in his book The American Axis, agreed with Franklin Roosevelt's assessment that Lindbergh was \"pro-Nazi.\" Wallace finds the Roosevelt Administration's accusations of dual loyalty or treason as unsubstantiated. Wallace considers Lindbergh a well-intentioned, but bigoted and misguided, Nazi sympathizer whose career as the leader of the isolationist movement had a destructive impact on Jewish people. \n\nLindbergh's Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, A. Scott Berg, contends Lindbergh was not so much a supporter of the Nazi regime as someone so stubborn in his convictions and relatively inexperienced in political maneuvering that he easily allowed rivals to portray him as one. Lindbergh's receipt of the German medal was approved without objection by the American embassy; the war had not yet begun in Europe. The award did not cause controversy until the war began and Lindbergh returned to the United States in 1939 to spread his message of nonintervention. Berg contends Lindbergh's views were commonplace in the United States in the pre–World War II era. Lindbergh's support for the America First Committee was representative of the sentiments of a number of American people. \n\nYet Berg also notes that \"As late as April 1939 – after Germany overtook Czechoslovakia – Lindbergh was willing to make excuses for Hitler. 'Much as I disapprove of many things Hitler had done,' he wrote in his diary on April 2, 1939, 'I believe she [Germany] has pursued the only consistent policy in Europe in recent years. I cannot support her broken promises, but she has only moved a little faster than other nations ... in breaking promises. The question of right and wrong is one thing by law and another thing by history.'\" Berg also explains that leading up to the war, in Lindbergh's mind, the great battle would be between the Soviet Union and Germany, not fascism and democracy.\n\nWallace noted that it was difficult to find social scientists among Lindbergh's contemporaries in the 1930s who found validity in racial explanations for human behavior. Wallace went on to observe that \"throughout his life, eugenics would remain one of Lindbergh's enduring passions.\" In Pat Buchanan's book A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny, he portrays Lindbergh and other pre-war isolationists as American patriots who were smeared by interventionists during the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Buchanan suggests the backlash against Lindbergh highlights \"the explosiveness of mixing ethnic politics with foreign policy.\" \n\nLindbergh always preached military strength and alertness. He believed that a strong defensive war machine would make America an impenetrable fortress and defend the Western Hemisphere from an attack by foreign powers, and that this was the U.S. military's sole purpose. \n\nBerg reveals that while the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a shock to Lindbergh, he did predict that America's \"wavering policy in the Philippines\" would invite a bloody war there, and, in one speech, he warned that \"we should either fortify these islands adequately, or get out of them entirely.\" \n\nWorld War II\n\nAfter the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh sought to be recommissioned in the USAAF. The Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, declined the request on instructions from the White House. \n\nUnable to take on an active military role, Lindbergh approached a number of aviation companies, offering his services as a consultant. As a technical adviser with Ford in 1942, he was heavily involved in troubleshooting early problems encountered at the Willow Run Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber production line. As B-24 production smoothed out, he joined United Aircraft in 1943 as an engineering consultant, devoting most of his time to its Chance-Vought Division. \n\nThe following year, Lindbergh persuaded United Aircraft to designate him a technical representative in the Pacific Theater to study aircraft performances under combat conditions. Among other things, he showed Marine pilots how to take off safely with a bomb load double the Vought F4U Corsair fighter-bomber's rated capacity. At the time, several Marine squadrons were flying bomber escorts to destroy the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul, New Britain, in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. On May 21, 1944, Lindbergh flew his first combat mission: a strafing run with VMF-222 near the Japanese garrison of Rabaul. He also flew with VMF-216, from the Marine Air Base at Torokina, Bougainville. Lindbergh was escorted on one of these missions by Lt. Robert E. (Lefty) McDonough, who refused to fly with Lindbergh again, as he did not want to be known as \"the guy who killed Lindbergh.\"\n\nIn his six months in the Pacific in 1944, Lindbergh took part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions, flying 50 combat missions (again as a civilian). His innovations in the use of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters impressed a supportive Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Lindbergh introduced engine-leaning techniques to P-38 pilots, greatly improving fuel consumption at cruise speeds, enabling the long-range fighter aircraft to fly longer range missions. The U.S. Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served with Lindbergh praised his courage and defended his patriotism. \n\nOn July 28, 1944, during a P-38 bomber escort mission with the 433rd Fighter Squadron, in the Ceram area, Lindbergh shot down a Sonia observation plane piloted by Captain Saburo Shimada, Commanding Officer of the 73rd Independent Chutai. \n\nAfter the war, while touring the Nazi concentration camps, Lindbergh wrote in his autobiography that he was disgusted and angered.\n\nLater life\n\nAfter World War II, Lindbergh lived in Darien, Connecticut and served as a consultant to the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force and to Pan American World Airways. With most of Eastern Europe having fallen under Communist control, Lindbergh believed most of his prewar assessments were correct all along. But Berg reports after witnessing the defeat of Germany and the Holocaust firsthand shortly after his service in the Pacific, \"he knew the American public no longer gave a hoot about his opinions.\" In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower restored Lindbergh's assignment with the U.S. Air Force and made him a Brigadier General. In that year, he served on the Congressional advisory panel set up to establish the site of the United States Air Force Academy.\n\nIn 1957, actor James Stewart portrayed Lindbergh in the movie The Spirit of St. Louis. Stewart lobbied hard for the role as he had been a lifelong admirer of Lindbergh and described his trans-Atlantic flight as \"one of the defining moments of my youth\". He encountered derision for trying to play a 26-year-old man in his late 40s and The Spirit of St. Louis was a commercial failure.\n\nIn December 1968, he visited the crew of Apollo 8 (the first manned spaceflight to travel to the Moon) the day before their launch. On July 16, 1969, Lindbergh and T. Claude Ryan (previous owner of the Ryan Flying Company that built the Spirit of St. Louis aircraft) were present at Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of Apollo 11. Lindbergh later wrote the foreword for Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins's autobiography, Carrying the Fire.\n\nEnvironmental causes\n\nLindbergh spent the final decade of his life campaigning to protect endangered species like humpback and blue whales, was instrumental in establishing protections for the controversial Filipino group, the Tasaday, and African tribes, and supporting the establishment of a national park. While studying the native flora and fauna of the Philippines, he became involved in efforts to protect the Philippine eagle and the tamaraw, a rare dwarf buffalo on Mindoro Island.\n\nLindbergh's speeches and writings later in life emphasized his love of both technology and nature, and a lifelong belief that \"all the achievements of mankind have value only to the extent that they preserve and improve the quality of life.\"\n\nLindbergh's final book, Autobiography of Values, based on an unfinished manuscript was published posthumously. While on his deathbed, he had contacted his friend, William Jovanovich, head of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, to edit the lengthy memoirs. \n\nDeath\n\nLindbergh spent his last years on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he died of lymphoma on August 26, 1974, at age 72. He was buried on the grounds of the Palapala Ho'omau Church in Kipahulu, Maui. His epitaph, on a simple stone following the words \"Charles A. Lindbergh Born Michigan 1902 Died Maui 1974\", quotes Psalms 139:9: \"... If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ... C.A.L.\" \n\nHonors and tributes\n\nOn May 8, 1928 a statue was dedicated at the entrance to Le Bourget Airport in Paris honoring Lindbergh and his New York to Paris flight as well as Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli who attempted the same feat two weeks earlier in the other direction aboard L'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird), disappearing without a trace.\n\nIn the United States, at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport was named after him, and a replica of the Spirit of St. Louis hangs there. Another such replica hangs in the great hall of the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. The definitive oil painting of Lindbergh by St. Louisan Richard Krause entitled \"The Spirit Soars\" has been displayed there. San Diego's Lindbergh Field, which is also known as San Diego International Airport, was named after him and also displays a replica of the San Diego-built Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis. The airport in Winslow, Arizona has also been renamed Winslow-Lindbergh Regional. Lindbergh himself designed the airport in 1929 when it was built as a refueling point for the first coast-to-coast air service. Among the many airports and air facilities that bear his name, the airport in Little Falls, Minnesota, where he grew up, has been named Little Falls/Morrison County-Lindbergh Field. \n\nLindbergh donated the original Spirit of St. Louis to the Smithsonian Institution in April 1928 where it has been on display continuously ever since. It currently hangs over the main lobby of the National Air and Space Museum located on the Mall in Washington, D.C. a few blocks from the Capitol. \n\nIn 1952, Grandview High School in St. Louis County was renamed Lindbergh High School. The school newspaper is the Pilot, the yearbook is the Spirit, the students are known as the Flyers, and the school's marching band holds the title of the Spirit of St. Louis Marching Band. The school district was also later named after Lindbergh. The stretch of U.S. 67 that runs through most of the St. Louis metro area is called Lindbergh Boulevard. Lindbergh also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1967.\n\nLindbergh Senior High School is located in the southeastern section Renton, Washington, in Renton School District 403. It was founded in 1972. The class of 1974 was the first to graduate. In the 1970s, Charles A. Lindbergh Senior High School, in the Hopkins School District 270, located in a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis, was named for the Minnesota native and famed aviator. In 1980, Hopkins closed an older high school and renamed Lindbergh High as Hopkins Senior High School. The Lindbergh Center is located on the Hopkins High School campus.\n\nIn Lindbergh's hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota, one of the district's elementary schools is named Charles Lindbergh Elementary. The district's sports teams are named the Flyers and Lindbergh Drive is a major road on the west side of town, leading to Charles A. Lindbergh State Park. The junior hockey team in Little Falls also bears an aviation-inspired name, the Minnesota Flying Aces. The Lindberghs donated their farmstead to the state to use as a park in memory of Lindbergh's father. The original Lindbergh residence is maintained as a museum, the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site, and is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Lindbergh is a recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America.\n\nOne of the elementary schools in the El Paso Independent School District in El Paso, Texas, where Lindbergh persuaded the city's leaders to establish an airport in the 1920s, was named Lindbergh Elementary in his honor when it opened in 1974; it was later renamed Mitzi Bond Elementary after a principal of the school who died suddenly and tragically in a traffic accident. The street where the school is located is still called Lindbergh Avenue.\n\nIn February 2002, the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston, within the celebrations for the Lindbergh 100th birthday established the Lindbergh-Carrel Prize, given to major contributors to \"development of perfusion and bioreactor technologies for organ preservation and growth\". M. E. DeBakey and nine other scientists received the prize, a bronze statuette expressly created for the event by the Italian artist C. Zoli and named \"Elisabeth\", after Elisabeth Morrow, sister of Lindbergh's wife Anne Morrow, who died as a result of heart disease. Lindbergh was disappointed that contemporary medical technology could not provide an artificial heart pump that would allow for heart surgery on Elisabeth and that led to the first contact between Carrel and Lindbergh.\n\nOn May 2, 2002, Lindbergh's grandson, Erik Lindbergh, celebrated the 75th anniversary of the pioneering 1927 flight of the Spirit of St. Louis by duplicating the journey in a single-engine, two-seat Lancair Columbia 200. The younger Lindbergh's solo flight from Republic Airport on Long Island, to Le Bourget Airport in Paris was completed in 17 hours and 7 minutes, or a little more than half the time of his grandfather's 33.5 hour original flight. \n\nAwards and decorations\n\nLindbergh received many awards, medals and decorations, most of which were later donated to the Missouri Historical Society and are on display at the Jefferson Memorial, now part of the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri.\n\nUnited States awards\n\n* Medal of Honor (1927)\n* Distinguished Flying Cross (1927)\n* Congressional Gold Medal (1928)\n* Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution (1927)\n* Hubbard Medal (1927)\n* Honorary Scout (Boy Scouts of America, 1927) \n* Silver Buffalo Award (Boy Scouts of America)\n* Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy (1949)\n* Daniel Guggenheim Medal (1953)\n* Pulitzer Prize (1954)\n\nNon-U.S. awards\n\n* Commander of the Legion of Honor (France, 1931) \n* Knight of the Order of Leopold (Belgium, 1927)\n* Air Force Cross (UK) (1927)\n* Order of the German Eagle with Star (Germany Deutsches Reich, 19 October 1938) \n* Official Royal Air Force Museum Medal (UK)\n* Fédération Aéronautique Internationale FAI Gold Medal (1927)\n* ICAO Edward Warner Award \n\nMedal of Honor\n\nRank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. Place and date: From New York City to Paris, France, May 20–21, 1927. Entered service at: Little Falls, Minn. Born: February 4, 1902, Detroit, Mich. G.O. No.: 5, W.D., 1928; Act of Congress December 14, 1927.\n\nCitation:\n\nOther recognition\n\n*1991 Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame Inductee \n*Ranked No. 3 on Flying magazine's 2013 list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation \n* Member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. \n\nIn popular culture\n\nBooks\n\nIn addition to \"WE\" and The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh also wrote prolifically over the years on other topics of interest to him, including science, technology, nationalism, war, materialism, and values. Included among those writings were five other books: The Culture of Organs (with Dr. Alexis Carrel) (1938), Of Flight and Life (1948), The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (1970), Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi (1972), and his final book, Autobiography of Values, which was published posthumously in 1978. \n\nIn addition to many biographies such as A. Scott Berg's massive \"Lindbergh\" published in 1999 and others, Lindbergh also influenced or was the model for characters in a variety of works of fiction. Shortly after he made his famous flight, the Stratemeyer Syndicate began publishing a series of books for juvenile readers called the Ted Scott Flying Stories (1927–1943), which were written by a number of authors all using the nom de plume of Franklin W. Dixon, in which the pilot hero was closely modeled after Lindbergh. Ted Scott duplicated the solo flight to Paris in the series' first volume, entitled Over the Ocean to Paris published in 1927. Another fictional literary reference to Lindbergh appears in the Agatha Christie book (1934) and movie Murder on the Orient Express (1974) which begins with a fictionalized depiction of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. \n\nThe Philip Roth novel, The Plot Against America (2004), a speculative fiction novel, explores an alternate history where Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the 1940 presidential election by Lindbergh, who allies the United States with Nazi Germany. \n\nFilm and television\n\nVerdensberømtheder i København (1939) was a Danish short subject produced by the Dansk Film Co. in which Lindbergh as well as Hollywood actors Robert Taylor, Myrna Loy, and Edward G. Robinson all appeared as themselves. The 1938 Paramount film Men with Wings (Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland) featured a replica of the Spirit of St. Louis fashioned from a Ryan B-1 \"Brougham\" similar to one presented to Lindbergh by the manufacturer, the Mahoney Aircraft Corporation, shortly after the Spirit was retired in April 1928. The 1942 MGM picture Keeper of the Flame (Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy) features Hepburn as the widow of Robert V. Forrest, a \"Lindbergh-like\" national hero, who was exposed after his death as a secret fascist intending to use his influence—especially over America's youth—to turn the country into a fascist state and eliminate those he deemed as inferior races.\n\nFour years after its 1953 publication, Lindbergh's second book about his flying \"partner\" served as the basis for the namesake major Hollywood Cinemascope motion picture The Spirit of St. Louis, directed by Billy Wilder and released on April 20, 1957, one month short of the 30th anniversary of the flight to Paris. The Spirit was \"portrayed\" in the film by three flyable replicas of the Ryan NYP, while Lindbergh was played by veteran American actor and fellow Army aviator James Stewart. To accurately depict the transatlantic flight, the film production built three replicas of the Spirit of St. Louis (at a cost of $1.3 million—equal to more than $11 million in 2013) for various location and studio film units. A similar Ryan Brougham was bought by Stewart and modified with Lindbergh's supervision.\n\nLindbergh has also been the subject of numerous screen, television, and other documentary films over the years, including Charles A. Lindbergh (1927), a UK documentary by De Forest Phonofilm based on Lindbergh's milestone flight, 40,000 Miles with Lindbergh (1928) featuring Charles A. Lindbergh, and The American Experience—Lindbergh: The Shocking, Turbulent Life of America's Lone Eagle (1988) PBS documentary directed by Stephen Ives. \n\nThe story of Lindbergh and his association with the former German Nazi Party was featured on the Science Channel TV show, Dark Matters: Twisted But True. \n\nActor Josh Lucas portrayed Lindbergh in the 2011 film, J. Edgar, directed by Clint Eastwood.\n\nMusic\n\nWithin days of the flight, dozens of Tin Pan Alley publishers rushed a variety of popular songs into print celebrating Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis including \"Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)\" by Howard Johnson and Al Sherman, and \"Lucky Lindy\" by L. Wolfe Gilbert and Abel Baer. In the two-year period following Lindbergh's flight, the U.S. Copyright Office recorded three hundred applications for Lindbergh songs. Tony Randall revived \"Lucky Lindy\" in an album of Jazz Age and Depression-era songs that he recorded entitled Vo Vo De Oh Doe (1967). \n\nIn 1929, Bertolt Brecht wrote a musical called Der Lindberghflug (The Lindbergh Flight) with music by Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith. Because of Lindbergh's apparent Nazi sympathies, in 1950 Brecht removed all direct references to Lindbergh and renamed the piece Der Ozeanflug (The Ocean Flight). \n\nIn 1964, Woody Guthrie wrote \"Mister Charlie Lindbergh\", which was critical of Lindbergh's isolationist stance and involvement in America First prior to World War II.\n\nThe 1991 album Defcon by industrial artist :wumpscut: contains a track titled \"Lindbergh\", which uses spoken quotes that reference Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight.\n\nIn 1992, the Italian singer Ivano Fossati released an album titled Lindbergh - Lettere da sopra la pioggia. The cover features a picture of the Spirit of St. Louis. \"Lindbergh\" is also the title of the last track of the album.\n\nIn 2016, as part of his series of scores based around historical events, Adam Young released a score based around The Spirit of St. Louis's flight. \n\nPostage stamps\n\nLindbergh and the Spirit have been honored by a variety of world postage stamps over the last eight decades, including three issued by the United States. Less than three weeks after the flight the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-cent \"Lindbergh Air Mail\" stamp (Scott C-10) on June 11, 1927, with engraved illustrations of both the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of its route from New York to Paris. This was also the first U.S. stamp to bear the name of a living person. A half-century later, a 13-Cent commemorative stamp (Scott #1710) depicting the Spirit flying low over the Atlantic Ocean was issued on May 20, 1977, the 50th anniversary of the flight from Roosevelt Field. On May 28, 1998, a 32¢ stamp with the legend \"Lindbergh Flies Atlantic\" (Scott #3184m) depicting Lindbergh and the \"Spirit\" was issued as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series."
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Which port lies between Puget Sound and Lake Washington?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Puget Sound is a sound along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and two minor connections to the open Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca—Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and Deception Pass and Swinomish Channel being the minor. Flow through Deception Pass is approximately equal to 2% of the total tidal exchange between Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Puget Sound extends approximately 100 mi from Deception Pass in the north to Olympia, Washington in the south. Its average depth is 450 ft and its maximum depth, off Point Jefferson between Indianola and Kingston, is 930 ft. The depth of the main basin, between the southern tip of Whidbey Island and Tacoma, Washington, is approximately 600 ft.\n\nSince 2009, the term Salish Sea has been established by the United States Board on Geographic Names as the collective waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. Sometimes the terms \"Puget Sound\" and \"Puget Sound and adjacent waters\" are used for not only Puget Sound proper but also for waters to the north, such as Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands region. \n\nThe term \"Puget Sound\" is used not just for the body of water but also the Puget Sound region centered on the sound. Major cities on the sound include Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Everett, Washington. The Seattle metropolitan area also includes Bellevue, Washington, just east of the Sound.\n\nPuget Sound is also the second largest estuary in the United States, behind Chesapeake Bay. \n\nNames\n\nIn 1792 George Vancouver gave the name \"Puget's Sound\" to the waters south of the Tacoma Narrows, in honor of Peter Puget, a Huguenot lieutenant accompanying him on the Vancouver Expedition. This name later came to be used for the waters north of Tacoma Narrows as well. \n\nAn alternative term for Puget Sound, still used by some Native Americans and environmental groups, is Whulge (or Whulj), an anglicization of the Lushootseed name x̌ʷə́lč, which means \"sea, salt water, ocean, or sound.\" \n\nDefinitions\n\nThe USGS defines Puget Sound as all the waters south of three entrances from the Strait of Juan de Fuca The main entrance at Admiralty Inlet is defined as a line between Point Wilson on the Olympic Peninsula, and Point Partridge on Whidbey Island. The second entrance is at Deception Pass along a line from West Point on Whidbey Island, to Deception Island, then to Rosario Head on Fidalgo Island. The third entrance is at the south end of the Swinomish Channel, which connects Skagit Bay and Padilla Bay. Under this definition, Puget Sound includes the waters of Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, Possession Sound, Saratoga Passage, and others. It does not include Bellingham Bay, Padilla Bay, the waters of the San Juan Islands or anything farther north.\n\nAnother definition, given by NOAA, subdivides Puget Sound into five basins or regions. Four of these correspond to areas within the USGS definition, but the fifth one, called \"Northern Puget Sound\" includes a large additional region. It is defined as bounded to the north by the international boundary with Canada, and to the west by a line running north from the mouth of the Sekiu River on the Olympic Peninsula. Under this definition significant parts of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia are included in Puget Sound, with the international boundary marking an abrupt and hydrologically arbitrary limit.\n\nAccording to Arthur Kruckeberg, the term \"Puget Sound\" is sometimes used for waters north of Admiralty Inlet and Deception Pass, especially for areas along the north coast of Washington and the San Juan Islands, essentially equivalent to NOAA's \"Northern Puget Sound\" subdivision described above. Kruckeberg uses the term \"Puget Sound and adjacent waters\".\n\nGeology \n\nContinental ice sheets have repeatedly advanced and retreated from the Puget Sound region. The most recent glacial period, called the Fraser Glaciation, had three phases, or stades. During the third, or Vashon Glaciation, a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, called the Puget Lobe, spread south about 15,000 years ago, covering the Puget Sound region with an ice sheet about 3000 ft thick near Seattle, and nearly 6000 ft at the present Canada-U.S. border. Since each new advance and retreat of ice erodes away much of the evidence of previous ice ages, the most recent Vashon phase has left the clearest imprint on the land. At its maximum extent the Vashon ice sheet extended south of Olympia to near Tenino, and covered the lowlands between the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges. About 14,000 years ago the ice began to retreat. By 11,000 years ago it survived only north of the Canadian border.Kruckeberg (1991), pp. 18–23.\n\nThe melting retreat of the Vashon Glaciation eroded the land, creating a drumlin field of hundreds of aligned drumlin hills. Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish (which are ribbon lakes), Hood Canal, and the main Puget Sound basin were altered by glacial forces. These glacial forces are not specifically \"carving\", as in cutting into the landscape via the mechanics of ice/glaciers, but rather eroding the landscape from melt water of the Vashon Glacier creating the drumlin field. As the ice retreated, vast amounts of glacial till were deposited throughout the Puget Sound region. The soils of the region, less than ten thousand years old, are still characterized as immature.\n\nAs the Vashon glacier receded a series of proglacial lakes formed, filling the main trough of Puget Sound and inundating the southern lowlands. Glacial Lake Russell was the first such large recessional lake. From the vicinity of Seattle in the north the lake extended south to the Black Hills, where it drained south into the Chehalis River. Sediments from Lake Russell form the blue-gray clay identified as the Lawton Clay. The second major recessional lake was Glacial Lake Bretz. It also drained to the Chehalis River until the Chimacum Valley, in the northeast Olympic Peninsula, melted, allowing the lake's water to rapidly drain north into the marine waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which was rising as the ice sheet retreated.\n\nAs icebergs calved off the toe of the glacier, their embedded gravels and boulders were deposited in the chaotic mix of unsorted till geologists call glaciomarine drift. Many beaches about the Sound display glacial erratics, rendered more prominent than those in coastal woodland solely by their exposed position; submerged glacial erratics sometimes cause hazards to navigation. The sheer weight of glacial-age ice depressed the landforms, which experienced post-glacial rebound after the ice sheets had retreated. Because the rate of rebound was not synchronous with the post-ice age rise in sea levels, the bed of what is Puget Sound, filled alternately with fresh and with sea water. The upper level of the lake-sediment Lawton Clay now lies about 120 ft above sea level.\n\nThe Puget Sound system consists of four deep basins connected by shallower sills. The four basins are Hood Canal, west of the Kitsap Peninsula, Whidbey Basin, east of Whidbey Island, South Sound, south of the Tacoma Narrows, and the Main Basin, which is further subdivided into Admiralty Inlet and the Central Basin. Puget Sound's sills, a kind of submarine terminal moraine, separate the basins from one another, and Puget Sound from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Three sills are particularly significant—the one at Admiralty Inlet which checks the flow of water between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget sound, the one at the entrance to Hood Canal (about 175 ft below the surface), and the one at the Tacoma Narrows (about 145 ft). Other sills that present less of a barrier include the ones at Blake Island, Agate Pass, Rich Passage, and Hammersley Inlet.\n\nThe depth of the basins is a result of the Sound being part of the Cascadia subduction zone, where the terranes accreted at the edge of the Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted under the North American Plate. There has not been a major subduction zone earthquake here since the magnitude nine Cascadia earthquake; according to Japanese records, it occurred 26 January 1700. Lesser Puget Sound earthquakes with shallow epicenters, caused by the fracturing of stressed oceanic rocks as they are subducted, still cause great damage. The Seattle Fault cuts across Puget Sound, crossing the southern tip of Bainbridge Island and under Elliott Bay. To the south, the existence of a second fault, the Tacoma Fault, has buckled the intervening strata in the Seattle Uplift.\n\nTypical Puget Sound profiles of dense glacial till overlying permeable glacial outwash of gravels above an impermeable bed of silty clay may become unstable after periods of unusually wet weather and slump in landslides. \n\nHydrology\n\nThe United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines Puget Sound as a bay with numerous channels and branches; more specifically, it is a fjord system of flooded glacial valleys. Puget Sound is part of a larger physiographic structure termed the Puget Trough, which is a physiographic section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System. \n\nPuget Sound is a large salt water estuary, or system of many estuaries, fed by highly seasonal freshwater from the Olympic and Cascade Mountain watersheds. The mean annual river discharge into Puget Sound is 41000 cuft/s, with a monthly average maximum of about 367000 cuft/s and minimum of about 14000 cuft/s. Puget Sound's shoreline is 1332 mi long, encompassing a water area of 1020 sqmi and a total volume of at mean high water. The average volume of water flowing in and out of Puget Sound during each tide is . The maximum tidal currents, in the range of 9 to 10 knots, occurs at Deception Pass.\n\nThe size of Puget Sound's watershed is 12138 sqmi. \"Northern Puget Sound\" is frequently considered part of the Puget Sound watershed, which enlarges its size to 13700 sqmi. The USGS uses the name \"Puget Sound\" for its hydrologic unit subregion 1711, which includes areas draining to Puget Sound proper as well as the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia, and the Fraser River. Significant rivers that drain to \"Northern Puget Sound\" include the Nooksack, Dungeness, and Elwha Rivers. The Nooksack empties into Bellingham Bay, the Dungeness and Elwha into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Chilliwack River flows north to the Fraser River in Canada.\n\nTides in Puget Sound are of the mixed type with two high and two low tides each tidal day. These are called Higher High Water (HHW), Lower Low Water (LLW), Lower High Water (LHW), and Higher Low Water (HLW). The configuration of basins, sills, and interconnections cause the tidal range to increase within Puget Sound. The difference in height between the Higher High Water and the Lower Low Water averages about at Port Townsend on Admiralty Inlet, but increases to about at Olympia, the southern end of Puget Sound.\n\nPuget Sound is generally accepted as the start of the Inside Passage. \n\nFlora and fauna\n\nImportant marine flora of Puget Sound include eelgrass (Zostera marina) and kelp, especially bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana). \n\nAmong the marine mammals species found in Puget Sound are harbor seals (Phoca vitulina). Orca (Orcinus orca) are famous throughout the Sound, and are a large tourist attraction. Although orca are sometimes seen in Puget Sound proper they are far more prevalent around the San Juan Islands north of Puget Sound. \n\nMany fish species occur in Puget Sound. The various salmonid species, including salmon, trout, and char are particularly well-known and studied. Salmonid species of Puget Sound include chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), chum salmon (O. keta), coho salmon (O. kisutch), pink salmon (O. gorbuscha), sockeye salmon (O. nerka), sea-run coastal cutthroat trout (O. clarki clarki), steelhead (O. mykiss irideus), sea-run bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), and Dolly Varden trout (Salvelinus malma malma). \n\nCommon forage fishes found in Puget Sound include Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii), surf smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus), and Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus). Important benthopelagic fish of Puget Sound include North Pacific hake (Merluccius productus), Pacific cod (Gadus macrocelhalus), walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), and the spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias). There are about 28 species of Sebastidae (rockfish), of many types, found in Puget Sound. Among those of special interest are copper rockfish (Sebastes caurinus), quillback rockfish (S. maliger), black rockfish (S. melanops), yelloweye rockfish (S. ruberrimus), bocaccio rockfish (S. paucispinis), canary rockfish (S. pinniger), and Puget Sound rockfish (S. emphaeus). \n\nMany other fish species occur in Puget Sound, such as sturgeons, lampreys, various sharks, rays, and skates. \n\nPuget Sound is home to numerous species of marine invertebrates, including sponges, sea anemones, chitons, clams, sea snails, limpets crabs, barnacles starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars. Dungeness crabs (Metacarcinus magister) occur throughout Washington waters, including Puget Sound. Many bivalves occur in Puget Sound, such as Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) and geoduck clams (Panopea generosa). The Olympia oyster (Ostreola conchaphila), once common in Puget Sound, was depleted by human activities during the 20th century. There are ongoing efforts to restore Olympia oysters in Puget Sound. \n\nThere are many seabird species of Puget Sound. Among these are grebes such as the western grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis); loons such as the common loon (Gavia immer); auks such as the pigeon guillemot (Cepphus columba), rhinoceros auklet (Cerorhinca monocerata), common murre (Uria aalge), and marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus); the brant goose (Branta bernicla); seaducks such as the long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis), harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), and surf scoter (Melanitta perspicillata); and cormorants such as the double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus). Puget Sound is home to a non-migratory and marine-oriented subspecies of great blue herons (Ardea herodias fannini). Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) occur in relative high densities in the Puget Sound region. \n\nIt is estimated that more than 100 million geoducks (pronounced \"gooey ducks\") are packed into Puget Sound's sediments. Also known as \"king clam\", geoducks are considered to be a delicacy in Asian countries.\n\nHistory\n\nGeorge Vancouver explored Puget Sound in 1792. Vancouver claimed it for Great Britain on 4 June 1792, naming it for one of his officers, Lieutenant Peter Puget. \n\nAfter 1818 Britain and the United States, which both claimed the Oregon Country, agreed to \"joint occupancy\", deferring resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute until the 1846 Oregon Treaty. Puget Sound was part of the disputed region until 1846, after which it became US territory.\n\nAmerican maritime fur traders visited Puget Sound in the early 19th century. \n\nThe first European settlement in the Puget Sound area was Fort Nisqually, a fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) built in 1833. Fort Nisqually was part of the HBC's Columbia District, headquartered at Fort Vancouver. The Puget Sound Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of the HBC, established farms and ranches near Fort Nisqually. British ships such as the Beaver, exported foodstuffs and provisions from Fort Nisqually. \n\nThe first American settlement on Puget Sound was Tumwater. It was founded in 1845 by Americans who had come via the Oregon Trail. The decision to settle north of the Columbia River was made in part because one of the settlers, George Washington Bush, was considered black and the Provisional Government of Oregon banned the residency of mulattoes but did not actively enforce the restriction north of the river. \n\nIn 1853 Washington Territory was formed from part of Oregon Territory. In 1888 the Northern Pacific railroad line reached Puget Sound, linking the region to eastern states. \n\nTransportation\n\nA unique state-run ferry system, the Washington State Ferries, connects the larger islands to the Washington mainland, as well as both sides of the sound, allowing people and cars to move about the greater Puget Sound region.\n\nEnvironmental issues\n\nIn the past 30 years there has been a large recession in the populations of the species which inhabit Puget Sound. The decrease has been seen in the populations of: forage fish, salmonids, bottom fish, marine birds, harbor porpoise and orcas. This decline is attributed to the various environmental issues in Puget Sound. Because of this population decline, there have been changes to the fishery practices, and an increase in petitioning to add species to the Endangered Species Act. There has also been an increase in recovery and management plans for many different area species.\n\nThe causes of these environmental issues are toxic contamination, eutrophication (low oxygen due to excess nutrients), and near shore habitat changes.\n\nProminent islands\n\n* Anderson Island\n* Bainbridge Island\n* Blake Island\n* Camano Island\n* Fidalgo Island\n\n* Fox Island\n* Guemes Island\n* Harstine Island\n* Herron Island\n* Indian Island\n* Marrowstone Island\n\n* Maury Island\n* McNeil Island\n* Squaxin Island\n* Vashon Island\n* Whidbey Island",
"Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It is bordered by the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south and Kenmore on the north, and surrounds Mercer Island. The lake is fed by the Sammamish River at its north end and the Cedar River at its south.\n\nLake Washington received its present name in 1854 after Thomas Mercer suggested it be named after George Washington, as the new Washington Territory had been named the year before. Prior names for Lake Washington have included the Duwamish name Xacuabš (Lushootseed: literally great-amount-of-water), as well as Lake Geneva, Lake Duwamish, and the Chinook jargon name, \"Hyas Chuck,\" meaning, \"Big Lake.\" \n\nThe lake provides great sport fishing opportunities. Some species found in this lake are Coastal Cutthroat Trout, Rainbow Trout, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Yellow Perch, and Black Crappie. \n\nGeography\n\nA ribbon lake, Lake Washington is long, narrow and finger-like. Ribbon lakes are excavated by glaciers. As the Puget lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet flowed south near the end of the Late Pleistocene, it met bands of harder and softer rock. Erosion of the softer rock was faster and a linear depression was created in the flow direction. When the glacier melted, the lake filled with the meltwater, which was retained by moraine deposits. A dam can also be created by the bands of harder rock either side of the softer rock. There is usually a river at both ends of a ribbon lake, one being the inlet, and the other, the outlet—though in the case of present-day Lake Washington, inlet rivers are located at both ends, with a man-made outlet in the middle.\n\nCreeks and rivers\n\nThe main inflowing rivers are the Sammamish and Cedar Rivers. Prior to the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, the Sammamish was the primary source of water for Lake Washington. The creation of the ship canal lowered the water level of Lake Washington by 8 feet (8.5 m), which slightly increased the flow of the Sammamish River (seasonal changes in river flow were moderated by a weir at the Lake Sammamish outlet in 1964). As part of the ship canal project, the Cedar River was diverted into Lake Washington, and it is now the primary source of water for Lake Washington.\n\nIn addition, there are numerous small creeks and rivers which feed the lake, including:[http://www.cedarriver.org/the-watershed \"The Watershed\"]. Friends of the Cedar River Watershed. Accessed 10 December 2014.\n\n* Coal Creek\n* Fairweather Creek\n* Forbes Creek\n* Juanita Creek\n* Kelsey Creek\n* Lyon Creek\n* May Creek\n* McAleer Creek\n* Mercer Slough\n* Ravenna Creek\n* Taylor Creek\n* Thornton Creek\n* Yarrow Creek\n* Yesler Creek\n\nCanals and bridges\n\nBefore construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, Lake Washington's outlet was the Black River, which joined the Duwamish River and emptied into Elliott Bay. When the canal was opened the level of the lake dropped nearly nine feet (3 m). The canal to the Puget Sound became the lake's sole outlet, causing the Black River to dry up and disappear.\n\nConcrete floating bridges are employed to span the lake because Lake Washington's depth and muddy bottom prevented the emplacement of the pilings or towers necessary for the construction of a causeway or suspension bridge. The bridges consist of hollow concrete pontoons that float atop the lake, anchored with cables to each other and to weights on the lake bottom. The roadway is constructed atop these concrete pontoons. Three floating bridges cross Lake Washington: the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (officially the SR 520 Albert D. Rosellini Evergreen Point Floating Bridge) carries State Route 520 from Seattle's Montlake neighborhood to Medina while the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge and the Third Lake Washington Bridge (officially the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge) carry Interstate 90 from Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood to Mercer Island. The East Channel Bridge carries Interstate 90 from Mercer Island to Bellevue. The Evergreen Point, Lacey V. Murrow, and Third Lake Washington bridges are the longest, second longest, and fifth longest floating bridges in the world, respectively.\n\nMany questioned the wisdom of concrete floating bridge technology after the sinking of a portion of the Lacey V. Murrow bridge on November 25, 1990. However, a Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) investigation revealed that that incident resulted from the improper handling of hydrodemolition water being used during bridge renovations, rather than in any basic flaw in the bridge's concept or design. Concrete floating bridges continue to remain a viable means for the conveyance of vehicle traffic over Lake Washington. \n\nIn 1950, approximately one year after the tolls were removed from the Murrow bridge, the inland ferry system on the lake came to an end, having operated since the 1880s. \n\nShoreline cities and towns\n\nThe cities and towns bordering the lake, going clockwise from the west, are Seattle, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore, Kirkland, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, Medina, Bellevue, Beaux Arts Village, Newcastle, and Renton. The city of Mercer Island occupies the island of the same name, in the southern half of the lake.\n\nBusinesses\n\nKenmore Air operates passenger seaplane service at Kenmore Air Harbor at the northern end of the lake.\n\nWater purity\n\nAround 1900, Seattle began discharging sewage into Lake Washington. During the 1940s and 1950s, eleven sewage treatment plants were sending state-of-the-art treated water into the lake at a rate of 20 million gallons per day. At the same time, phosphate-based detergents came into wide-use. The lake responded to the massive input of nutrients by developing unpleasant blooms of noxious blue-green algae. The water lost its clarity, the desirable fish populations declined, and masses of dead algae accumulated on the shores of the lake. After significant pollution, the October 5, 1963 issue of the Post Intelligencer referred to the lake as \"Lake Stinko\". Citizen concern led to the creation of a system that diverted the treatment-plant effluents into nearby Puget Sound, where tidal flushing would mix them with open-ocean water. The diversion was complete by 1968, and the lake responded quickly. The algal blooms diminished, the water regained its clarity, and by 1975, recovery was complete. Careful studies by a group of limnologists from the University of Washington showed that phosphate was the culprit. Since then, Lake Washington has undergone major improvements, drastically improving the ecology and water quality, making the water twice as clear as it was in 1950."
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Who became US Vice President when Spiro Agnew resigned?
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tc_55
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Vice President of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest position in the executive branch of the United States, after the President. The executive power of both the vice president and the president is granted under Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. The vice president is indirectly elected, together with the president, to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College. The vice president is the first person in the presidential line of succession, and would normally ascend to the presidency upon the death, resignation, or removal of the president. The Office of the Vice President of the United States assists and organizes the vice president's official functions.\n\nThe vice president is also president of the United States Senate and in that capacity only votes when it is necessary to break a tie. While Senate customs have created supermajority rules that have diminished this constitutional tie-breaking authority, the vice president still retains the ability to influence legislation; for example, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 was passed in the Senate by a tie-breaking vice presidential vote. Additionally, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the vice president presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College.\n\nWhile the vice president's only constitutionally prescribed functions aside from presidential succession relate to their role as President of the Senate, the office is commonly viewed as a component of the executive branch of the federal government. The United States Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the vice president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress, though such activities are only recent historical developments.\n\nOrigin\n\nThe creation of the office of vice president was a direct consequence of the creation of the Electoral College. Delegates to the Philadelphia Convention gave each state a number of presidential electors equal to that state's combined share of House and Senate seats. Yet the delegates were worried that each elector would only favor his own state's favorite son candidate, resulting in deadlocked elections that would produce no winners. To counter this potential difficulty, the delegates gave each presidential elector two votes, requiring that at least one of their votes be for a candidate from outside the elector's state; they also mandated that the winner of an election must obtain an absolute majority of the total number of electors. The delegates expected that each elector's second vote would go to a statesman of national character.\n\nFearing that electors might throw away their second vote to bolster their favorite son's chance of winning, however, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the runner-up would become vice president. Creating this new office imposed a political cost on discarded votes and forced electors to cast their second ballot.\n\nRoles of the vice president\n\nThe Constitution limits the formal powers and role of vice president to becoming president, should the president become unable to serve, prompting the well-known expression \"only a heartbeat away from the presidency,\" and to acting as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate.\nOther statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. \n\nPresident of the United States Senate\n\nAs President of the Senate, the vice president has two primary duties: to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over and certify the official vote count of the U.S. Electoral College. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority.\n\nRegular duties\n\nAs President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 4), the vice president oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. There is a strong convention within the U.S. Senate that the vice president should not use their position as President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie votes. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes, a record no successor except John C. Calhoun ever threatened. Adams's votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, and prevented war with Great Britain. On at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of George Washington's administration. Toward the end of his first term, a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters caused him to exercise more restraint in hopes of seeing his election as President of the United States.\n\nFormerly, the vice president would preside regularly over Senate proceedings, but in modern times, the vice president rarely presides over day-to-day matters in the Senate; in their place, the Senate chooses a President pro tempore (or \"president for a time\") to preside in the vice president's absence; the Senate normally selects the longest-serving senator in the majority party. The President pro tempore has the power to appoint any other senator to preside, and in practice junior senators from the majority party are assigned the task of presiding over the Senate at most times.\n\nExcept for this tie-breaking role, the Standing Rules of the Senate vest no significant responsibilities in the vice president. Rule XIX, which governs debate, does not authorize the vice president to participate in debate, and grants only to members of the Senate (and, upon appropriate notice, former presidents of the United States) the privilege of addressing the Senate, without granting a similar privilege to the sitting vice president. Thus, as Time magazine wrote during the controversial tenure of Vice President Charles G. Dawes, \"once in four years the Vice President can make a little speech, and then he is done. For four years he then has to sit in the seat of the silent, attending to speeches ponderous or otherwise, of deliberation or humor.\" \n\nRecurring, infrequent duties\n\nThe President of the Senate also presides over counting and presentation of the votes of the Electoral College. This process occurs in the presence of both houses of Congress, generally on January 6 of the year following a U.S. presidential election. In this capacity, only four vice presidents have been able to announce their own election to the presidency: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush. At the beginning of 1961, it fell to Richard Nixon to preside over this process, which officially announced the election of his 1960 opponent, John F. Kennedy. In 2001, Al Gore announced the election of his opponent, George W. Bush. In 1969, Vice President Hubert Humphrey would have announced the election of his opponent, Richard Nixon; however, on the date of the Congressional joint session (January 6), Humphrey was in Norway attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the first elected Secretary-General of the United Nations. \n\nIn 1933, incumbent Vice President Charles Curtis announced the election of House Speaker John Nance Garner as his successor, while Garner was seated next to him on the House dais.\n\nThe President of the Senate may also preside over most of the impeachment trials of federal officers. However, whenever the President of the United States is impeached, the US Constitution requires the Chief Justice of the United States to preside over the Senate for the trial. The Constitution is silent as to the presiding officer in the instance where the vice president is the officer impeached.\n\nSuccession and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment\n\nThe U.S. Constitution provides that should the president die, become disabled while in office or removed from office, the \"powers and duties\" of the office are transferred to the vice president. Initially, it was unclear whether the vice president actually became the new president or merely an acting president. This was first tested in 1841 with the death of President William Henry Harrison. Harrison's vice president, John Tyler, asserted that he had succeeded to the full presidential office, powers, and title, and declined to acknowledge documents referring to him as \"Acting President.\" Despite some strong calls against it, Tyler took the oath of office as the tenth President. Tyler's claim was not challenged legally, and so the Tyler precedent of full succession was established. This was made explicit by Section 1 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1967.\n\nSection 2 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment provides for vice presidential succession:\n Gerald Ford was the first vice president selected by this method, after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973; after succeeding to the presidency, Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as vice president.\n\nAnother issue was who had the power to declare that an incapacitated president is unable to discharge his duties. This question had arisen most recently with the illnesses of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Section 3 and Section 4 of the amendment provide means for the vice president to become acting president upon the temporary disability of the president. Section 3 deals with self-declared incapacity of the president. Section 4 deals with incapacity declared by the joint action of the vice president and of a majority of the Cabinet.\n\nWhile Section 4 has never been invoked, Section 3 has been invoked three times: on July 13, 1985 when Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon, and twice more on June 29, 2002 and July 21, 2007 when George W. Bush underwent colonoscopy procedures requiring sedation. Prior to this amendment, Vice President Richard Nixon informally assumed some of President Dwight Eisenhower's duties for several weeks on each of three occasions when Eisenhower was ill.\n\nInformal roles\n\nThe extent of any informal roles and functions of the vice president depend on the specific relationship between the president and the vice president, but often include tasks such as drafter and spokesperson for the administration's policies, adviser to the president, and being a symbol of American concern or support. The influence of the vice president in this role depends almost entirely on the characteristics of the particular administration. Dick Cheney, for instance, was widely regarded as one of President George W. Bush's closest confidants. Al Gore was an important adviser to President Bill Clinton on matters of foreign policy and the environment. Often, vice presidents are chosen to act as a \"balance\" to the president, taking either more moderate or radical positions on issues.\n\nUnder the American system the president is both head of state and head of government, and the ceremonial duties of the former position are often delegated to the vice president. The vice president is often assigned the ceremonial duties of representing the president and the government at state funerals or other functions in the United States. This often is the most visible role of the vice president, and has occasionally been the subject of ridicule, such as during the vice presidency of George H. W. Bush. The vice president may meet with other heads of state or attend state funerals in other countries, at times when the administration wishes to demonstrate concern or support but cannot send the president themselves.\n\nOffice as stepping stone to the presidency\n\nIn recent decades, the vice presidency has frequently been used as a platform to launch bids for the presidency. The transition of the office to its modern stature occurred primarily as a result of Franklin Roosevelt's 1940 nomination, when he captured the ability to nominate his running mate instead of leaving the nomination to the convention. Prior to that, party bosses often used the vice presidential nomination as a consolation prize for the party's minority faction. A further factor potentially contributing to the rise in prestige of the office was the adoption of presidential preference primaries in the early 20th century. By adopting primary voting, the field of candidates for vice president was expanded by both the increased quantity and quality of presidential candidates successful in some primaries, yet who ultimately failed to capture the presidential nomination at the convention.\n\nOf the thirteen presidential elections from 1956 to 2004, nine featured the incumbent president; the other four (1960, 1968, 1988, 2000) all featured the incumbent vice president. Former vice presidents also ran, in 1984 (Walter Mondale), and in 1968 (Richard Nixon, against the incumbent vice president, Hubert Humphrey). The first presidential election to include neither the incumbent president nor the incumbent vice president on a major party ticket since 1952 came in 2008 when President George W. Bush had already served two terms and Vice President Cheney chose not to run. Richard Nixon is also the only non-sitting vice president to be elected president, as well as the only person to be elected president and vice president twice each.\n\nSelection process\n\nEligibility\n\nThe Twelfth Amendment states that \"no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.\" Thus, to serve as vice president, an individual must:\n* Be a natural-born U.S. citizen;\n* Be at least 35 years old\n* Have resided in the U.S. at least 14 years. \n\nDisqualifications\n\nAdditionally, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment denies eligibility for any federal office to anyone who, having sworn an oath to support the United States Constitution, later has rebelled against the United States. This disqualification, originally aimed at former supporters of the Confederacy, may be removed by a two-thirds vote of each house of the Congress.\n\nUnder the Twenty-second Amendment, the President of the United States may not be elected to more than two terms. However, there is no similar such limitation as to how many times one can be elected vice president. Scholars disagree whether a former president barred from election to the presidency is also ineligible to be elected or appointed vice president, as suggested by the Twelfth Amendment. The issue has never been tested in practice.\n\nAlso, Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 allows the Senate, upon voting to remove an impeached federal official from office, to disqualify that official from holding any federal office.\n\nResidency limitation\n\nWhile it is commonly held that the president and vice president must be residents of different states, this is not actually the case. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits both candidates being from a single state. Instead, the limitation imposed is on the members of the Electoral College, who must cast a ballot for at least one candidate who is not from their own state.\n\nIn theory, the candidates elected could both be from one state, but the electors of that state would, in a close electoral contest, run the risk of denying their vice presidential candidate the absolute majority required to secure the election, even if the presidential candidate is elected. This would then place the vice presidential election in the hands of the Senate.\n\nIn practice, however, residency is rarely an issue. Parties have avoided nominating tickets containing two candidates from the same state. Further, the candidates may themselves take action to alleviate any residency conflict. For example, at the start of the 2000 election cycle Dick Cheney was a resident of Texas; Cheney quickly changed his residency back to Wyoming, where he had previously served as a U.S. Representative, when Texas governor and Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush asked Cheney to be his vice presidential candidate.\n\nNominating process\n\nThough the vice president does not need to have any political experience, most major-party vice presidential nominees are current or former United States Senators or Representatives, with the occasional nominee being a current or former Governor, a high-ranking military officer, or a holder of a major post within the Executive Department. The vice presidential candidates of the major national political parties are formally selected by each party's quadrennial nominating convention, following the selection of the party's presidential candidates. The official process is identical to the one by which the presidential candidates are chosen, with delegates placing the names of candidates into nomination, followed by a ballot in which candidates must receive a majority to secure the party's nomination.\n\nIn practice, the presidential nominee has considerable influence on the decision, and in the 20th century it became customary for that person to select a preferred running mate, who is then nominated and accepted by the convention. In recent years, with the presidential nomination usually being a foregone conclusion as the result of the primary process, the selection of a vice presidential candidate is often announced prior to the actual balloting for the presidential candidate, and sometimes before the beginning of the convention itself. The first presidential aspirant to announce his selection for vice president before the beginning of the convention was Ronald Reagan who, prior to the 1976 Republican National Convention announced that Richard Schweiker would be his running mate. Reagan's supporters then sought to amend the convention rules so that Gerald R. Ford would be required to name his vice presidential running mate in advance as well. The proposal was defeated, and Reagan did not receive the nomination in 1976. Often, the presidential nominee will name a vice presidential candidate who will bring geographic or ideological balance to the ticket or appeal to a particular constituency.\n\nThe vice presidential candidate might also be chosen on the basis of traits the presidential candidate is perceived to lack, or on the basis of name recognition. To foster party unity, popular runners-up in the presidential nomination process are commonly considered. While this selection process may enhance the chances of success for a national ticket, in the past it often insured that the vice presidential nominee represented regions, constituencies, or ideologies at odds with those of the presidential candidate. As a result, vice presidents were often excluded from the policy-making process of the new administration. Many times their relationships with the president and his staff were aloof, non-existent, or even adversarial.\n\nThe ultimate goal of vice presidential candidate selection is to help and not hurt the party's chances of getting elected. A selection whose positive traits make the presidential candidate look less favorable in comparison can backfire, such as in 1988 when Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis chose experienced Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, and in 2008 when Republican candidate John McCain picked dynamic Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. However, Palin also hurt McCain when her interviews with Katie Couric led to concerns about her fitness for the presidency. In 1984, Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro whose nomination became a drag on the ticket due to repeated questions about her husband's finances. Questions about Dan Quayle's experience and temperament were raised in the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, but he still won. James Stockdale, the choice of third-party candidate Ross Perot in 1992, was seen as unqualified by many, but the Perot-Stockdale ticket still won about 19% of the vote.\n\nHistorically, vice presidential candidates were chosen to provide geographic and ideological balance to a presidential ticket, widening a presidential candidate's appeal to voters from outside his regional base or wing of the party. Candidates from electoral-vote rich states were usually preferred. However, in 1992, moderate Democrat Bill Clinton (of Arkansas) chose moderate Democrat Al Gore (of Tennessee)\nas his running mate. Despite the two candidates' near-identical ideological and regional backgrounds, Gore's extensive experience in national affairs enhanced the appeal of a ticket headed by Clinton, whose political career had been spent entirely at the local and state levels of government. In 2000, George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney of Wyoming, a reliably Republican state with only three electoral votes, and in 2008, Barack Obama mirrored Bush's strategy when he chose Joe Biden of Delaware, a reliably Democratic state, likewise one with only three electoral votes. Both Cheney and Biden were chosen for their experience in national politics (experience lacked by both Bush and Obama) rather than the ideological balance or electoral vote advantage they would provide.\n\nThe first presidential candidate to choose his vice presidential candidate was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. The last not to name a vice presidential choice, leaving the matter up to the convention, was Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1956. The convention chose Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver over Massachusetts Senator (and later president) John F. Kennedy. At the tumultuous 1972 Democratic convention, presidential nominee George McGovern selected Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, but numerous other candidates were either nominated from the floor or received votes during the balloting. Eagleton nevertheless received a majority of the votes and the nomination, though he later resigned from the ticket, resulting in Sargent Shriver becoming McGovern's final running mate; both lost to the Nixon-Agnew ticket by a wide margin, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.\n\nIn cases where the presidential nomination is still in doubt as the convention approaches, the campaigns for the two positions may become intertwined. In 1976, Ronald Reagan, who was trailing President Gerald R. Ford in the presidential delegate count, announced prior to the Republican National Convention that, if nominated, he would select Senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate. This move backfired to a degree, as Schweiker's relatively liberal voting record alienated many of the more conservative delegates who were considering a challenge to party delegate selection rules to improve Reagan's chances. In the end, Ford narrowly won the presidential nomination and Reagan's selection of Schweiker became moot.\n\nElection, oath, and tenure\n\nVice presidents are elected indirectly in the United States. A number of electors, collectively known as the Electoral College, officially select the president. On Election Day, voters in each of the states and the District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors. Each state is allocated a number of electors, equal to the size of its delegation in both Houses of Congress combined. Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.\n\nThe winning slate of electors meet at its state's capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, to vote. They then send a record of that vote to Congress. The vote of the electors is opened by the sitting vice president, acting in his capacity as President of the Senate and read aloud to a joint session of the incoming Congress, which was elected at the same time as the president.\n\nPursuant to the Twentieth Amendment, the vice president's term of office begins at noon on January 20 of the year following the election. This date, known as Inauguration Day, marks the beginning of the four-year terms of both the president and vice president.\n\nAlthough Article VI requires that the vice president take an oath or affirmation of allegiance to the US Constitution, unlike the president, the United States Constitution does not specify the precise wording of the oath of office for the vice president. Several variants of the oath have been used since 1789; the current form, which is also recited by Senators, Representatives and other government officers, has been used since 1884:\n\nThe term of office for vice president is four years. While the Twenty-Second Amendment generally restricts the president to two terms, there is no similar limitation on the office of vice president, meaning an eligible person could hold the office as long as voters continued to vote for electors who in turn would renew the vice president's tenure. A vice president could even serve under different administrations, as George Clinton and John C. Calhoun have done.\n\nOriginal election process and reform\n\nUnder the original terms of the Constitution, the electors of the Electoral College voted only for office of president rather than for both president and vice president. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for the top office. The person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided that such a number was a majority of electors) would be president, while the individual who received the next largest number of votes became vice president. If no one received a majority of votes, then the House of Representatives would choose among the five candidates with the largest numbers of votes, with each state's representatives together casting a single vote. In such a case, the person who received the highest number of votes but was not chosen president would become vice president. In the case of a tie for second, then the Senate would choose the vice president.Wikisource:Constitution of the United States of America#Section 1 2\n\nThe original plan, however, did not foresee the development of political parties and their adversarial role in the government. For example, in the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams came in first, but because the Federalist electors had divided their second vote amongst several vice presidential candidates, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. Thus, the president and vice president were from opposing parties. Predictably, Adams and Jefferson clashed over issues such as states' rights and foreign policy. \n\nA greater problem occurred in the election of 1800, in which the two participating parties each had a secondary candidate they intended to elect as vice president, but the more popular Democratic-Republican party failed to execute that plan with their electoral votes. Under the system in place at the time (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3), the electors could not differentiate between their two candidates, so the plan had been for one elector to vote for Thomas Jefferson but not for Aaron Burr, thus putting Burr in second place. This plan broke down for reasons that are disputed, and both candidates received the same number of votes. After 35 deadlocked ballots in the House of Representatives, Jefferson finally won on the 36th ballot and Burr became vice president. \n\nThis tumultuous affair led to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, which directed the electors to use separate ballots to vote for the president and vice president. While this solved the problem at hand, it ultimately had the effect of lowering the prestige of the vice presidency, as the office was no longer for the leading challenger for the presidency.\n\nThe separate ballots for president and vice president became something of a moot issue later in the 19th century when it became the norm for popular elections to determine a state's Electoral College delegation. Electors chosen this way are pledged to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate (offered by the same political party). So, while the Constitution says that the president and vice president are chosen separately, in practice they are chosen together.\n\nIf no vice presidential candidate receives an Electoral College majority, then the Senate selects the vice president, in accordance with the United States Constitution. The Twelfth Amendment states that a \"majority of the whole number\" of Senators (currently 51 of 100) is necessary for election. Further, the language requiring an absolute majority of Senate votes precludes the sitting vice president from breaking any tie which might occur. The election of 1836 is the only election so far where the office of the vice president has been decided by the Senate. During the campaign, Martin Van Buren's running mate Richard Mentor Johnson was accused of having lived with a black woman. Virginia's 23 electors, who were pledged to Van Buren and Johnson, refused to vote for Johnson (but still voted for Van Buren). The election went to the Senate, where Johnson was elected 33-17.\n\nSalary\n\nThe vice president's salary is $230,700. The salary was set by the 1989 Government Salary Reform Act, which also provides an automatic cost of living adjustment for federal employees.\n\nThe vice president does not automatically receive a pension based on that office, but instead receives the same pension as other members of Congress based on his position as President of the Senate. The vice president must serve a minimum of five years to qualify for a pension. \n\nSince 1974, the official residence of the vice president and their family has been Number One Observatory Circle, on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.\n\nVacancy\n\nArticle I, Section 2, Clause 5 and Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution both authorize the House of Representatives to serve as a \"grand jury\" with the power to impeach high federal officials, including the president, for \"treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.\" Similarly, Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 and Article II, Section 4 both authorize the Senate to serve as a court with the power to remove impeached officials from office, given a two-thirds vote to convict. No vice president has ever been impeached.\n\nPrior to ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967, no provision existed for filling a vacancy in the office of vice president. As a result, the vice presidency was left vacant 16 times—sometimes for nearly four years—until the next ensuing election and inauguration: eight times due to the death of the sitting president, resulting in the vice presidents becoming president; seven times due to the death of the sitting vice president; and once due to the resignation of Vice President John C. Calhoun to become a senator.\n\nCalhoun resigned because he had been dropped from the ticket by President Andrew Jackson in favor of Martin Van Buren, due primarily to conflicting with the President over the issue of nullification. Already a lame duck vice president, he was elected to the Senate by the South Carolina state legislature and resigned the vice presidency early to begin his Senate term because he believed he would have more power as a senator.\n\nSince the adoption of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the office has been vacant twice while awaiting confirmation of the new vice president by both houses of Congress. The first such instance occurred in 1973 following the resignation of Spiro Agnew as Richard Nixon's vice president. Gerald Ford was subsequently nominated by President Nixon and confirmed by Congress. The second occurred 10 months later when Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal and Ford assumed the presidency. The resulting vice presidential vacancy was filled by Nelson Rockefeller. Ford and Rockefeller are the only two people to have served as vice president without having been elected to the office, and Ford remains the only person to have served as both vice president and president without being elected to either office.\n\nThe original Constitution had no provision for selecting such a replacement, so the office of vice president would remain vacant until the beginning of the next presidential and vice presidential terms. This issue had arisen most recently when the John F. Kennedy assassination caused a vacancy from November 22, 1963, until January 20, 1965, and was rectified by Section 2 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.\n\nGrowth of the office\n\nFor much of its existence, the office of vice president was seen as little more than a minor position. Adams, the first vice president, was the first of many who found the job frustrating and stupefying, writing to his wife Abigail that \"My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.\" Many vice presidents lamented the lack of meaningful work in their role. John Nance Garner, who served as vice president from 1933 to 1941 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, claimed that the vice presidency \"isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss.\" Harry Truman, who also served as vice president under Roosevelt, said that the office was as \"useful as a cow's fifth teat.\" \n\nThomas R. Marshall, the 28th vice president, lamented: \"Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected Vice President of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.\" His successor, Calvin Coolidge, was so obscure that Major League Baseball sent him free passes that misspelled his name, and a fire marshal failed to recognize him when Coolidge's Washington residence was evacuated. \n\nWhen the Whig Party asked Daniel Webster to run for the vice presidency on Zachary Taylor's ticket, he replied \"I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin.\" This was the second time Webster declined the office, which William Henry Harrison had first offered to him. Ironically, both of the presidents making the offer to Webster died in office, meaning the three-time presidential candidate could have become president if he had accepted either. Since presidents rarely died in office, however, the better preparation for the presidency was considered to be the office of Secretary of State, in which Webster served under Harrison, Tyler, and later, Taylor's successor, Fillmore.\n\nFor many years, the vice president was given few responsibilities. Garret Hobart, the first vice president under William McKinley, was one of the very few vice presidents at this time who played an important role in the administration. A close confidant and adviser of the president, Hobart was called \"Assistant President.\" However, until 1919, vice presidents were not included in meetings of the President's Cabinet. This precedent was broken by President Woodrow Wilson when he asked Thomas R. Marshall to preside over Cabinet meetings while Wilson was in France negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. President Warren G. Harding also invited his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, to meetings. The next vice president, Charles G. Dawes, did not seek to attend Cabinet meetings under President Coolidge, declaring that \"the precedent might prove injurious to the country.\" Vice President Charles Curtis was also precluded from attending by President Herbert Hoover.\n\nIn 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt raised the stature of the office by renewing the practice of inviting the vice president to cabinet meetings, which every president since has maintained. Roosevelt's first vice president, John Nance Garner, broke with him at the start of the second term on the Court-packing issue and became Roosevelt's leading political enemy. In 1937, Garner became the first vice president to be sworn in on the Capitol steps in the same ceremony with the president, a tradition that continues. Prior to that time, vice presidents were traditionally inaugurated at a separate ceremony in the Senate chamber. Gerald R. Ford and Nelson A. Rockefeller, who were both appointed to the office under the terms of the 25th amendment, were inaugurated in the House and Senate chambers, respectively.\n\nGarner's successor, Henry Wallace, was given major responsibilities during the war, but he moved further to the left than the Democratic Party and the rest of the Roosevelt administration and was relieved of actual power. Roosevelt kept his last vice president, Harry Truman, uninformed on all war and postwar issues, such as the atomic bomb, leading Truman to remark, wryly, that the job of the vice president was to \"go to weddings and funerals.\" Following Roosevelt's death and Truman's ascension to the presidency, the need to keep vice presidents informed on national security issues became clear, and Congress made the vice president one of four statutory members of the National Security Council in 1949.\n\nRichard Nixon reinvented the office of vice president. He had the attention of the media and the Republican party, when Dwight Eisenhower ordered him to preside at Cabinet meetings in his absence. Nixon was also the first vice president to formally assume temporary control of the executive branch, which he did after Eisenhower suffered a heart attack on September 24, 1955, ileitis in June 1956, and a stroke in November 1957.\n\nUntil 1961, vice presidents had their offices on Capitol Hill, a formal office in the Capitol itself and a working office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Lyndon B. Johnson was the first vice president to be given an office in the White House complex, in the Old Executive Office Building. The former Navy Secretary's office in the OEOB has since been designated the \"Ceremonial Office of the Vice President\" and is today used for formal events and press interviews. President Jimmy Carter was the first president to give his vice president, Walter Mondale, an office in the West Wing of the White House, which all vice presidents have since retained. Because of their function as Presidents of the Senate, vice presidents still maintain offices and staff members on Capitol Hill.\n\nThough Walter Mondale's tenure was the beginning of the modern day power of the vice presidency, the tenure of Dick Cheney saw a rapid growth in the office of the vice president. Vice President Cheney held a tremendous amount of power and frequently made policy decisions on his own, without the knowledge of the President. After his tenure, and during the 2008 presidential campaign, both vice presidential candidates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, stated that the office had expanded too much under Cheney's tenure and both had planned to reduce the role to simply being an adviser to the president. \n\nPost–vice presidency\n\nThe five former vice presidents now living are:\n\nFile:Walter Mondale 2014.jpg|Walter Mondale42nd (1977–1981)\nFile:President George H. W.tif|George H. W. Bush43rd (1981–1989)\nFile:Quayle2k11.tif|Dan Quayle44th (1989–1993)\nFile:Gore2k11.tif|Al Gore45th (1993–2001)\nFile:Cheney.tif|Dick Cheney46th (2001–2009)\n\nFour vice presidents have been elected to the presidency immediately after serving as vice president: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren and George H. W. Bush. Richard Nixon, John C. Breckinridge, Hubert Humphrey and Al Gore were all nominated by their respective parties, but failed to succeed the presidents with whom they were elected, though Nixon was elected president eight years later.\n\nTwo vice presidents served under different presidents. George Clinton served under both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, while John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. In the modern era, Adlai Stevenson I became the first former vice president to seek election with a different running mate, running in 1900 with William Jennings Bryan after serving under Bryan's rival, Grover Cleveland. (He was also narrowly defeated for Governor of Illinois in 1908.) Charles W. Fairbanks, vice president under Theodore Roosevelt, sought unsuccessfully to return to office as Charles Evans Hughes' running mate in 1916.\n\nSome former vice presidents have sought other offices after serving as vice president. Daniel D. Tompkins ran for Governor of New York in 1820 whilst serving as vice president under James Monroe. He lost to DeWitt Clinton, but was re-elected vice president. John C. Calhoun resigned as vice president to accept election as US Senator from South Carolina. Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson, Alben Barkley and Hubert H. Humphrey were all elected to the Senate after leaving office. Levi P. Morton, vice president under Benjamin Harrison, was elected Governor of New York after leaving office.\n\nRichard Nixon unsuccessfully sought the governorship of California in 1962, nearly two years after leaving office as vice president and just over six years before becoming president. Walter Mondale ran unsuccessfully for president in 1984, served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996, and then sought unsuccessfully to return to the Senate in 2002. George H. W. Bush won the presidency, and his vice president, Dan Quayle, sought the Republican nomination in 2000. Al Gore also ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2000, turning to environmental advocacy afterward. Cheney had previously explored the possibility of running for president before serving as vice president, but chose not to run for president after his two terms as vice president.\n\nSince 1977, former presidents and vice presidents who are elected or re-elected to the Senate are entitled to the largely honorific position of Deputy President pro tempore. So far, the only former vice president to have held this title is Hubert Humphrey following his return to the Senate. Walter Mondale would have been entitled to the position had his 2002 Senate bid been successful.\n\nUnder the terms of an 1886 Senate resolution, all former vice presidents are entitled to a portrait bust in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol, commemorating their service as presidents of the Senate. Dick Cheney is the most recent former vice president to be so honored.\n\nUnlike former presidents, who receive a pension automatically regardless of their time in office, former vice presidents must reach pension eligibility by accumulating the appropriate time in federal service. Since 2008, former vice president are also entitled to Secret Service personal protection. Former vice presidents traditionally receive Secret Service protection for up to six months after leaving office, by order of the Secretary of Homeland Security, though this can be extended if the Secretary believes the level of threat is sufficient. In 2008, a bill titled the \"Former Vice President Protection Act\" was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush. It provides six-month Secret Service protection by law to a former vice president and family. According to the Department of Homeland Security, protection for former vice president Cheney has been extended numerous times because threats against him have not decreased since his leaving office. \n\nTimeline of vice presidents",
"Spiro Theodore Agnew (; November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was an American politician who served as the 39th Vice President of the United States from 1969 to 1973, under President Richard Nixon.\n\nAgnew was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and University of Baltimore School of Law. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1941, serving as an officer during the Second World War, and was recalled for service during the Korean War in 1950. Agnew worked as an aide for U.S. Representative James Devereux before he was appointed to the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals in 1957. In 1960, he lost an election for the Baltimore City Circuit Court, but in 1962 was elected Baltimore County Executive. In 1966, Agnew was elected the 55th Governor of Maryland, defeating his Democratic opponent George P. Mahoney. He was the first Greek American to hold the position, serving between 1967 and 1969.\n\nAt the 1968 Republican National Convention, Agnew, who had earlier been asked to place Richard Nixon's name in nomination, was selected in private by Nixon and his campaign staff. He was then presented to the convention delegates for nomination for Vice President and ran alongside Nixon in the Presidential Election of 1968. Nixon and Agnew defeated the incumbent Vice President, Hubert Humphrey (formerly long-time Senator from Minnesota) and Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. In 1972, Nixon and Agnew were reelected for a second term, defeating Senator George McGovern and Ambassador Sargent Shriver.\n\nIn 1973, Agnew was investigated by the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. He was charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000 while holding office as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President. On October 10 that same year, Agnew was allowed to plead no contest to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967, with the condition that he resign the office of Vice President. Nixon later replaced Agnew by appointing House Minority Leader Gerald Ford as Vice President. The following year, when Nixon resigned from the White House due to the Watergate scandal, Ford ascended to the presidency.\n\nAgnew was the second Vice President in United States history to resign, the other being John C. Calhoun, and the only one to do so because of criminal charges. Nearly ten years after leaving office, Agnew paid the state of Maryland nearly $270,000 as a result of a civil suit that stemmed from the bribery allegations. In describing Agnew, Garry Wills borrows the backhanded compliment once paid Coolidge by H.L. Mencken: \"No man ever came to market with less seductive goods, and no man ever got a better price for what he had to offer.\" Agnew is widely considered by historians to be among the worst Vice Presidents in the history of the United States. \n\nEarly life\n\nSpiro Agnew was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His parents were Theodore Spiros Agnew, a Greek immigrant who shortened his name from Anagnostopoulos (Αναγνωστόπουλος) (originally from Gargalianoi, Messenia) when he moved to the United States, and Margaret Marian (Akers) Pollard Agnew, a native of Virginia. Spiro had a half brother, Roy Pollard, from his mother's first marriage (she was widowed at the time she met Spiro's father). Agnew eschewed his father's Greek Orthodox Church. His Greek family has direct lineage from the island of Chios. \n\nAgnew attended Forest Park Senior High School in Baltimore, before enrolling at Johns Hopkins University in 1937. He studied chemistry at Hopkins for three years.\n\nAgnew was drafted into the United States Army in 1941 and was commissioned on May 25, 1942, upon graduation from Army Officer Candidate School. He served with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in France and Germany.\n\nBefore leaving for Europe, Agnew worked at the Maryland Casualty Company where he met Elinor Judefind, known as Judy. Agnew married her on May 27, 1942. They had four children: Pamela, James Rand, Susan and Kimberly.\n\nUpon his return from the war, Agnew transferred to the evening program at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He studied law at night while working as a grocer and as an insurance salesman during the day. In 1947, Agnew received his LL.B. (later amended to Juris Doctor) and moved to the suburbs to begin practicing law. He passed the Maryland bar exam in June 1949.\n\nAgnew was recalled to service with the Army in 1950 during the Korean War.\n\nEarly political career\n\nSpiro Agnew began his political career as the first president of the Loch Raven Community Council and the President of the Dumbarton Junior High School PTA. A Democrat from early youth, he switched parties and became a Republican. During the 1950s, he aided U.S. Congressman James Devereux in winning four successive elections. In 1957, he was appointed to the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals by Democratic Baltimore County Executive Michael J. Birmingham. In 1960, he made his first run for office as a candidate for Judge of the Circuit Court, finishing last in a five-person contest. The following year, the new Democratic Baltimore County Executive, Christian H. Kahl, dropped him from the Zoning Board.\n\nAgnew ran for election as Baltimore County Executive in 1962, seeking office in a predominantly Democratic county that had seen no Republican elected to that position in the 20th century, with only one (Roger B. Hayden) earning victory after he left. Running as a reformer and Republican outsider, he took advantage of a bitter split in the Democratic Party and was elected. Agnew backed and signed an ordinance outlawing discrimination in some public accommodations, among the first laws of this kind in the United States.\n\nGovernor of Maryland\n\nAgnew ran for the position of Governor of Maryland in 1966. In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, he was elected after the Democratic nominee, George P. Mahoney, a Baltimore paving contractor and perennial candidate running on an anti-integration platform, narrowly won the Democratic gubernatorial primary out of a crowded slate of eight candidates, trumping early favorite Carlton R. Sickles. Coming on the heels of the recently passed federal Fair Housing Act of 1965, Mahoney's campaign embraced the slogan \"your home is your castle, protect it.\" Many Democrats opposed to segregation then crossed party lines to give Agnew the governorship by 82,000 votes.\n\nAs governor, Agnew worked with the Democratic legislature to pass tax and judicial reforms, as well as tough anti-pollution laws. Projecting an image of racial moderation, Agnew signed the state's first open-housing laws and succeeded in effecting the repeal of an anti-miscegenation law. However, during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in the spring of 1968, Agnew angered many African-American leaders when he stated in reference to their constituents, \"I call on you to publicly repudiate all black racists. This, so far, you have been unwilling to do.\" \n\nVice Presidency (1969–1973)\n\nAgnew's moderate image, immigrant background, and success in a traditionally Democratic state made him an attractive running mate for the 1968 Republican presidential nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon. As late as early 1968, Agnew was a strong supporter of Nelson Rockefeller, one of Nixon's opponents, but by June had switched to supporting Nixon. At the 1968 Republican National Convention, Agnew's nomination was supported by many conservatives within the Republican Party and by Nixon himself; however, a small band of delegates started shouting \"Spiro Who?\" and tried to nominate George W. Romney. In the end, Nixon's wishes prevailed, with Agnew receiving 1,119 out of the 1,317 votes cast. \n\nDuring the ensuing general election campaign against Vice President Hubert Humphrey, which took place against a backdrop of urban riots and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, culminating in the violent confrontations at the Democratic convention in Chicago, Agnew repeatedly hammered the Democrats on the issue of \"law and order.\" Agnew was considered something of a political joke at first. One Democratic television commercial featured the sounds of a man's hearty laughter as the camera panned to a TV with the words \"Agnew for Vice President?\" on the screen.\n\nAgnew went from his first election as County Executive to Vice President in six years—one of the fastest rises in US political history, comparable with that of Nixon, who became Vice President after four years in the House of Representatives and two years in the Senate. Agnew's vice presidency was also the highest-ranking US political office ever reached by either a Greek American or a Marylander. Nixon reportedly said \"No assassin in his right mind would kill me, They know if they did that they would wind up with Agnew! \n\nAgnew soon found his role as the voice of the so-called \"silent majority,\" and by late 1969 he was ranking high on national \"Most Admired Men\" polls. He also inspired a fashion craze when one entrepreneur introduced Spiro Agnew watches (a takeoff on the popular Mickey Mouse watch); conservatives wore them to show their support for Agnew, while many liberals wore them to signify their contempt.\n\nAgnew was known for his scathing criticisms of political opponents, especially journalists and anti-war activists. Agnew would attack his adversaries with relish, hurling unusual, often alliterative epithets, some of which were coined by White House speechwriters William Safire and Pat Buchanan, including \"pusillanimous pussyfooters,\" \"nattering nabobs of negativism\" (written by Safire) and \"hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.\" In a speech denouncing the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, he characterized the war's opponents as \"an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.\" \n\nAgnew was often characterized as Nixon's \"hatchet man\" when defending the administration on the Vietnam War. Agnew was chosen to make several speeches in which he spoke out against anti-war protesters and the media portrayal of the Vietnam War, labeling them \"Un-American\". However, he also spoke publicly against the actions of the Ohio Army National Guard that led to the Kent State shootings in 1970, even describing their action as \"murder.\"\n\nDespite Agnew's continued loyalty to the Nixon administration, his relationship with Nixon deteriorated almost from the start of their political affiliation. Although Nixon initially liked and respected Agnew, as time progressed he felt his vice president lacked the intelligence and vision, particularly in foreign affairs, to sit in the Oval Office, and he began freezing Agnew out of the White House decision-making process. By some accounts, the President was also resentful that the self-confident Agnew was so popular with many Americans. By 1970, Agnew was limited to seeing the president only during cabinet meetings or in the occasional and brief one-on-one, with Agnew given no opportunity to discuss much of substance.\n\nOval Office tapes reveal that in 1971, Nixon and his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, discussed their desire to have Agnew resign from office before the following year's campaign season. One plan to achieve this was to try to persuade conservative investors to purchase one of the television networks, and then invite Agnew to run it. Another was to see if Bob Hope would be willing to take Agnew on as his partner in his cable television investments. These and other plans never went beyond the talking stages. \n\nNixon would have liked to replace Agnew on the Republican ticket in 1972 with John Connally, his chosen successor for 1976, but he realized that Agnew's large conservative base of supporters would be in an uproar, so he reluctantly kept him as his running mate. When John Ehrlichman, the President's counsel and assistant, asked Nixon why he kept Agnew on the ticket in the 1972 election, Nixon replied that \"No assassin in his right mind would kill me\" because they would get Agnew (as President). \n\nAgnew came to enjoy the privileges that being vice president brought to him, particularly access to the rich and famous. He became close friends with Frank Sinatra, Billy Graham, and Bob Hope, and consorted with leaders around the globe. He took in stride his newfound fame, as his utterances often made newspaper front pages and were major stories on the evening network news broadcasts. Invitations for Agnew to give speeches across the country flooded into his office, and he became a top fundraiser for the Republican Party.\n\nIn April 1973, when revelations about Watergate began to surface, Agnew was the choice of 35 percent of Republican voters to be the next Republican nominee for President, while then-California Governor Ronald Reagan was second on the Gallup poll. \n\nResignation\n\nOn October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew became the second Vice President to resign the office. Unlike John C. Calhoun, who resigned to take a seat in the Senate, Agnew resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme wherein he was accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland. Agnew was fined $10,000 and received three years' probation. The $10,000 fine covered only the taxes and interest due on what was \"unreported income\" from 1967. The plea bargain was later mocked by former Maryland Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs as \"the greatest deal since the Lord spared Isaac on the mountaintop.\" Students of Professor John F. Banzhaf III from the George Washington University Law School, collectively known as Banzhaf's Bandits, found four residents of the state of Maryland willing to put their names on a case that sought to have Agnew repay the state $268,482, the amount it was said he had taken in bribes. After two appeals by Agnew, he finally wrote a check for $268,482 that was turned over to Maryland State Treasurer William S. James in 1983. \n\nAs a result of his no contest plea, the Maryland judiciary later disbarred Agnew, calling him \"morally obtuse\". As in most jurisdictions, Maryland lawyers are automatically disbarred after being convicted of a felony, and a no contest plea exposes the defendant to the same penalties as one would face with a guilty plea.\n\nAgnew's resignation triggered the first use of the 25th Amendment, specifically Section 2, as the vacancy prompted the appointment and confirmation of Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader, as his successor. This remains one of only two instances in which the amendment has been employed to fill a vice-presidential vacancy. The second time was when Ford, after becoming President upon Nixon's resignation, chose Nelson Rockefeller (originally Agnew's mentor in the moderate wing of the Republican Party) to succeed him as Vice President. Had Agnew remained as Vice President when Nixon resigned just 10 months later, Agnew himself would have become the 38th President, instead of Ford.\n\nLater life and death\n\nAfter leaving politics, Agnew became an international trade executive with homes in Rancho Mirage, California; Arnold, Maryland; Bowie, Maryland; and near Ocean City, Maryland. In 1976, he briefly reentered the public spotlight and engendered controversy with what Gerald Ford publicly criticized as \"unsavory remarks about Jews\" and anti-Zionist statements that called for the United States to withdraw its support for the state of Israel, citing Israel's allegedly bad treatment of Christians. \n\nIn 1980, Agnew published a memoir in which he implied that Nixon and his Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, had planned to assassinate him if he refused to resign the Vice Presidency, and that Haig told him to \"go quietly...or else,\" the memoir's title. Agnew also wrote a novel, The Canfield Decision, about a Vice President who was \"destroyed by his own ambition.\" \n\nAgnew always maintained that the tax evasion and bribery charges were an attempt by Nixon to divert attention from the growing Watergate scandal. After their resignations, Agnew and Nixon never spoke to each other again. As a gesture of reconciliation, Nixon's daughters invited Agnew to attend Nixon's funeral in 1994, and Agnew accepted. In 1996, when Agnew died, Nixon's daughters returned the favor by attending Agnew's funeral.\n\nAgnew died on September 17, 1996, at age 77 at Atlantic General Hospital, in Berlin, Maryland, in Worcester County (near his Ocean City home), after struggling with undiagnosed acute leukemia. Agnew is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, a cemetery in Timonium, Maryland, in Baltimore County in the Garden of the Last Supper section of the cemetery. \n\nTributes\n\nAgnew's official portrait was taken down from the Maryland State House Governor's Reception Room from 1979 until 1995. Governor Parris Glendening stated that in re-including Agnew's portrait, it was not up to anyone to alter history, whether for good or bad; he cited the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. \n\nUnder the provisions of an 1886 Senate resolution, all former vice presidents are entitled to a portrait bust in the United States Capitol. Plans were set in motion for a bust of Agnew while he was still in office, but were shelved following his resignation. The idea was revived by the Senate Rules Committee in 1992 and a bust was commissioned from North Carolina artist William Behrends, for whom Agnew sat for four sessions. The bust was unveiled May 24, 1995, in the presence of Agnew, his family, friends, and onetime political supporters. Agnew made a short speech and was visibly moved by the occasion. \n\nElectoral history\n\nBaltimore County Executive, 1962 \n*Spiro Agnew (R)—elected unopposed\n\nGovernor of Maryland, 1966 \n*Spiro Agnew (R)—455,318 (49.50%)\n*George P. Mahoney (D)—373,543 (40.61%)\n*Hyman A. Pressman (I)—90,899 (9.88%)\n\n1968 Republican National Convention (Vice Presidential tally) \n*Spiro Agnew—1,119 (83.95%)\n*George Romney—186 (13.95%)\n* Abstaining—16 (1.20%)\n*John Lindsay—10 (0.75%)\n*Edward Brooke—1 (0.08%)\n*James A. Rhodes—1 (0.08%)\n\nUnited States presidential election, 1968\n*Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew (R)—31,783,783 (43.4%) and 301 electoral votes (32 states carried)\n*Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie (D)—31,271,839 (42.7%) and 191 electoral votes (13 states and D.C. carried)\n*George Wallace/Curtis LeMay (American Independent)—9,901,118 (13.5%) and 46 electoral votes (5 states carried)\n\n1972 Republican National Convention (Vice Presidential tally) \n*Spiro Agnew (inc.)—1,345 (99.78%)\n* Abstaining—2 (0.15%)\n*David Brinkley—1 (0.07%)\n\nUnited States presidential election, 1972\n*Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew (R) (inc.)—47,168,710 (60.7%) and 520 electoral votes (49 states carried)\n*George McGovern/Sargent Shriver (D)—29,173,222 (37.5%) and 17 electoral votes (1 state and D.C. carried)\n*John Hospers/Theodora Nathalia Nathan (Libertarian)—3,171 (0.00%) and 1 electoral vote (Republican faithless elector)\n*John G. Schmitz/Thomas J. Anderson (AI)—1,100,868 (1.4%) and 0 electoral votes\n*Linda Jenness/Andrew Pulley (Socialist Workers)—83,380 (0.1%)\n*Benjamin Spock/Julius Hobson (People's)—78,759 (0.1%)",
"Watergate was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis. \n\nThe term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such \"dirty tricks\" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).\n\nThe scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, articles of impeachment, and the resignation of Nixon as President of the United States on August 9, 1974. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 25 being found guilty and incarcerated, many of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.\n\nThe affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on Saturday, June 17, 1972. The FBI investigated and discovered a connection between cash found on the burglars and a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP), the official organization of Nixon's campaign. In July 1973, evidence mounted against the President's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee. The investigation revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. \n\nAfter a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president was obligated to release the tapes to government investigators, and he eventually complied. These audio recordings implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up activities that took place after the break-in and to use federal officials to deflect the investigation. \nFacing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974. On September 8, 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.\n\nThe name \"Watergate\" and the suffix \"-gate\" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United States and elsewhere. \n\nWiretapping of the Democratic Party's headquarters \n\nIn January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, general counsel to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP), presented a campaign intelligence plan to CREEP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean, that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked \"the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency.\" \n\nMitchell viewed the plan as unrealistic. Two months later, he was alleged to have approved a reduced version of the plan, to include burgling the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.—ostensibly to photograph campaign documents and install listening devices in telephones. Liddy was nominally in charge of the operation, but has since insisted that he was duped by Dean and at least two of his subordinates. These included former CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, then-CREEP Security Coordinator (John Mitchell had by then resigned as Attorney General to become chairman of the CREEP).[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/mitchobit.htm Lawrence Meyer, \"John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75\"], The Washington Post, November 10, 1988\n\nIn May, McCord assigned former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III to carry out the wiretapping and monitor the telephone conversations afterward.[http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbaldwinA.htm Alfred C. Baldwin] Spartacus Educational. Retrieved May 17, 2015 McCord testified that he selected Baldwin's name from a registry published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI to work for the Committee to Re-elect the President. Baldwin first served as bodyguard to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was living in Washington. Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago. Martha did not like Baldwin and described him as the \"gauchest character I've ever met.\" The Committee replaced Baldwin with another security man.\n\nOn May 11, McCord arranged for Baldwin, whom investigative reporter Jim Hougan described as \"somehow special and perhaps well known to McCord,\" to stay at the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate complex. The room 419 was booked in the name of McCord’s company. At behest of G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, McCord and his team of burglars prepared for their first Watergate break-in, which began on May 28.\n\nTwo phones inside the offices of the DNC headquarters were said to have been wiretapped. One was the phone of Robert Spencer Oliver, who at the time was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen, and the other was the phone of DNC secretary Larry O'Brien. The FBI found no evidence that O'Brien's phone was bugged. However, it was determined that an effective listening device had been installed in Oliver's phone.\n\nDespite the success in installing the listening devices, the Committee agents soon determined that they needed to be repaired. They planned a second \"burglary\" in order to take care of this.\n\nShortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latches on some of the doors in the complex leading from the underground parking garage to several offices (allowing the doors to close but remain unlocked). He removed the tape, and thought nothing of it. He returned an hour later and, having discovered that someone had retaped the locks, Wills called the police. Five men were discovered inside the DNC office and arrested. They were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them, as well as Hunt and Liddy, for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws. The five burglars who broke into the office were tried by a jury, Judge John Sirica officiating, and were convicted on January 30, 1973. \n\nCover-up and its unraveling \n\nInitial cover-up \n\nWithin hours of the burglars' arrest, the FBI discovered the name of E. Howard Hunt in the address books of Barker and Martínez. Nixon administration officials were concerned because Hunt and Liddy were also involved in a separate secret activity known as the White House Plumbers, which was set up to stop security \"leaks\" and to investigate other sensitive security matters. Dean would later testify he was ordered by top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman to \"deep six\" the contents of Howard Hunt's White House safe. Ehrlichman subsequently denied that. In the end, the evidence from Hunt's safe was destroyed (in separate operations) by Dean and the FBI's Acting Director, L. Patrick Gray.\n\nNixon's own reaction to the break-in, at least initially, was one of skepticism. Watergate prosecutor James Neal was sure Nixon had not known in advance of the break-in. As evidence, he cited a June 23 taped conversation between the President and his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, in which Nixon asked, \"Who was the asshole who ordered it?\" But Nixon subsequently ordered Haldeman to have the CIA block the FBI's investigation into the source of the funding for the burglary.\n\nA few days later, Nixon's Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, described the event as \"a third-rate burglary attempt.\" On August 29, at a news conference, President Nixon stated Dean had conducted a thorough investigation of the matter, when in fact Dean had not conducted any investigation at all. Nixon also said, \"I can say categorically that... no one in the White House staff, no one in this Administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident.\" On September 15, Nixon congratulated Dean, saying, \"The way you've handled it, it seems to me, has been very skillful, because you—putting your fingers in the dikes every time that leaks have sprung here and sprung there.\"\n\nMoney trail \n\nOn June 19, 1972, the press reported that one of the Watergate burglars was a Republican Party security aide. Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who at the time was the head of the Nixon re-election campaign (CRP), denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in or knowledge of the five burglars. On August 1, a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. Further investigation by the FBI would reveal the team had thousands of dollars more to support their travel and expenses in the months leading up to their arrests. Examination of their funds showed a link to the finance committee of CRP.\n\nSeveral donations (totaling $86,000) were made by individuals who thought they were making private donations by certified and cashier's checks for the President's re-election. Investigators' examination of the bank records of a Miami company run by Watergate burglar Barker revealed an account controlled by him personally had deposited a check and then transferred it (through the Federal Reserve Check Clearing System).\n\nThe banks that had originated the checks were keen to ensure the depository institution used by Barker had acted properly in ensuring the checks had been received and endorsed by the check's payee, before its acceptance for deposit in Bernard Barker's account. Only in this way would the issuing banks not be held liable for the unauthorized and improper release of funds from their customers' accounts.\n\nThe investigation by the FBI, which cleared Barker's bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the CRP, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the Committee bookkeeper and its treasurer, Hugh Sloan.\n\nAs a private organization, the Committee followed normal business practice in allowing only duly authorized individual(s) to accept and endorse checks on behalf of the Committee. No financial institution could accept or process a check on behalf of the Committee unless a duly authorized individual endorsed it. The checks deposited into Barker's bank account were endorsed by Committee treasurer Hugh Sloan, who was authorized by the Finance Committee. However, once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the Committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited only into the accounts named on the check. Sloan failed to do that. When confronted with the potential charge of federal bank fraud, he revealed that Committee deputy director Jeb Magruder and finance director Maurice Stans had directed him to give the money to G. Gordon Liddy.\n\nLiddy, in turn, gave the money to Barker, and attempted to hide its origin. Barker tried to disguise the funds by depositing them into accounts in banks outside of the United States. What Barker, Liddy, and Sloan did not know was that the complete record of all such transactions were held for roughly six months. Barker's use of foreign banks in April and May 1972, to deposit checks and withdraw the funds via cashier's checks and money orders, resulted in the banks keeping the entire transaction records until October and November 1972.\n\nAll five Watergate burglars were directly or indirectly tied to the 1972 CRP, thus causing Judge Sirica to suspect a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials. \n\nOn September 29, 1972, the press reported that John Mitchell, while serving as Attorney General, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, the FBI reported the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the Nixon re-election committee. Despite these revelations, Nixon's campaign was never seriously jeopardized; on November 7, the President was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in American political history.\n\nRole of the media \n\nThe connection between the break-in and the re-election committee was highlighted by media coverage—in particular, investigative coverage by The Washington Post, Time, and The New York Times. The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deeply into the upper reaches of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and the White House. Woodward and Bernstein interviewed Judy Hoback Miller, the bookkeeper for Nixon, who revealed to them information about the mishandling of funds and records being destroyed. \n\nChief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual whom Woodward and Bernstein had nicknamed Deep Throat; 33 years later, in 2005, the informant was identified as William Mark Felt, Sr., deputy director of the FBI during that period of the 1970s, something Woodward later confirmed. Felt met secretly with Woodward several times, telling him of Howard Hunt's involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the White House staff regarded the stakes in Watergate extremely high. Felt warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and other reporters were getting their information, as they were uncovering a wider web of crimes than the FBI first disclosed. All of the secret meetings between Woodward and \"Deep Throat\" (W. Mark Felt) took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Rosslyn over a period from June 1972 to January 1973. Prior to resigning from the FBI on June 22, 1973, Felt also anonymously planted leaks about Watergate to Time magazine, the Washington Daily News and other publications.[http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/14/v-fullstory/2639954/the-profound-lies-of-deep-throat.html \"The profound lies of Deep Throat\"], The Miami Herald, February 14, 2012 \n\nDuring this early period, most of the media failed to grasp the full implications of the scandal, and concentrated reporting on other topics related to the 1972 presidential election. After the reporting that one of the convicted burglars wrote to Judge Sirica alleging a high-level cover-up, the media shifted its focus. Time magazine described Nixon as undergoing \"daily hell and very little trust.\" The distrust between the press and the Nixon administration was mutual and greater than usual due to lingering dissatisfaction with events from the Vietnam War. At the same time, public distrust of the media was polled at more than 40%.\n\nNixon and top administration officials discussed using government agencies to \"get\" (or retaliate against) those they perceived as hostile media organizations. The discussions had precedent. At the request of Nixon's White House in 1969, the FBI tapped the phones of five reporters. In 1971, the White House requested an audit of the tax return of the editor of Newsday, after he wrote a series of articles about the financial dealings of Charles Rebozo, a friend of Nixon. \n\nThe Administration and its supporters accused the media of making \"wild accusations,\" putting too much emphasis on the story, and of having a liberal bias against the Administration. Nixon said in a May 1974 interview with supporter Baruch Korff that if he had followed the liberal policies that he thought the media preferred, \"Watergate would have been a blip.\" The media noted that most of the reporting turned out to be accurate; the competitive nature of the media guaranteed widespread coverage of the far-reaching political scandal. Applications to journalism schools reached an all-time high in 1974.\n\nScandal Escalates \n\nRather than ending with the conviction and sentencing to prison of the five Watergate burglars on January 30, 1973, the investigation into the break-in and the Nixon Administration's involvement grew broader. Nixon's conversations in late March and all of April 1973 revealed that not only did he know he needed to remove Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean to gain distance from them, but he had to do so in a way that was least likely to incriminate him and his presidency. Nixon created a new conspiracy—to effect a cover-up of the cover-up—which began in late March 1973 and became fully formed in May and June 1973, operating until his presidency ended on August 9, 1974. On March 23, 1973, Judge Sirica read the court a letter from Watergate burglar James McCord, who alleged that perjury had been committed in the Watergate trial, and defendants had been pressured to remain silent. Trying to make them talk, Sirica gave Hunt and two burglars provisional sentences of up to 40 years.\n\nOn March 28, on Nixon's orders, aide John Ehrlichman told Attorney General Richard Kleindienst that nobody in the White House had prior knowledge of the burglary. On April 13, Magruder told U.S. attorneys that he had perjured himself during the burglars' trial, and implicated John Dean and John Mitchell.\n\nJohn Dean believed that he, Mitchell, Ehrlichman and Haldeman could go to the prosecutors, tell the truth, and save the presidency. Dean wanted to protect the presidency and have his four closest men take the fall for telling the truth. During the critical meeting with Dean and Nixon on April 15, 1973, Dean was totally unaware of the president's depth of knowledge and involvement in the Watergate cover-up. It was during this meeting that Dean felt that he was being recorded. He wondered if this was due to the way Nixon was speaking, as if he were trying to prod attendees; recollections of earlier conversations about fundraising. Dean mentioned this observation while testifying to the Senate Committee on Watergate, exposing the thread of what were taped conversations that would unravel the fabric of Watergate. \n\nTwo days later, Dean told Nixon that he had been cooperating with the U.S. attorneys. On that same day, U.S. attorneys told Nixon that Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and other White House officials were implicated in the cover-up. \n\nOn April 30, Nixon asked for the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, two of his most influential aides. They were later both indicted, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to prison. He asked for the resignation of Attorney General Kleindienst, to ensure no one could claim that his innocent friendship with Haldeman and Ehrlichman could be construed as a conflict. He fired White House Counsel John Dean, who went on to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee and said that he believed and suspected the conversations in the Oval Office were being taped. This information became the bombshell that helped force Richard Nixon to resign rather than be impeached. \n\nWriting from prison for New West and New York magazines in 1977, Ehrlichman claimed Nixon had offered him a large sum of money, which he declined. \n\nThe President announced the resignations in an address to the American people:\n\nOn the same day, Nixon appointed a new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and gave him authority to designate a special counsel for the Watergate investigation who would be independent of the regular Justice Department hierarchy. In May 1973, Richardson named Archibald Cox to the position.\n\nSenate Watergate hearings and revelation of the Watergate tapes \n\nOn February 7, 1973, the United States Senate voted 77–0 to approve Senate Resolution and establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, with Sam Ervin named chairman the next day.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942983-1,00.html \"WATERGATE RETROSPECTIVE: THE DECLINE AND FALL\"], Time, August 19, 1974 The hearings held by the Senate committee, in which Dean and other former administration officials testified, were broadcast from May 17 to August 7, 1973. The three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live, each network thus maintaining coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with ABC on May 17 and ending with NBC on August 7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned into at least one portion of the hearings. \n\nOn Friday, July 13, 1973, during a preliminary interview, deputy minority counsel Donald Sanders asked White House assistant Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording system in the White House. \nButterfield said he was reluctant to answer, but finally stated there was a new system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and others, as well as Nixon's private office in the Old Executive Office Building.\n\nOn Monday, July 16, 1973, in front of a live, televised audience, chief minority counsel Fred Thompson asked Butterfield whether he was \"aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President.\" Butterfield's revelation of the taping system transformed the Watergate investigation. Cox immediately subpoenaed the tapes, as did the Senate, but Nixon refused to release them, citing his executive privilege as president, and ordered Cox to drop his subpoena. Cox refused. \n\n\"Saturday Night Massacre\" \n\nOn October 20, 1973, after Cox refused to drop the subpoena, Nixon commanded Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and then Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus, to fire the special prosecutor. Richardson and Ruckelshaus both refused to fire Cox and resigned in protest. Nixon's search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox ended with the Solicitor General Robert Bork. Though Bork claims to believe Nixon's order was valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being \"perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job.\" Bork carried out the presidential order and dismissed the special prosecutor.\n\nThese actions met considerable public criticism. Responding to the allegations of possible wrongdoing, in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors on November 17, 1973, Nixon stated emphatically, \"I'm not a crook.\" He needed to allow Bork to appoint a new special prosecutor; Bork chose Leon Jaworski to continue the investigation.\n\nLegal action against Nixon Administration members \n\nOn March 1, 1974, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted several former aides of President Nixon, who became known as the \"Watergate Seven\": Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson, for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury secretly named President Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. The special prosecutor dissuaded them from an indictment of Nixon, arguing that a President can only be indicted after he leaves office. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty. On April 5, 1974, Dwight Chapin, the former Nixon appointments secretary, was convicted of lying to the grand jury. Two days later, the same grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, the Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.\n\nRelease of the transcripts \n\nThe Nixon administration struggled to decide what materials to release. All parties involved agreed that all pertinent information should be released. Whether to release unedited profanity and vulgarity divided his advisers. His legal team favored releasing the tapes unedited, while Press Secretary Ron Ziegler preferred using an edited version where \"expletive deleted\" would replace the raw material. After several weeks of debate, they decided to release an edited version. Nixon announced the release of the transcripts in a speech to the nation on April 29, 1974. Nixon noted that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes. \n\nInitially, Nixon gained a positive reaction for his speech. As people read the transcripts over the next couple of weeks, however, former supporters among the public, media and political community called for Nixon's resignation or impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford said, \"While it may be easy to delete characterization from the printed page, we cannot delete characterization from people's minds with a wave of the hand.\" The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a \"deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral\" performance on the part of the President and his former aides. The House Republican Leader John Jacob Rhodes agreed with Scott, and Rhodes recommended that if Nixon's position continued to deteriorate, he \"ought to consider resigning as a possible option.\" \n\nThe editors of The Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that had supported Nixon, wrote, \"He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. He is devious. He is vacillating. He is profane. He is willing to be led. He displays dismaying gaps in knowledge. He is suspicious of his staff. His loyalty is minimal.\" The Providence Journal wrote, \"Reading the transcripts is an emetic experience; one comes away feeling unclean.\" This newspaper continued, that, while the transcripts may not have revealed an indictable offense, they showed Nixon contemptuous of the United States, its institutions, and its people. According to Time magazine, the Republican Party leaders in the Western United States felt that while there remained a significant number of Nixon loyalists in the party, the majority believed that Nixon should step down as quickly as possible. They were disturbed by the bad language and the coarse, vindictive tone of the conversations in the transcripts. \n\nSupreme Court \n\nThe issue of access to the tapes went to the US Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Court, which did not include the recused Justice William Rehnquist (who had recently been appointed by Nixon and had served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Nixon Justice Department), ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void. They ordered the president to release them to the special prosecutor. On July 30, 1974, President Nixon complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes for the public.\n\nRelease of the tapes \n\nThe tapes revealed several crucial conversations that took place between the President and his counsel, John Dean, on March 21, 1973. In this conversation, Dean summarized many aspects of the Watergate case, and focused on the subsequent cover-up, describing it as a \"cancer on the presidency.\" The burglary team was being paid hush money for their silence and Dean stated: \"That's the most troublesome post-thing, because Bob [Haldeman] is involved in that; John [Ehrlichman] is involved in that; I am involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that's an obstruction of justice.\" Dean continued, stating that Howard Hunt was blackmailing the White House, demanding money immediately; President Nixon replied that the blackmail money should be paid: \"…just looking at the immediate problem, don't you have to have – handle Hunt's financial situation damn soon? […] you've got to keep the cap on the bottle that much, in order to have any options.\" \n\nAt the time of the initial congressional impeachment, it was not known if Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants earlier than this conversation. Nixon's conversation with Haldeman on August 1, 1972, is one of several that establishes he did. Nixon states: \"Well…they have to be paid. That's all there is to that. They have to be paid.\" During the congressional debate on impeachment, some believed that impeachment required a criminally indictable offense. President Nixon's agreement to make the blackmail payments was regarded as an affirmative act to obstruct justice. \n\nOn December 7, 1973, investigators found that an 18½ minute portion of one recorded tape had been erased. Rose Mary Woods, Nixon's longtime personal secretary, said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong pedal on her tape player when answering the phone. The press ran photos of the set-up, showing that it was unlikely for Woods to answer the phone while keeping her foot on the pedal. Later forensic analysis in 2003 determined that the tape had been erased in several segments – at least five, and perhaps as many as nine. \n\nFinal investigations and resignation \n\nNixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious. On February 6, 1974, the House of Representatives approved giving the Judiciary Committee authority to investigate impeachment of the President. On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27–11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The House recommended the second article, abuse of power, on July 29, 1974. The next day, on July 30, 1974, the House recommended the third article: contempt of Congress. On August 20, 1974, the House authorized the printing of the Committee report H. Rept. 93-1305, which included the text of the resolution impeaching President Nixon and set forth articles of impeachment against him. \n\n\"Smoking Gun\" tape \n\nOn August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented the initial stages of the cover-up: it revealed Nixon, Swingle, and Haldeman meeting in the Oval Office and formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved.\n\nHaldeman introduced the topic as follows:\n…the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have… their investigation is now leading into some productive areas […] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go.\n\nAfter explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the cover-up plan: \"the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this …this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.\n\nPresident Nixon approved the plan, and after he was given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, he told Haldeman: \"All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest.\" Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructed Haldeman: \"You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it.\" \n\nNixon denied that this constituted an obstruction of justice, as his instructions ultimately resulted in the CIA truthfully reporting to the FBI that there were no national security issues. Nixon urged the FBI to press forward with the investigation when they expressed concern about interference. \n\nBefore the release of this tape, President Nixon had denied any involvement in the scandal. He claimed that there were no political motivations in his instructions to the CIA, and claimed he had no knowledge before March 21, 1973, of involvement by senior campaign officials such as John Mitchell. The contents of this tape persuaded Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, that, \"The tape proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers - for more than two years.\" The tape, which was referred to as a \"smoking gun\" by Barber Conable, proved that Nixon had been involved in the cover-up from the beginning.\n\nIn the week before Nixon's resignation, Ehrlichman and Haldeman tried unsuccessfully to get Nixon to grant them pardons—which he had promised them before their April 1973 resignations. \n\nResignation \n\nThe release of the \"smoking gun\" tape destroyed Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee announced they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.\n\nOn the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman John Jacob Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office and told him that his support in Congress had all but disappeared. Rhodes told Nixon that he would face certain impeachment when the articles came up for vote in the full House. Goldwater and Scott told the president that there were enough votes in the Senate to convict him, and that no more than 15 Senators were willing to vote for acquittal.\n\nRealizing that he had no chance of staying in office, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, the president said, in part:\n\nThe morning that his resignation took effect, the President, with Mrs. Nixon and their family, said farewell to the White House staff in the East Room. A helicopter carried them from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he thought, \"As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?\" At Andrews, he and his family boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California, and then were transported to his home in San Clemente.\n\nPresident Ford's pardon of Nixon \n\nWith President Nixon's resignation, Congress dropped its impeachment proceedings. Criminal prosecution was still a possibility both on the federal and state level. Nixon was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford as President, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had \"committed or may have committed or taken part in\" as president. In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country. He said that the Nixon family's situation \"is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.\" \n\nNixon proclaimed his innocence until his death in 1994. In his official response to the pardon, he said that he \"...was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy.\" \n\nSome commentators have argued that pardoning Nixon contributed to President Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976. Allegations of a secret deal made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974. \n\nIn his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process, to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or to pardon himself and then resign. Haig told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.\n\nAftermath \n\nFinal legal actions and effect on the law profession \n\nCharles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974. On January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped.\n\nHaldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977. Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession. \n\nThe Watergate scandal resulted in 69 government officials being charged and 48 being found guilty, including:\n#John N. Mitchell, Attorney General of the United States who resigned to become Director of Committee to Re-elect the President, convicted of perjury about his involvment in the Watergate break-in. Served 19 months of a one- to four-year sentence.\n#Richard Kleindienst, Attorney General, convicted of \"refusing to answer questions\" (contempt of court); given one month in jail. \n#Jeb Stuart Magruder, Deputy Director of Committee to Re-elect the President, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to the burglary, and was sentenced to 10 months to four years in prison, of which he served 7 months before being paroled. \n#Frederick C. LaRue, Advisor to John Mitchell, convicted of obstruction of justice. He served four and a half months.\n#H. R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff for Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison. \n#John Ehrlichman, Counsel to Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison. \n#Egil Krogh, aide to John Ehrlichman, sentenced to six months.\n#John W. Dean III, counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice, later reduced to felony offenses and sentenced to time already served, which totaled 4 months.\n#Dwight L. Chapin, deputy assistant to Nixon, convicted of perjury.\n#Herbert W. Kalmbach, personal attorney to Nixon, convicted of illegal campaigning.\n#Charles W. Colson, special counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice. Served 7 months in Federal Maxwell Prison.\n#Herbert L. Porter, aide to the Committee to Re-elect the President. Convicted of perjury.\n... and the actual Watergate \"Burglary\" team:\n#G. Gordon Liddy, Special Investigations Group, convicted of masterminding the burglary, original sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Served 4½ years in federal prison.\n#E. Howard Hunt, Security consultant, convicted of masterminding and overseeing the burglary, original sentence of up to 35 years in prison. Served 33 months in prison. \n#James W. McCord Jr., convicted of six charges of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping. Served 2 months in prison.\n#Virgilio Gonzalez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 13 months in prison.\n#Bernard Barker, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 18 months in prison. \n#Eugenio Martinez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 15 months in prison.\n#Frank Sturgis, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 10 months in prison.\n\nTo defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure. In 1983 it replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The MRPC have been adopted in part or in whole by 49 states (and is being considered by the last one, California). Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.\n\nOn June 24 and 25, 1975, Nixon gave secret testimony to a grand jury. According to news reports at the time, Nixon answered questions about the 18½-minute tape gap, altering White House tape transcripts turned over to the House Judiciary Committee, using the Internal Revenue Service to harass political enemies, and a $100,000 contribution from billionaire Howard Hughes. Aided by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, the historian Stanley Kutler, who has written several books about Nixon and Watergate and had successfully sued for the 1996 public release of the Nixon White House tapes, sued for release of the transcripts of the Nixon grand jury testimony.\n\nOn July 29, 2011, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted Kutler's request, saying historical interests trumped privacy, especially considering that Nixon and other key figures were deceased, and most of the surviving figures had testified under oath, have been written about, or were interviewed. The transcripts were not immediately released pending the government's decision on whether to appeal.[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-nixon-watergate-idUSTRE76S4ZH20110729 \"Nixon's secret Watergate testimony ordered released\"], Reuters, July 29, 2011 They were released in their entirety on November 10, 2011, although the names of people still alive were redacted. \n\nTexas A&M University–Central Texas professor Luke Nichter wrote the chief judge of the federal court in Washington to release hundreds of pages of sealed records of the Watergate Seven. In June 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice wrote the court that it would not object to their release with some exceptions. On November 2, 2012, Watergate trial records for G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord were ordered unsealed by Federal Judge Royce Lamberth. \n\nPolitical and cultural reverberations \n\nAccording to Thomas J. Johnson, a professor of journalism at University of Texas at Austin, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger predicted during Nixon's final days that history would remember Nixon as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a \"minor footnote.\" \n\nWhen Congress investigated the scope of the president's legal powers, it belatedly found that consecutive presidential administrations had declared the United States to be in a continuous open-ended state of emergency since 1950. Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act in 1976 to regulate such declarations. The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix \"-gate\".\n\nDisgust with the revelations about Watergate, the Republican Party, and Nixon strongly affected results of the November 1974 Senate and House elections, which took place three months after Nixon's resignation. The Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and forty-nine in the House (the newcomers were nicknamed \"Watergate Babies\"). Congress passed legislation that changed campaign financing, to amend the Freedom of Information Act, as well as to require financial disclosures by key government officials (via the Ethics in Government Act). Other types of disclosures, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected albeit not legally required. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations but the practice purportedly ended after Watergate.\n\nFord's pardon of Nixon played a major role in his defeat in the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.\n\nIn 1977, Nixon arranged an interview with British journalist David Frost in the hopes of improving his legacy. Based on a previous interview in 1968, he believed that Frost would be an easy interviewer and was taken aback by Frost's incisive questions. The interview displayed the entire scandal to the American people, and Nixon formally apologized, but his legacy remained tarnished. \n\nIn the aftermath of Watergate, \"follow the money\" became part of the American lexicon and is widely believed to have been uttered by Mark Felt to Woodward and Bernstein. The phrase was never used in the 1974 book All The President's Men and did not become associated with it until the movie of the same name was released in 1976. \n\nPurpose of the break-in \n\nDespite the enormous impact of the Watergate scandal, the purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been conclusively established. Records from the United States v. Liddy trial, made public in 2013, showed that four of the five burglars testified that they were told the campaign operation hoped to find evidence that linked Cuban funding to Democratic campaigns. The longtime hypothesis suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the DNC Chairman. However, O'Brien's name was not on Alfred C. Baldwin III's list of targets that was released in 2013. Among those listed were senior DNC official R. Spencer Oliver, Oliver's secretary Ida \"Maxine\" Wells, co-worker Robert Allen and secretary Barbara Kennedy.\n\nBased on these revelations, Texas A&M history professor Luke Nichter, who had successfully petitioned for the release of the information, argued that Woodward and Bernstein were incorrect in concluding, based largely on Watergate burglar James McCord's word, that the purpose of the break-in was to bug O'Brien's phone to gather political and financial intelligence on the Democrats. Instead, Nichter sided with late journalist J. Anthony Lukas of the New York Times, who had concluded that the committee was seeking to find evidence linking the Democrats to prostitution, as Oliver's office had frequently been used to arrange such meetings. However, Nichter acknowledged that Woodward and Bernstein's theory of O'Brien as the target could not be debunked unless information was released about what Baldwin heard in his bugging of conversations.\n\nIn 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve as the national director of Humphrey's presidential campaign and, separately, by Howard Hughes to serve as Hughes' public-policy lobbyist in Washington. O'Brien was elected national chairman of the DNC in 1968 and 1970. In late 1971, the president's brother, Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and asked John H. Meier, an adviser to Howard Hughes, about O'Brien. In 1956, Donald Nixon had borrowed $205,000 from Howard Hughes and had never repaid the loan. The loan's existence surfaced during the 1960 presidential election campaign, embarrassing Richard Nixon and becoming a political liability. According to author Donald M. Bartlett, Richard Nixon would do whatever was necessary to prevent another family embarrassment. From 1968 to 1970, Hughes withdrew nearly half a million dollars from the Texas National Bank of Commerce for contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including presidential candidates Humphrey and Nixon. Hughes wanted Donald Nixon and Meier involved but Nixon opposed this. \n\nMeier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon's illicit dealings with Hughes that had never been released, and that it resided with Larry O'Brien. O'Brien, who had received $25,000 from Hughes, did not have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think that he did. It is conjecture that Donald told his brother that Meier had given the Democrats all the damaging Hughes information and that O'Brien had the proof. According to Fred Emery, O'Brien had been a lobbyist for Hughes in a Democrat-controlled Congress, and the possibility of his finding out about Hughes' illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore. \n\nJames F. Neal, who prosecuted the Watergate 7, did not believe Nixon had ordered the break-in because of Nixon's surprised reaction when he was told about it. He cited the June 23, 1972 conversation when Nixon asked Haldeman, \"Who was the asshole that did it?\" \n\nReactions\n\nNation-states \n\n – In July 1975, according to then-Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj of Thailand, Chairman Mao Zedong called the Watergate scandal \"the result of 'too much freedom of political expression in the U.S.'\" Mao called it \"an indication of American isolationism, which he saw as 'disastrous' for Europe.\" He further said, \"Do Americans really want to go isolationist? ... In the two world wars, the Americans came [in] very late, but all the same, they did come in. They haven't been isolationist in practice.\" \n\n – Then-leader Fidel Castro said in his December 1974 interview that, of the crimes committed by the Cuban exiles, like killings, attacks on Cuban ports, and spying, the Watergate burglaries and wiretappings were \"probably the least of [them].\" \n\n – Then-Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi told the press, \"I want to say quite emphatically that everything that would weaken or jeopardize the President's power to make decisions in split seconds would represent grave danger for the whole world.\"\n\n – In August 1973, then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka said that the scandal had \"no cancelling influence on U.S. leadership in the world.\" Tanaka further said, \"The pivotal role of the United States has not changed, so this internal affair will not be permitted to have an effect.\" In March 1975, Tanaka's successor, Takeo Miki, said at a convention of the Liberal Democratic Party, \"At the time of the Watergate issue in America, I was deeply moved by the scene in the House Judiciary Committee, where each member of the committee expressed his own or her own heart based upon the spirit of the American Constitution. It was this attitude, I think, that rescued American democracy.\" \n\n – An unnamed senior official of Foreign Affairs Ministry accused President Nixon of lacking interest in Africa and its politics and then said, \"American President is so enmeshed in domestic problems created by Watergate that foreign policy seems suddenly to have taken a .\"\n\n – Then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in August 1973, \"As one surprising revelation follows another at the Senate hearings on Watergate, it becomes increasingly clear that Washington, [D.C.], today is in no position to offer the moral or strong political and economic leadership for which its friends and allies are yearning.\" Moreover, Lee said that the scandal may have led the United States to lessen its interests and commitments in world affairs, to weaken its ability to enforce the Paris Peace Accords on Vietnam, and to not react to violations of the Accords. Lee said further that the United States \"makes the future of this peace in Indonesia an extremely bleak one with grave consequence for the contiguous states.\" Lee then blamed the scandal for economic inflation in Singapore because the Singapore dollar was pegged to the United States dollar at the time, assuming the U.S. dollar was stronger than the British pound sterling. \n\n – In the press conference of May 1973, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger how the United States handled the scandal was different from how the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had operated. There, without any opposition party back then, members of the Party had been wiretapped for any possible wrongdoing. In June 1973, when Brezhnev arrived in the United States to have a one-week meeting with President Nixon, Brezhnev told the press, \"I do not intent to refer to that matter—[the Watergate]. It would be completely indecent for me to refer to it. [...] My attitude toward Mr. Nixon is of very great respect.\" When one reporter suggested that President Nixon and his position with Brezhnev were \"weakened\" by the scandal, Brezhnev replied, \"It does not enter my mind to think whether Mr. Nixon has lost or gained any influence because of the affair.\" Then he said further that he had respected Nixon because of Nixon's \"realistic and constructive approach to Soviet Union–United States relations [...] passing from an era of confrontation to an era of negotiations between nations.\" \n\n – Talks between Nixon and Prime Minister Edward Heath may have been bugged. Heath did not publicly display his anger, with aides saying that he was unconcerned about having been bugged at the White House. According to officials, Heath commonly had notes taken of his public discussions with Nixon so a recording would not have bothered him. However, officials privately said that if private talks with Nixon were bugged, then Heath would be outraged. Even so, Heath privately was outraged over being taped without his prior knowledge. \n\n – In May 1975, after the fall of Saigon ended the Vietnam War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said if the scandal had not caused Nixon to resign, and the Congress did not override Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, North Vietnam would not have captured South Vietnam. \n\nOthers \n\nIn January 1975, publisher of The Sacramento Union John P. McGoff said that the media overemphasized the scandal, although \"an important issue,\" overshadowing more serious topics, like declining economy and the energy crisis."
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Which George invented the Kodak roll-film camera?
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"The Eastman Kodak Company, commonly known as Kodak, is an American technology company that concentrates on imaging products, with its historic basis on photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, United States and incorporated in New Jersey. It was founded by George Eastman in 1888.\n\nKodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films. It is best known for photographic film products. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film. The company's ubiquity was such that its tagline \"Kodak moment\" entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that demanded to be recorded for posterity. \n\nKodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in transitioning to digital photography. As part of a turnaround strategy, Kodak focused on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation. In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In February 2012, Kodak announced that it would cease making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market. In August 2012, Kodak announced the intention to sell its photographic film (excluding motion picture film), commercial scanners and kiosk operations as a measure to emerge from bankruptcy. \n\nIn January 2013, the Court approved financing for Kodak to emerge from bankruptcy by mid-2013. Kodak sold many of its patents for approximately $525,000,000 to a group of companies (including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe Systems and HTC) under the name Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation. On September 3, 2013, the company emerged from bankruptcy having shed its large legacy liabilities and exited several businesses. Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging are now part of Kodak Alaris, a separate company owned by the U.K.-based Kodak Pension Plan. On March 12, 2014, it announced that the Board of Directors had elected Jeffrey J. Clarke as Chief Executive Officer and a member of its Board of Directors. \n\nName\n\nThe letter k was a favorite of Eastman's; he is quoted as saying, \"it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter.\"\nHe and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagrams set. Eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, easy to pronounce, and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else. \n\nHistory\n\nFrom the company's founding by George Eastman in 1888, Kodak followed the razor and blades strategy of selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables – film, chemicals and paper. As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S. \nRivalry with Fujifilm\n\nJapanese competitor Fujifilm entered the U.S. market (via Fuji Photo Film U.S.A.) with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak did not believe that American consumers would ever desert its brand. Kodak passed on the opportunity to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; Fuji won these sponsorship rights, which gave them a permanent foothold in the marketplace. Fuji opened a film plant in the U.S., and its aggressive marketing and price cutting began taking market share from Kodak. Fuji went from a 10% share in the early 1990s to 17% in 1997. Fuji also made headway into the professional market with specialty transparency films such as Velvia and Provia, which competed successfully with Kodak's signature professional product, Kodachrome, but used the more economical and common E-6 processing machines which were standard in most processing labs, rather than the dedicated machines required by Kodachrome. Fuji's films soon also found a competitive edge in higher-speed negative films, with a tighter grain structure.\n\nIn May 1995, Kodak filed a petition with the US Commerce Department under section 301 of the Commerce Act arguing that its poor performance in the Japanese market was a direct result of unfair practices adopted by Fuji. The complaint was lodged by the United States with the World Trade Organization. On January 30, 1998, the WTO announced a \"sweeping rejection of Kodak's complaints\" about the film market in Japan. Kodak's financial results for the year ending December 1997 showed that company's revenues dropped from $15.97 billion in 1996 to $14.36 billion in 1997, a fall of more than 10%; their net earnings went from $1.29 billion to just $5 million for the same period. Kodak's market share declined from 80.1% to 74.7% in the United States, a one-year drop of five percentage points that had observers suggesting that Kodak was slow to react to changes and underestimated its rivals. \n\nAlthough from the 1970s both Fuji and Kodak recognized the upcoming threat of digital photography, and although both sought diversification as a mitigation strategy, Fuji was more successful at diversification. \n\nShift to digital\n\nAlthough Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak's photographic film business. In the 1990s, Kodak planned a decade-long journey to move to digital technology. CEO George M. C. Fisher reached out to Microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers. Apple's pioneering QuickTake consumer digital cameras, introduced in 1994, had the Apple label but were produced by Kodak. The DC-20 and DC-25 launched in 1996. Overall, though, there was little implementation of the new digital strategy. Kodak's core business faced no pressure from competing technologies, and as Kodak executives could not fathom a world without traditional film there was little incentive to deviate from that course. Consumers gradually switched to the digital offering from companies such as Sony. In 2001 film sales dropped, which was attributed by Kodak to the financial shocks caused by the September 11 attacks. Executives hoped that Kodak might be able to slow the shift to digital through aggressive marketing. \n\nUnder Daniel Carp, Fisher's successor as CEO, Kodak made its move in the digital camera market, with its EasyShare family of digital cameras. Kodak spent tremendous resources studying customer behavior, finding out that women in particular loved taking digital photos but were frustrated in moving them to their computers. This key unmet consumer need became a major opportunity. Once Kodak got its product development machine started, it released a wide range of products which made it easy to share photos via PCs. One of their key innovations was a printer dock, where consumers could insert their cameras into this compact device, press a button, and watch their photos roll out. By 2005, Kodak ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in digital camera sales that surged 40% to $5.7 billion.\n\nDespite the high growth, Kodak failed to anticipate how fast digital cameras became commodities, with low profit margins, as more companies entered the market in the mid-2000s. In 2001 Kodak held the No. 2 spot in U.S. digital camera sales (behind Sony) but it lost $60 on every camera sold, while there was also a dispute between employees from its digital and film divisions. The film business, where Kodak enjoyed high profit margins, fell 18% in 2005. The combination of these two factors resulted in disappointing profits overall. Its digital cameras soon became undercut by Asian competitors that could produce their offerings more cheaply. Kodak had a 27 percent market-leading share in 1999, that dwindled to 15 percent by 2003. In 2007 Kodak was No. 4 in U.S. digital camera sales with a 9.6 percent share, and by 2010 it held 7 percent in seventh place behind Canon, Sony, Nikon, and others, according to research firm IDC. Also an ever-smaller percentage of digital pictures were being taken on dedicated digital cameras, being gradually displaced in the late 2000s by cameras on cellphones, smartphones, and tablets.\n\nNew strategy\n\nKodak then began a strategy shift: Previously Kodak had done everything in-house, but CEO Antonio Pérez shut down film factories and eliminated 27,000 jobs as it outsourced its manufacturing. Pérez invested heavily in digital technologies and new services that capitalized on its technology innovation to boost profit margins. He also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build up a high-margin printer ink business to replace shriveling film sales. Kodak's ink strategy rejected the razor and blades business model used by the dominant market leader Hewlett-Packard in that Kodak's printers were expensive but the ink was cheaper. As of 2011, these new lines of inkjet printers were said to be on verge of turning a profit, although some analysts were skeptical as printouts had been replaced gradually by electronic copies on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Home photograph printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software, and packaging were viewed as the company's new core businesses, with sales from those four businesses projected to double to nearly $2 billion in revenue in 2013 and account for 25 percent of all sales. However, while Kodak named home printers as a core business as late as August 2012, at the end of September declining sales forced Kodak to announce an exit from the consumer inkjet market. \n\nKodak has also turned to litigation in order to generate revenue. In 2010, it received $838 million from patent licensing that included a settlement with LG.\n\nIn 2011, despite the turnaround progress, Kodak rapidly used up its cash reserves, stoking fears of bankruptcy; it had $957 million in cash in June 2011, down from $1.6 billion in January 2001. In 2011, Kodak reportedly explored selling off or licensing its vast portfolio of patents in order to stave off bankruptcy. By January 2012, analysts suggested that the company could enter bankruptcy followed by an auction of its patents, as it was reported to be in talks with Citigroup to provide debtor-in-possession financing. This was confirmed on January 19, 2012, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to enable it to continue operations. Under the terms of its bankruptcy protection, Kodak had a deadline of February 15, 2013 to produce a reorganization plan. \n\nIn April 2013, Kodak showed its first Micro Four Thirds camera, to be manufactured by JK Imaging. \n\nOn September 3, 2013, Kodak announced that it emerged from bankruptcy as a technology company focused on imaging for business. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.\n\nOn March 12, 2014, Kodak announced that Jeffrey J. Clarke had been named the new CEO. \n\nTimeline\n\n1880–99\n\n*April 1880: George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester N.Y. and began the commercial manufacture of dry plates.\n*January 1, 1881: Eastman and businessman Henry A. Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Eastman resigned his position at the Rochester Savings Bank in order to work full-time at the Eastman Dry Plate Company.\n*1884: The Eastman-Strong partnership was dissolved and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company formed with 14 shareowners. The Eastman Dry Plate Company was responsible for the first cameras suitable for non expert use.\n*1885: George Eastman bought David Houston's patents for roll film and developed them further. These were the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison.\n*September 4, 1888: Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. \n*1888: The first model of the Kodak camera appeared. It took round pictures in diameter, was of the fixed focus type, and carried a roll of film enough for 100 exposures. Its invention practically marked the advent of amateur photography, as before that time both apparatus and processes were too burdensome to classify photography as recreation. The roll film used in the first model of the Kodak camera had a paper base but was soon superseded by a film with a cellulose base, a practical transparent flexible film. The first films had to be loaded into the camera and unloaded in the dark room, but the film cartridge system with its protecting strip of opaque paper made it possible to load and unload the camera in ordinary light. The Kodak Developing Machine (1900) and its simplified successor, the Kodak Film Tank, provided the means for daylight development of film, making the dark room unnecessary for any of the operations of amateur photography. The earlier types of the Kodak cameras were of the box form and of fixed focus, and as various sizes were added, devices for focusing the lenses were incorporated.\n*1889: The Eastman Company was formed. \n*1891: George Eastman began to produce a second line of cameras, the Ordinary range. \n*1892: It was renamed the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. He coined the advertising slogan, \"You Press the Button, We Do the Rest.\" The Kodak company thereby attained its name from the first simple roll film cameras produced by Eastman Dry Plate Company, known as the \"Kodak\" in its product line.\n*Early 1890s: The first folding Kodak cameras were introduced. These were equipped with folding bellows that permitted much greater compactness.\n*1895: The first pocket Kodak camera, the $5 Pocket Kodak, was introduced. It was of the box form type, slipping easily into an ordinary coat pocket, and producing negatives 1½ x 2 inches.\n*1897: The first folding pocket Kodak camera was introduced, and was mentioned in the novel Dracula, published the same year.\n*1899: George Eastman purchased the patent for Velox photographic paper from Leo Baekeland for $1,000,000. After this time, Velox paper was then sold by Eastman Kodak.\n\n1900–99\n\n*1900: The Brownie camera was introduced, creating a new mass market for photography.\n*1901: The present company, Eastman Kodak Company of New Jersey, was formed under the laws of that state. Eventually, the business in Jamestown was moved in its entirety to Rochester, and the plants in Jamestown were demolished.\n*By 1920: An “Autographic Feature” provided a means for recording data on the margin of the negative at the time of exposure. This feature was supplied on all Kodak cameras with the exception of a box camera designed for making panoramic pictures and was discontinued in 1932.\n*1920: Tennessee Eastman was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary. The company's primary purpose was the manufacture of chemicals, such as acetyls, needed for Kodak's film photography products.\n*1930: Eastman Kodak Company was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index on July 18, 1930. The company remained listed as one of the DJIA companies for the next 74 years, ending in 2004.\n\n*1932: George Eastman dies at age 77, taking his own life with a gun shot.\n\n*1935: Kodak introduced Kodachrome, a color reversal stock for movie and slide film.\n*1936: Kodak branches out into manufacture of hand-grenades.\n*1940-1944: Eastman Kodak ranked 62nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. \n*1949-1956: Kodak Introduces the Retina Series 35mm Camera \n*1959: Kodak introduced the Starmatic camera, the first automatic Brownie camera, which sold 10 million units over the next five years.\n*1963: Kodak introduced the Instamatic camera, an inexpensive, easy-to-load, point-and-shoot camera.\n*1970: Kodak scientists disclose the continuous wave tunable dye laser. This becomes a product for several high-tech companies but not at Kodak.\n*1975: Steven Sasson, then an electrical engineer at Kodak, invented a digital camera. \n*1976: The Bayer Pattern color filter array (CFA) was invented by Eastman Kodak researcher Bryce Bayer. The order in which dyes are placed on an image sensor photosite is still in use today. The basic technology is still the most commonly used of its kind to date.\n*1976: Kodak introduced the first Kodamatic, instant picture cameras, using a similar film and technology to that of the Polaroid company.\n*1976: The company sold 90% of the photographic film in the US along with 85% of the cameras. \n*New Kodak Moment: A $19M profit. \n*1981: Kodak was sued by Polaroid for infringement of its Instant Picture patents. The suit ran for five years, the court finally finding in favour of Polaroid in 1986.\n*1982: Kodak launched the Kodak Disc film format for consumer cameras. The format ultimately proved unpopular and was later discontinued.\n*1986: Kodak scientists created the world's first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels and producing a photo-quality print.\n*1987: Dr. Ching W. Tang, a senior research associate, and his colleague, Steven Van Slyke, developed the first multi-layer OLEDs at the Kodak Research Laboratories, for which he later became a Fellow of the Society for Information Display (SID)\n*1988: Kodak buys Sterling Drug for $5.1 Billion \n*1988: Kodak scientists introduce the coumarin tetramethyl laser dyes also used in OLED devices. These become a successful product until the line of fine chemicals is sold. \n*1991: The Kodak Professional Digital Camera System or DCS, the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. A customized camera back bearing the digital image sensor was mounted on a Nikon F3 body and released by Kodak in May; the company had previously shown the camera at photokina in 1990.\n*1993: Eastman Chemical, a Kodak subsidiary founded by George Eastman in 1920 to supply Kodak's chemical needs, was spun off as a separate corporation. Eastman Chemical became a Fortune 500 company in its own right. \n*1994: Apple Quicktake, a consumer digital camera was debuted by Apple Computer. Some models were manufactured by Kodak.\n\n2000–09\n\n*2003: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare LS633 Digital Camera, the first camera to feature an AMOLED display, and the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000, the world's first printer-and-camera dock combination.\n* November 2003: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company Algotec Systems, a developer of advanced picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), which enable radiology departments to digitally manage and store medical images and information. \n*January 2004: Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in Europe and North America, and cut up to 15,000 jobs (around a fifth of its total workforce at the time). \n*April 8, 2004: Kodak was delisted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, having been a constituent for 74 consecutive years. \n*May 2004: Kodak signed an exclusive long-term agreement with Lexar Media, licensing the Kodak brand for use on digital memory cards designed, manufactured, sold, and distributed by Lexar. \n*January 2005: The Kodak EasyShare-One Digital Camera, the world’s first Wi-Fi consumer digital camera capable of sending pictures by email, was unveiled at the 2005 CES.\n*January 2005: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company OREX Computed Radiography, a provider of compact computed radiography systems that enable medical practitioners to acquire patient x-ray images digitally. \n*January 2005: Kodak acquired the Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada-based company Creo.\n*January 2006: Kodak unveiled the Kodak EasyShare V570 Dual Lens Digital Camera, the world's first dual-lens digital still camera and smallest ultra-wide-angle optical zoom digital camera, at the CES. Using proprietary Kodak Retina Dual Lens technology, the V570 wrapped an ultra-wide angle lens (23 mm) and a second optical zoom lens (39 – 117 mm) into a body less than 2.5 cm (an inch) thick.\n*April 2006: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare V610 Dual Lens Digital Camera, at that time the world’s smallest 10× (38–380 mm) optical zoom camera at less than 2.5 cm (an inch) thick. \n*August 1, 2006: Kodak agreed to divest its digital camera manufacturing operations to Flextronics, including assembly, production and testing. As part of the sale it was agreed that Flextronics would manufacture and distribute consumer digital cameras for Kodak, and conduct some design and development functions for it. Kodak kept high-level digital camera design in house, continued to conduct research and development in digital still cameras, and retained all intellectual property and patents. Approximately 550 Kodak personnel transferred to Flextronics.\n*January 10, 2007: Kodak agreed to sell Kodak Health Group to Onex Corporation for $2.35 billion in cash, and up to $200 million in additional future payments if Onex achieved specified returns on the acquisition. The sale was completed May 1. Kodak used part of the proceeds to fully repay its approximately $1.15 billion of secured term debt. Around 8,100 employees transferred to Onex, and Kodak Health Group was renamed Carestream Health. Kodak Health Group had revenue of $2.54 billion for the 12 months to September 30, 2006.\n*April 19, 2007: Kodak announced an agreement to sell its light management films business, which produced films designed to improve the brightness and efficiency of liquid crystal displays, to Rohm and Haas. The divested business comprised 125 workers. As part of the transaction Rohm and Haas agreed to license technology and purchase equipment from Kodak, and lease Building 318 at Kodak Park. The sale price was not disclosed. \n*May 25, 2007: Kodak announced a cross-licensing agreement with Chi Mei Optoelectronics and its affiliate Chi Mei EL (CMEL), enabling CMEL to use Kodak technology for active matrix OLED modules in a variety of small to medium size display applications. \n*June 14, 2007: Kodak announced a two to fourfold increase in sensitivity to light (from one to two stops) compared to current sensor designs. This design was a departure from the classic \"Bayer filter\" by adding panchromatic or “clear” pixels to the RGB elements on the sensor array. Since these pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, they collect a significantly higher proportion of the light striking the sensor. In combination with advanced Kodak software algorithms optimized for these new patterns, photographers benefited from an increase in photographic speed (improving performance in low light), faster shutter speeds (reducing motion blur for moving subjects), and smaller pixels (higher resolutions in a given optical format) while retaining performance. The technology was credited to Kodak scientists John Compton and John Hamilton. \n*September 4, 2007: Kodak announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Lexar Media. \n*November 2008: Kodak released the Kodak Theatre HD Player, allowing photos and videos stored on a computer to be displayed on an HDTV. Kodak licensed technology from Hillcrest Labs for the interface and pointer, which allowed a user to control the player with gestures. \n*January 2009: Kodak posted a $137 million fourth-quarter loss and announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs. \n*June 22, 2009: Kodak announced that it would cease selling Kodachrome color film by the end of 2009, ending 74 years of production, after a dramatic decline in sales. \n*December 4, 2009: Kodak sold its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) business unit to LG Electronics, resulting in the lay-off of 60 people. \n\n2010–present\n\n*December 2010: Standard & Poor's removed Kodak from its S&P 500 index. \n*September 2011: Kodak hired law firm Jones Day for restructuring advice and its stock dropped to an all-time low of $0.54 a share. During 2011, Kodak shares fell more than 80 percent. \n*January 2012: Kodak received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) notifying it that its average closing price was below $1.00 for 30 consecutive days and that over the next 6 months it must increase the closing share price to at least $1 on the last trading day of each calendar month and have an average closing price of at least $1 over the 30 trading-days prior or it would be delisted. From the $90 range in 1997, Kodak shares closed at 76 cents on January 3, 2012. On January 8, 2012, Kodak shares closed over 50% higher after the company announced a major restructuring into two main divisions, one focused on products and services for businesses, and the other on consumer products including digital cameras. \n*January 19, 2012: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection. The company's stock was delisted from NYSE and moved to OTC exchange. Following the news it ended the day trading down 35% at $0.36 a share.\n*February 7, 2012: The Image Sensor Solutions (ISS) division of Kodak was sold to Truesense Imaging Inc. \n*February 9, 2012: Kodak announced that it would exit the digital image capture business, phasing out its production of digital cameras. Kodak sees home photo printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software and packaging as the core of its future business. Once the digital camera business is phased out, Kodak said its consumer business will focus on printing. It will seek a company to license its EasyShare digital camera brand.\n*August 24, 2012: Kodak announced that it plans to sell its film, commercial scanner and kiosk divisions. \n*September 10, 2012: Kodak announced plans to cut another 1,000 jobs by the end of 2012 and that it is examining further job cuts as it works to restructure its business in bankruptcy. \n*September 28, 2012: Kodak announced that it is exiting the inkjet printer business.\n*December 20, 2012 Kodak announced that it plans to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million to some of the world’s biggest technology companies, thus making a step to end bankruptcy. \n*April 29, 2013 Kodak announced an agreement with the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan (KPP) to spin off Kodak’s Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses and settle $2.8 Billion in KPP claims. \n*September 3, 2013 Kodak announces that it has emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection as a company focused on serving commercial customers.\n*October 17, 2013 Kodak brings European headquarter and the entire EAMER Technology Centre under one roof in Eysins, Switzerland. The relocation brings the company's European headquarters and Inkjet demo facilities, which were based in Gland, Switzerland, and the Kodak EAMER Technology and Solutions Centre, which was based in La Hulpe, Belgium, together. \n*March 12, 2014 Kodak names Jeffrey J. Clarke as its new Chief Executive Officer. \n*July 30, 2014 Kodak is negotiating with movie studios for an annual movie film order guarantee to preserve the last source of movie film manufacturing in the United States. \n*December 2014, Kodak announced to release its first Android smartphone which is made by Bullitt and will be displayed at CES 2015. \n\nProducts and services\n\nCurrent\n\nKodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films. \n\nDigital printing and enterprise\n\nKodak provides high-speed, high-volume commercial inkjet, and color and black-and-white electrophotographic printing equipment and related consumables and services. \nIt has an installed base of more than 5,000 units.\n\nIts Prosper platform uses Stream inkjet technology, which delivers a continuous flow of ink that enables constant and consistent operation, with uniform size and accurate placement, even at very high print speeds. Applications for PROSPER include publishing, commercial print, direct mail, and packaging. The business also includes the customer base of Kodak VersaMark products.\n\nThe NexPress platform is used for printing short-run, personalized print applications for purposes such as direct mail, books, marketing collateral and photo products. The Digimaster platform uses monochrome electrophotographic printing technology to create high-quality printing of statements, short-run books, corporate documentation, manuals and direct mail. \n\nFlexo printing\n\nKodak designs and manufactures products for flexography printing. Its Flexcel line of flexo printing systems allow label printers to produce their own digital plates for customized flexo printing and flexible printed packaging.\n\nFunctional printing\n\nThe company currently has strategic relationships with worldwide touch-panel sensor leaders, such as the partnerships with UniPixel announced on April 16, 2013 and Kingsbury Corp. launched on June 27, 2013. \n\nEnterprise professional services\n\nEnterprise professional services offers print and managed media services, brand protection solutions and services, and document management services to enterprise customers, including government, pharmaceuticals, and health, consumer and luxury good products, retail and finance.\n\nDigital printing solutions\n\nIn 1997, Heidelberg Printing Machines AG and Eastman Kodak Co. had created the Nexpress Solutions LLC joint venture to develop a digital color printing press for the high-end market segment. Heidelberg acquired Eastman Kodak Co.'s Office Imaging black and white digital printing activities in 1999. In 2000, they had launched Digimaster 9110 - Black & White Production Printer and NexPress 2100 Digital Colour Press.\n\nIn March 2004, Heidelberg transferred its Digital Print division to Eastman Kodak Co. under mutual agreement. Kodak continues to research and develop Digital Printing Systems and introduced more products.\n\nAt present, Kodak has commercial Web-fed presses, commercial imprinting systems - Prosper, VersaMark and commercial sheet-fed press - NexPress digital production colour press, DIGIMASTER HD digital black and white production printer. \n\nConsumer inkjet ink cartridges\n\nKodak entered into consumer inkjet photo printers in a joint venture with manufacturer Lexmark in 1999 with the Kodak Personal Picture Maker.\n\nIn February 2007, Kodak re-entered the market with a new product line of All-In-One (AiO) inkjet printers that employ several technologies marketed as Kodacolor Technology. Advertising emphasizes low price for ink cartridges rather than for the printers themselves. \n\nKodak announced plans to stop selling inkjet printers in 2013 as it focuses on commercial printing, but will still sell ink. \n\nGECF\n\nGraphics\n\nKodak's graphics business consists of computer to plate (CTP) devices, which Kodak first launched in 1995 when the company introduced the first thermal CTP to market. In CTP, an output device exposes a digital image using SQUAREspot laser imaging technology directly to an aluminum surface (printing plate), which is then mounted onto a printing press to reproduce the image. Kodak's Graphics portfolio includes front-end controllers, production workflow software, CTP output devices, and digital plates.\n\nGlobal Technical Services\n\nKodak’s Global Technical Services (\"GTS\") for Commercial Imaging is focused on selling service contracts for Kodak products, including the following service categories: field services, customer support services, educational services, and professional services.\n\nEntertainment Imaging and Commercial Film\n\nKodak's Entertainment Imaging and Commercial Film group (\"E&CF\") encompasses its motion picture film business, providing motion imaging products (camera negative, intermediate, print and archival film), services and technology for the professional motion picture and exhibition industries.\n\nE&CF also offers Aerial and Industrial Films including KODAK Printed Circuit Board film, and delivers external sales for the company’s component businesses: Polyester Film, Specialty Chemicals, Inks and Dispersions and Solvent Recovery.\n\nMotion picture and TV production\n\nThe Kodak company played a role in the invention and development of the motion picture industry. Many cinema and TV productions are shot on Kodak film stocks. \n\nThe company helped set the standard of 35 mm film, and introduced the 16 mm film format for home movie use and lower budget film productions.\n\nThe home market-oriented 8 mm and Super 8 formats were also developed by Kodak. Kodak also entered the professional television production video tape market, briefly in the mid-1980s, under the product portfolio name of Eastman Professional Video Tape Products. In 1990, Kodak launched a Worldwide Student Program working with university faculty throughout the world to help nurture the future generation of film-makers. Kodak formed Educational Advisory Councils in the US, Europe and Asia made up of Deans and Chairs of some of the most prestigious film schools throughout the world to help guide the development of their program.\n\nKodak previously owned the visual effects film post-production facilities Cinesite in Los Angeles and London and also LaserPacific in Los Angeles. Kodak sold Cinesite to Endless LLP, an independent British private equity house. \n\nKodak previously sold LaserPacific and its subsidiaries Laser-Edit, Inc, and Pacific Video, Inc., in April 2010 for an undisclosed sum to TeleCorps Holdings, Inc.\n\nKodak also sold Pro-Tek Media Preservation Services, a film storage company in Burbank, California, in October 2013. \n\nTechnical support and on-site service\n\nAside from technical phone support for their products, Kodak offers onsite service for other devices such as document scanners, data storage systems (optical, tape, and disk), printers, inkjet printing presses, microfilm/microfiche equipment, photograph kiosks, and photocopiers, for which they dispatch technicians who make repairs in the field.\n\nOther\n\nKodak markets Picture CDs and other photo products such as calendars, photo books and photo enlargements through retail partners such as CVS, Walmart and Target and through its Kodak Gallery online service, formerly known as Ofoto.\n\nFormer\n\nStill film cameras\n\nOn January 13, 2004, Kodak announced it would stop marketing traditional still film cameras (excluding disposable cameras) in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, but would continue to sell film cameras in India, Latin America, Eastern Europe and China. By the end of 2005, Kodak ceased manufacturing cameras that used the Advanced Photo System. Kodak licensed the manufacture of Kodak branded cameras to Vivitar in 2005 and 2006. After 2007 Kodak did not license the manufacture of any film camera with the Kodak name.\n\nInstant cameras\n\nAfter losing a patent battle with Polaroid Corporation, Kodak left the instant camera business on January 9, 1986. The Kodak instant camera included models known as the Kodamatic and the Colorburst.\n\nPolaroid was awarded damages in the patent trial in the amount of $909,457,567, a record at the time. (Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts, decided October 12, 1990, case no. 76-1634-MA. Published in the U.S. Patent Quarterly as 16 USPQ2d 1481). See also the following cases: Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 641 F.Supp. 828 [228 USPQ 305] (D. Mass. 1985), stay denied, 833 F.2d 930 [5 USPQ2d 1080] (Fed. Cir.), aff'd, 789 F.2d 1556 [229 USPQ 561] (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 850 (1986). \n\nKodak was the exclusive supplier of negatives for Polaroid cameras from 1963 until 1969, when Polaroid chose to manufacture its own instant film.\n\nImage sensors\n\nAs part of its move toward higher end products, Kodak announced on September 15, 2006 that the new Leica M8 camera incorporates Kodak's KAF-10500 image sensor. This was the second recent partnership between Kodak and the German optical manufacturer. In 2011, Kodak sold its Image Sensor Solutions business to Platinum Equity, who subsequently renamed it Truesense Imaging, Inc. \n\nDigital cameras and video cameras\n\nMany of Kodak's early compact digital cameras were designed and built by Chinon Industries, a Japanese camera manufacturer. In 2004, Kodak Japan acquired Chinon and many of its engineers and designers joined Kodak Japan.\n\nThe Kodak DCS series of digital single-lens reflex cameras and digital camera backs were released by Kodak in the 1990s and 2000s, and discontinued in 2005. They were based on existing 35 mm film SLRs from Nikon and Canon and the range included the original Kodak DCS, the first commercially available digital SLR.\n\nIn July 2006, Kodak announced that Flextronics would manufacture and help design its digital cameras.\n\nDigital picture frames\n\nKodak first entered the digital picture frame market with the Kodak Smart Picture Frame in the fourth quarter of 2000. It was designed by Weave Innovations and licensed to Kodak with an exclusive relationship with Weave's StoryBox online photo network. Smart Frame owners connected to the network via an analog telephone connection built into the frame. The frame could hold 36 images internally and came with a six-month free subscription to the StoryBox network. \n\nKodak re-entered the digital photo frame market at CES in 2007 with the introduction of four new EasyShare-branded models that were available in sizes from 200 to, included multiple memory card slots, and some of which included Wi-Fi capability to connect with the Kodak Gallery—that gallery functionality has now been compromised due to gallery policy changes (see below).\n\nKodak Gallery\n\nIn June 2001, Kodak purchased the photo-developing website Ofoto, later renamed Kodak Gallery. The website enables users to upload their photos into albums, publish them into prints, and create mousepads, calendars, etc. On March 1, 2012, Kodak announced that it sold Kodak Gallery to Shutterfly for $23.8 million. \n\nDocument imaging\n\nKodak provides document imaging solutions. Historically this industry began when George Eastman partnered with banks to image checks in the 1920s. Through the development of microfilm technology, Eastman Kodak was able to provide business and government with a solution for long term document storage. Document imaging was one of the first imaging solutions to move to \"digital imaging\" technology. Kodak manufactured the first digital document scanners for high speed document imaging. Today Kodak has a full line of document scanners providing imaging solutions for banking, finance, insurance, healthcare and other vertical industries. Kodak also provides associated document capture software and business process services. Eastman Kodak acquired the Bowe Bell & Howell scanner division in September 2009.\n\nPhotographic film and paper\n\nKodak continues to produce specialty films and film for newer and more popular consumer formats, while it has also discontinued the manufacture of film in older and less popular formats.\n\nKodak is a leading producer of silver halide (AgX) paper used for printing from film and digital images. Minilabs located in retail stores and larger central photo lab operations (CLOs) use silver halide paper for photo printing. In 2005 Kodak announced it would stop producing black-and-white photo paper. \n\nPhoto kiosks\n\nKodak is a manufacturer of self-service photo kiosks that produce \"prints in seconds\" from multiple sources including digital input, scanned prints, Facebook, the Kodak Gallery and orders placed on-line using thermosublimation printers. The company has placed over 100,000 Picture Kiosks in retail locations worldwide. Employing similar technology, Kodak also offers larger printing systems with additional capabilities including duplex greeting cards, large format poster printers, photobooks and calendars under the brand name \"APEX\". \n\nOperations\n\nSubsidiaries\n\n* [http://wwwuk.kodak.com/UK/en/corp/ Kodak Limited (UK)]\n** the Company's sales and marketing headquarters are located at Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire\n** manufacturing facilities are sited at Harrow in north-west London, Kirkby near Liverpool, and Annesley in Nottinghamshire\n* [http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Products/FPC/index.htm FPC, Inc.]\n** FPC, US/Canada\n** FPC Italy\n\nKodak Research Laboratories\n\nThe Kodak Research Laboratories were founded in 1912 with Kenneth Mees as the first director. Principal components of the Kodak Research Laboratories were the Photographic Research Laboratories and then the Imaging Research Laboratories. Additional organizations included the Corporate Research Laboratories. Over nearly a century, scientists at these laboratories produced thousands of patents and scientific publications.\n\nNotable people\n\nPresidents and CEOs\n\nScientists\n\n* Bryce Bayer, color scientist (1929–2012)\n* Harry Coover, polymer chemist (1917–2011)\n* F. J. Duarte, laser physicist and author (left in 2006)\n* Loyd A. Jones, camouflage physicist (1884–1954)\n* Maurice Loyal Huggins, polymer scientist (1897–1981)\n* Rudolf Kingslake, optical designer (1903–2003)\n* David MacAdam, color scientist (1910–1998)\n* Kenneth Mees, film scientist and founder of the research laboratories (1882–1960)\n* Perley G. Nutting, physicist and founder of OSA (1873–1949)\n* Steven Van Slyke, OLED scientist (left in 2010)\n* Warren J. Smith, optical engineer (1922–2008)\n* Ching W. Tang, OLED scientist (left in 2006)\n* Arthur Widmer, Special Effects Film Pioneer and receiver of an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award of Commendation (1914-2006)\n\nArchive donation\n\nIn 2005, Kodak Canada donated its entire historic company archives to Ryerson University in Toronto. The Ryerson University Library also acquired an extensive collection of materials on the history of photography from the private collection of Nicholas M. & Marilyn A. Graver of Rochester, New York. The Kodak Archives, begun in 1909, contain the company's Camera Collection, historic photos, files, trade circulars, Kodak magazines, price lists, daily record books, equipment, and other ephemera. It includes the contents of the Kodak Heritage Collection Museum, a museum established in 1999 for Kodak Canada's centennial that Kodak closed in 2005 along with the company's entire 'Kodak Heights' manufacturing campus in Mount Dennis, Toronto. See also: George Eastman House.\n\nControversies\n\nBetter Business Bureau\n\nOn March 26, 2007, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) announced that Eastman Kodak was resigning its national membership in the wake of expulsion proceedings initiated by the CBBB Board of Directors. \nIn 2006, Kodak notified the BBB of Upstate New York that it would no longer accept or respond to consumer complaints submitted by them. In prior years, Kodak responded by offering consumers an adjustment or an explanation of the company’s position. The BBB file contains consumer complaints of problems with repairs of Kodak digital cameras, as well as difficulty communicating with Kodak customer service. Among other complaints, consumers say that their cameras broke and they were charged for repairs when the failure was not the result of any damage or abuse. Some say their cameras failed again after being repaired.\n\nKodak said its customer service and customer privacy teams concluded that 99 percent of all complaints forwarded by the BBB already were handled directly with the customer. Brian O’Connor, Kodak chief privacy officer, said the company was surprised by the news release distributed by the Better Business Bureau:\n\nPatent litigation\n\nIn 2010, Apple filed a patent-infringement claim against Kodak. On May 12, 2011, Judge Robert Rogers rejected Apple's claims that two of its digital photography patents were being violated by Kodak. \n\nOn July 1, 2011, the U.S. International Trade Commission partially reversed a January decision by an administrative law judge stating that neither Apple nor Research in Motion had infringed upon Kodak's patents. The ITC remanded the matter for further proceedings before the ALJ.",
"Rollfilm or roll film is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing, as opposed to film which is protected from exposure and wound forward in a cartridge. The term originated in contrast to sheet film. Confusingly, roll film was originally often referred to as \"cartridge\" film because of its resemblance to a shotgun cartridge. The opaque backing paper allows roll film to be loaded in daylight. It is typically printed with frame number markings which can be viewed through a small red window at the rear of the camera. A spool of roll film is usually loaded on one side of the camera and pulled across to an identical take up spool on the other side of the shutter as exposures are made. When the roll is fully exposed, the take up spool is removed for processing and the empty spool on which the film was originally wound is moved to the other side, becoming the take up spool for the next roll of film.\n\nHistory\n\nIn 1881 a farmer in Cambria, Wisconsin, Peter Houston, invented the first roll film camera. His younger brother David, filed the patents for various components of Peter's camera. \nDavid Henderson Houston (b. June 14, 1841; d. May 6, 1906\n), originally from Cambria, Wisconsin, patented the first holders for flexible roll film. Houston moved to Hunter in Dakota Territory in 1880. He was issued an 1881 patent for a roll film holder which he licensed to George Eastman (it was used in Eastman's Kodak 1888 box camera). Houston sold the patent (and an 1886 revision ) outright to Eastman for $5000 in 1889. Houston continued developing the camera, creating 21 patents for cameras or camera parts between 1881 and 1902. In 1912 his estate transferred the remainder of his patents to Eastman.\n\n The most popular rollfilm is the type 120 film format, which is used in most medium-format cameras and roll film magazines for large-format cameras. Until the 1950s, 120 roll film was also used in the then most simplist of snapshot cameras, and box cameras. The use of roll film in consumer cameras was largely superseded by 135 and 126 cartridges, but 120 and 220 (double length) film are still commonly used in medium-format cameras.",
"A camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images, which may be stored locally, transmitted to another location, or both. The images may be individual still photographs or sequences of images constituting videos or movies.The camera is a remote sensing device as it senses subjects without physical contact. The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means \"dark chamber\" and is the Latin name of the original device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The modern photographic camera evolved from the camera obscura. The functioning of the camera is very similar to the functioning of the human eye.\n\nFunctional description\n\nA camera may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A still camera is an optical device which creates a single image of an object or scene, and records it on an electronic sensor or photographic film. All cameras use the same basic design: light enters an enclosed box through a converging lens/convex lens and an image is recorded on a light-sensitive medium(mainly a transition metal-hallide). A shutter mechanism controls the length of time that light can enter the camera. Most photographic cameras have functions that allow a person to view the scene to be recorded, allow for a desired part of the scene to be in focus, and to control the exposure so that it is not too bright or too dim. A display, often a liquid crystal display (LCD), permits the user to view scene to be recorded and settings such as ISO speed, exposure, and shutter speed. \n\nA movie camera or a video camera operates similarly to a still camera, except it records a series of static images in rapid succession, commonly at a rate of 24 frames per second. When the images are combined and displayed in order, the illusion of motion is achieved. \n\nThanks to the help of modern science, A group of photoscientists of MIT has successfully created a camera having frame rate of 1 trillion per second, able to see the light emerging and reflecting or refracting on an opaque or translucent media.\n\nHistory\n\nThe forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura. In the fifth century B.C., the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti noted that a pinhole can form an inverted and focused image, when light passes through the hole and into a dark area. Mo Ti is the first recorded person to have exploited this phenomenon to trace the inverted image to create a picture. Writing in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle also mentioned this principle. He described observing a partial solar eclipse in 330 B.C. by seeing the image of the Sun projected through the small spaces between the leaves of a tree. In the tenth century, the Arabic scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) also wrote about observing a solar eclipse through a pinhole, and he described how a sharper image could be produced by making the opening of the pinhole smaller. English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote about these optical principles in his 1267 treatise Perspectiva. By the fifteenth century, artists and scientists were using this phenomenon to make observations. Originally, an observer had to enter an actual room, in which a pinhole was made on one wall. On the opposite wall, the observer would view the inverted image of the outside. The name camera obscura, Latin for \"dark room\", derives from this early implementation of the optical phenomenon. The term was first coined by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. \n\nThe Italian scientist Giambattista della Porta described the camera obscura in detail in his 1558 work Magia Naturalis, and specifically suggested that an artist could project a camera obscura's images onto paper, and trace the outlines. The camera obscura was popular as an aid for drawing and painting from the 1600s to the 1800s. Portable set-ups were devised in the 17th century. For example, Kepler had built a portable tent, and outfitted the camera obscura with a lens by 1620. This set-up remained popular up to the early 1800s. The scientist Robert Hooke presented a paper in 1694 to the Royal Society, in which he described a portable camera obscura. It was a cone-shaped box which fit onto the head and shoulders of its user. A hand-held device with a mirror reflex mechanism was first proposed by Johann Zahn in 1685, a design that would later be used in photographic cameras. \n\nBefore the development of the photographic camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight. In a series of experiments, published in 1727, the German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the darkening of the salts was due to light alone, and not influenced by heat or exposure to air. The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1777 that silver chloride was especially susceptible to darkening from light exposure, and that once darkened, it becomes insoluble in an ammonia solution. The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood. To create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images weren't permanent, however, as Wedgwood didn't employ a fixing mechanism. He ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura. \n\nImage:Pinhole-camera.svg|Camera obscura. Light enters a dark box through a small hole and creates an inverted image on the wall opposite the hole.\nImage:View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.jpg|View from the Window at Le Gras (1826), the earliest surviving photograph \nImage:Susse Frére Daguerreotype camera 1839.jpg|The Giroux daguerreotype camera, the first to be commercially produced \n\nThe first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris. Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816. The photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window. It was made using an 8-hour exposure on pewter coated with bitumen. Niépce called his process \"heliography\". Niépce corresponded with the inventor Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, and the pair entered into a partnership to improve the heliographic process. Niépce had experimented further with other chemicals, to improve contrast in his heliographs. Daguerre contributed an improved camera obscura design, but the partnership ended when Niépce died in 1833. Daguerre succeeded in developing a high-contrast and extremely sharp image by exposing on a plate coated with silver iodide, and exposing this plate again to mercury vapor. By 1837, he was able to fix the images with a common salt solution. He called this process Daguerreotype, and tried unsuccessfully for a couple years to commercialize it. Eventually, with help of the scientist and politician François Arago, the French government acquired Daguerre's process for public release. In exchange, pensions were provided to Daguerre as well as Niépce's son, Isidore. \n\nIn the 1830s, the English scientist Henry Fox Talbot independently invented a process to fix camera images using silver salts. Although dismayed that Daguerre had beaten him to the announcement of photography, on January 31, 1839 he submitted a pamphlet to the Royal Institution entitled Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing, which was the first published description of photography. Within two years, Talbot developed a two-step process for creating photographs on paper, which he called calotypes. The calotyping process was the first to utilize negative prints, which reverse all values in the photograph - black shows up as white and vice versa. Negative prints allow, in principle, unlimited duplicates of the positive print to be made. Calotyping also introduced the ability for a printmaker to alter the resulting image through retouching. Calotypes were never as popular or widespread as daguerreotypes, owing mainly to the fact that the latter produced sharper details. However, because daguerreotypes only produce a direct positive print, no duplicates can be made. It is the two-step negative/positive process that formed the basis for modern photography. \n\nThe first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture was a daguerreotype camera, built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839. Giroux signed a contract with Daguerre and Isidore Niépce to produce the cameras in France, with each device and accessories costing 400 francs. The camera was a double-box design, with a landscape lens fitted to the outer box, and a holder for a ground glass focusing screen and image plate on the inner box. By sliding the inner box, objects at various distances could be brought to as sharp a focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the screen was replaced with a sensitized plate. A knurled wheel controlled a copper flap in front of the lens, which functioned as a shutter. The early daguerreotype cameras required long exposure times, which in 1839 could be from 5 to 30 minutes. \n\nAfter the introduction of the Giroux daguerreotype camera, other manufacturers quickly produced improved variations. Charles Chevalier, who had earlier provided Niépce with lenses, created in 1841 a double-box camera using a half-sized plate for imaging. Chevalier’s camera had a hinged bed, allowing for half of the bed to fold onto the back of the nested box. In addition to having increased portability, the camera had a faster lens, bringing exposure times down to 3 minutes, and a prism at the front of the lens, which allowed the image to be laterally correct. Another French design emerged in 1841, created by Marc Antoine Gaudin. The Nouvel Appareil Gaudin camera had a metal disc with three differently-sized holes mounted on the front of the lens. Rotating to a different hole effectively provided variable f-stops, letting in different amount of light into the camera. Instead of using nested boxes to focus, the Gaudin camera used nested brass tubes. In Germany, Peter Friedrich Voigtländer designed an all-metal camera with a conical shape that produced circular pictures of about 3 inches in diameter. The distinguishing characteristic of the Voigtländer camera was its use of a lens designed by Josef Max Petzval. The f/3.5 Petzval lens was nearly 30 times faster than any other lens of the period, and was the first to be made specifically for portraiture. Its design was the most widely used for portraits until Carl Zeiss introduced the anastigmat lens in 1889. \n\nWithin a decade of being introduced in America, 3 general forms of camera were in popular use: the American- or chamfered-box camera, the Robert’s-type camera or “Boston box”, and the Lewis-type camera. The American-box camera had beveled edges at the front and rear, and an opening in the rear where the formed image could be viewed on ground glass. The top of the camera had hinged doors for placing photographic plates. Inside there was one available slot for distant objects, and another slot in the back for close-ups. The lens was focused either by sliding or with a rack and pinion mechanism. The Robert’s-type cameras were similar to the American-box, except for having a knob-fronted worm gear on the front of the camera, which moved the back box for focusing. Many Robert’s-type cameras allowed focusing directly on the lens mount. The third popular daguerreotype camera in America was the Lewis-type, introduced in 1851, which utilized a bellows for focusing. The main body of the Lewis-type camera was mounted on the front box, but the rear section was slotted into the bed for easy sliding. Once focused, a set screw was tightened to hold the rear section in place. Having the bellows in the middle of the body facilitated making a second, in-camera copy of the original image. \n\nDaguerreotype cameras formed images on silvered copper plates. The earliest daguerreotype cameras required several minutes to half an hour to expose images on the plates. By 1840, exposure times were reduced to just a few seconds owing to improvements in the chemical preparation and development processes, and to advances in lens design. American daguerreotypists introduced manufactured plates in mass production, and plate sizes became internationally standardized: whole plate (6.5 x 8.5 inches), three-quarter plate (5.5 x 7 1/8 inches), half plate (4.5 x 5.5 inches), quarter plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches), sixth plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches), and ninth plate (2 x 2.5 inches). Plates were often cut to fit cases and jewelry with circular and oval shapes. Larger plates were produced, with sizes such as 9 x 13 inches (“double-whole” plate), or 13.5 x 16.5 inches (Southworth & Hawes’ plate). \n\nThe collodion wet plate process that gradually replaced the daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.\n\nFor many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.\n\nThe use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera, which he called the \"Kodak,\" was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding cameras.\n\nFilms also made possible capture of motion (cinematography) establishing the movie industry by end of 19th century.\n\nThe first camera using digital electronics to capture and store images was developed by Kodak engineer Steven Sasson in 1975. He used a charge-coupled device (CCD) provided by Fairchild Semiconductor, which provided only 0.01 megapixels to capture images. Sasson combined the CCD device with movie camera parts to create a digital camera that saved black and white images onto a cassette tape. The images were then read from the cassette and viewed on a TV monitor. Later, cassette tapes were replaced by flash memory.\n\nGradually in the 2000s and 2010s, digital cameras became the dominant type of camera across consumer, television and movies.\n\nMechanics\n\nImage capture\n\nTraditional cameras capture light onto photographic plate or photographic film. Video and digital cameras use an electronic image sensor, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing.\n\nCameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie cameras or as ciné cameras in Europe; those designed for single images are still cameras.\n\nHowever these categories overlap as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and many modern cameras can quickly switch between still and motion recording modes.\n\nLens\n\nThe lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the sensor. The design and manufacture of the lens is critical to the quality of the photograph being taken. The technological revolution in camera design in the 19th century revolutionized optical glass manufacture and lens design with great benefits for modern lens manufacture in a wide range of optical instruments from reading glasses to microscopes. Pioneers included Zeiss and Leitz.\n\nCamera lenses are made in a wide range of focal lengths. They range from extreme wide angle, and standard, medium telephoto. Each lens is best suited to a certain type of photography. The extreme wide angle may be preferred for architecture because it has the capacity to capture a wide view of a building. The normal lens, because it often has a wide aperture, is often used for street and documentary photography. The telephoto lens is useful for sports and wildlife but it is more susceptible to camera shake.\n\nFocus\n\nDue to the optical properties of photographic lenses, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly. The process of adjusting this range is known as changing the camera's focus. There are various ways of focusing a camera accurately. The simplest cameras have fixed focus and use a small aperture and wide-angle lens to ensure that everything within a certain range of distance from the lens, usually around 3 metres (10 ft) to infinity, is in reasonable focus. Fixed focus cameras are usually inexpensive types, such as single-use cameras. The camera can also have a limited focusing range or scale-focus that is indicated on the camera body. The user will guess or calculate the distance to the subject and adjust the focus accordingly. On some cameras this is indicated by symbols (head-and-shoulders; two people standing upright; one tree; mountains).\n\nRangefinder cameras allow the distance to objects to be measured by means of a coupled parallax unit on top of the camera, allowing the focus to be set with accuracy. Single-lens reflex cameras allow the photographer to determine the focus and composition visually using the objective lens and a moving mirror to project the image onto a ground glass or plastic micro-prism screen. Twin-lens reflex cameras use an objective lens and a focusing lens unit (usually identical to the objective lens.) in a parallel body for composition and focusing. View cameras use a ground glass screen which is removed and replaced by either a photographic plate or a reusable holder containing sheet film before exposure. Modern cameras often offer autofocus systems to focus the camera automatically by a variety of methods.\n\nSome experimental cameras, for example the planar Fourier capture array (PFCA), do not require focusing to allow them to take pictures. In conventional digital photography, lenses or mirrors map all of the light originating from a single point of an in-focus object to a single point at the sensor plane. Each pixel thus relates an independent piece of information about the far-away scene. In contrast, a PFCA does not have a lens or mirror, but each pixel has an idiosyncratic pair of diffraction gratings above it, allowing each pixel to likewise relate an independent piece of information (specifically, one component of the 2D Fourier transform) about the far-away scene. Together, complete scene information is captured and images can be reconstructed by computation.\n\nSome cameras have post focusing. Post focusing means take the pictures first and then focusing later at the personal computer. The camera uses many tiny lenses on the sensor to capture light from every camera angle of a scene and is called plenoptics technology. A current plenoptic camera design has 40,000 lenses working together to grab the optimal picture. \n\nExposure control\n\nThe size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made using a large aperture size with a fast shutter speed and a small aperture with a slow shutter.\n\nShutters\n\nAlthough a range of different shutter devices have been used during the development of the camera only two types have been widely used and remain in use today.\n\nThe Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released. The exposure time is determined by the interval between opening and closing. In this shutter design, the whole film frame is exposed at one time. This makes flash synchronisation much simpler as the flash only needs to fire once the shutter is fully open. Disadvantages of such shutters are their inability to reliably produce very fast shutter speeds ( faster than 1/500th second or so) and the additional cost and weight of having to include a shutter mechanism for every lens.\n\nThe focal-plane shutter operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plane. The focal-plane shutter is primarily associated with the single lens reflex type of cameras, since covering the film rather than blocking light passing through the lens allows the photographer to view through the lens at all times except during the exposure itself. Covering the film also facilitates removing the lens from a loaded camera (many SLRs have interchangeable lenses).\n\nComplexities\n\nProfessional medium format SLR (single-lens-reflex) cameras (typically using 120/220 roll film) use a hybrid solution, since such a large focal-plane shutter would be difficult to make and/or may run slowly. A manually inserted blade known as a dark slide allows the film to be covered when changing lenses or film backs. A blind inside the camera covers the film prior to and after the exposure (but is not designed to be able to give accurately controlled exposure times) and a leaf shutter that is normally open is installed in the lens. To take a picture, the leaf shutter closes, the blind opens, the leaf shutter opens then closes again, and finally the blind closes and the leaf shutter re-opens (the last step may only occur when the shutter is re-cocked).\n\nUsing a focal-plane shutter, exposing the whole film plane can take much longer than the exposure time. The exposure time does not depend on the time taken to make the exposure over all, only on the difference between the time a specific point on the film is uncovered and then covered up again. For example, an exposure of 1/1000 second may be achieved by the shutter curtains moving across the film plane in 1/50th of a second but with the two curtains only separated by 1/20th of the frame width. In fact in practice the curtains do not run at a constant speed as they would in an ideal design, obtaining an even exposure time depends mainly on being able to make the two curtains accelerate in a similar manner.\n\nWhen photographing rapidly moving objects, the use of a focal-plane shutter can produce some unexpected effects, since the film closest to the start position of the curtains is exposed earlier than the film closest to the end position. Typically this can result in a moving object leaving a slanting image. The direction of the slant depends on the direction the shutter curtains run in (noting also that as in all cameras the image is inverted and reversed by the lens, i.e. \"top-left\" is at the bottom right of the sensor as seen by a photographer behind the camera).\n\nFocal-plane shutters are also difficult to synchronise with flash bulbs and electronic flash and it is often only possible to use flash at shutter speeds where the curtain that opens to reveal the film completes its run and the film is fully uncovered, before the second curtain starts to travel and cover it up again. Typically 35mm film SLRs could sync flash at only up to 1/60th second if the camera has horizontal run cloth curtains, and 1/125th if using a vertical run metal shutter.\n\nFormats\n\nA wide range of film and plate formats have been used by cameras. In the early history plate sizes were often specific for the make and model of camera although there quickly developed some standardisation for the more popular cameras. The introduction of roll film drove the standardization process still further so that by the 1950s only a few standard roll films were in use. These included 120 film providing 8, 12 or 16 exposures, 220 film providing 16 or 24 exposures, 127 film providing 8 or 12 exposures (principally in Brownie cameras) and 135 (35 mm film) providing 12, 20 or 36 exposures – or up to 72 exposures in the half-frame format or in bulk cassettes for the Leica Camera range.\n\nFor cine cameras, film 35 mm wide and perforated with sprocket holes was established as the standard format in the 1890s. It was used for nearly all film-based professional motion picture production. For amateur use, several smaller and therefore less expensive formats were introduced. 17.5 mm film, created by splitting 35 mm film, was one early amateur format, but 9.5 mm film, introduced in Europe in 1922, and 16 mm film, introduced in the US in 1923, soon became the standards for \"home movies\" in their respective hemispheres. In 1932, the even more economical 8 mm format was created by doubling the number of perforations in 16 mm film, then splitting it, usually after exposure and processing. The Super 8 format, still 8 mm wide but with smaller perforations to make room for substantially larger film frames, was introduced in 1965.\n\nCamera accessories\n\nAccessories for cameras are mainly for care, protection, special effects and functions.\n*Lens hood: used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source to prevent glare and lens flare (see also matte box).\n*Lens cap: covers and protects the lens during storage.\n*Lens adapter: sometimes called a step-ring, adapts the lens to other size filters.\n*Lens filters: allow artificial colors or change light density.\n*Lens extension tubes allow close focus in macro photography.\n*Flash equipment: including light diffuser, mount and stand, reflector, soft box, trigger and cord.\n*Care and protection: including camera case and cover, maintenance tools, and screen protector.\n*Large format cameras use special equipment which includes magnifier loupe, view finder, angle finder, focusing rail /truck.\n*Battery and sometimes a charger.\n*Some professional SLR could be provided with interchangeable finders for eye-level or waist-level focusing, focusing screens, eye-cup, data backs, motor-drives for film transportation or external battery packs.\n*Tripod, microscope adapter, cable release, electric wire release.\n\nCamera designs\n\nPlate camera\n\nThe earliest cameras produced in significant numbers used sensitised glass plates were plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows.There were simple box cameras for glass plates but also single-lens reflex cameras with interchangeable lenses and even for color photography (Autochrome Lumière). Many of these cameras had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective.\n\nFocussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass screen at the point of focus. Because lens design only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily. When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide. To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the dark slide replaced.\n\nGlass plates were later replaced by sheet film in a dark slide for sheet film; adaptor sleeves were made to allow sheet film to be used in plate holders. In addition to the ground glass, a simple optical viewfinder was often fitted. Cameras which take single exposures on sheet film and are functionally identical to plate cameras were used for static, high-image-quality work; much longer in 20th century, see Large-format camera, below.\n\nFolding camera\n\nThe introduction of films enabled the existing designs for plate cameras to be made much smaller and for the base-plate to be hinged so that it could be folded up compressing the bellows. These designs were very compact and small models were dubbed vest pocket cameras. Folding rollfilm cameras were preceded by folding plate cameras, more compact than other designs.\n\nBox camera\n\nBox cameras were introduced as a budget level camera and had few if any controls. The original box Brownie models had a small reflex viewfinder mounted on the top of the camera and had no aperture or focusing controls and just a simple shutter. Later models such as the Brownie 127 had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.\n\nRangefinder camera\n\nAs camera a lens technology developed and wide aperture lenses became more common, rangefinder cameras were introduced to make focussing more precise. Early rangefinders had two separate viewfinder windows, one of which is linked to the focusing mechanisms and moved right or left as the focusing ring is turned. The two separate images are brought together on a ground glass viewing screen. When vertical lines in the object being photographed meet exactly in the combined image, the object is in focus. A normal composition viewfinder is also provided. Later the viewfinder and rangefinder were combined. Many rangefinder cameras had interchangeable lenses, each lens requiring its own range- and viewfinder linkages.\n\nRangefinder cameras were produced in half- and full-frame 35 mm and rollfilm (medium format).\n\nInstant picture camera\n\nAfter exposure every photograph is taken through pinch rollers inside of the instant camera. Thereby the developer paste contained in the paper 'sandwich' distributes on the image. After a minute, the cover sheet just needs to be removed and one gets a single original positive image with a fixed format. With some systems it was also possible to create an instant image negative, from which then could be made copies in the photo lab. The ultimate development was the SX-70 system of Polaroid, in which a row of ten shots - engine driven - could be made without having to remove any cover sheets from the picture. There were instant cameras for a variety of formats, as well as cartridges with instant film for normal system cameras.\n\nSingle-lens reflex\n\nIn the single-lens reflex camera, the photographer sees the scene through the camera lens. This avoids the problem of parallax which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including sheet film 5x7\" and 4x5\", roll film 220/120 taking 8,10, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x7, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format and roll film SLR cameras include Bronica, Graflex, Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Pentax. However the most common format of SLR cameras has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLR cameras, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems.\n\nAlmost all SLR cameras use a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror is flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opens. Some early cameras experimented with other methods of providing through-the-lens viewing, including the use of a semi-transparent pellicle as in the Canon Pellix and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield Periflex series. \n\nTwin-lens reflex\n\nTwin-lens reflex cameras used a pair of nearly identical lenses, one to form the image and one as a viewfinder. The lenses were arranged with the viewing lens immediately above the taking lens. The viewing lens projects an image onto a viewing screen which can be seen from above. Some manufacturers such as Mamiya also provided a reflex head to attach to the viewing screen to allow the camera to be held to the eye when in use. The advantage of a TLR was that it could be easily focussed using the viewing screen and that under most circumstances the view seen in the viewing screen was identical to that recorded on film. At close distances however, parallax errors were encountered and some cameras also included an indicator to show what part of the composition would be excluded.\n\nSome TLR had interchangeable lenses but as these had to be paired lenses they were relatively heavy and did not provide the range of focal lengths that the SLR could support. Most TLRs used 120 or 220 film; some used the smaller 127 film.\n\nLarge-format camera\n\nThe large-format camera, taking sheet film, is a direct successor of the early plate cameras and remained in use for high quality photography and for technical, architectural and industrial photography. There are three common types, the view camera with its monorail and field camera variants, and the press camera. They have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. Backs taking rollfilm, and later digital backs are available in addition to the standard dark slide back. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective. Composition and focusing is done on view cameras by viewing a ground-glass screen which is replaced by the film to make the exposure; they are suitable for static subjects only, and are slow to use.\n\nMedium-format camera\n\nMedium-format cameras have a film size between the large-format cameras and smaller 35mm cameras. Typically these systems use 120 or 220 rollfilm. The most common image sizes are 6×4.5 cm, 6×6 cm and 6×7 cm; the older 6×9 cm is rarely used. The designs of this kind of camera show greater variation than their larger brethren, ranging from monorail systems through the classic Hasselblad model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.\n\nSubminiature camera\n\nCameras taking film significantly smaller than 35 mm were made. Subminiature cameras were first produced in the nineteenth century. The expensive 8×11 mm Minox, the only type of camera produced by the company from 1937 to 1976, became very widely known and was often used for espionage (the Minox company later also produced larger cameras). Later inexpensive subminiatures were made for general use, some using rewound 16 mm cine film. Image quality with these small film sizes was limited.\n\nMovie camera\n\nA ciné camera or movie camera takes a rapid sequence of photographs on image sensor or strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the ciné camera takes a series of images, each called a \"frame\" through the use of an intermittent mechanism.\n\nThe frames are later played back in a ciné projector at a specific speed, called the \"frame rate\" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion. The first ciné camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for ciné cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remained in use until transition to digital cinematography. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8 before the move into digital format.\n\nThe size and complexity of ciné cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for single-handed operation.\n\nCamcorders\n\nA camcorder is an electronic device combining a video camera and a video recorder. Although marketing materials may use the colloquial term \"camcorder\", the name on the package and manual is often \"video camera recorder\". Most devices capable of recording video are camera phones and digital cameras primarily intended for still pictures; the term \"camcorder\" is used to describe a portable, self-contained device, with video capture and recording its primary function.\n\nProfessional video camera\n\nA professional video camera (often called a television camera even though the use has spread beyond television) is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that earlier recorded the images on film). Originally developed for use in television studios, they are now also used for music videos, direct-to-video movies, corporate and educational videos, marriage videos etc.\n\nThese cameras earlier used vacuum tubes and later electronic sensors.\n\nDigital camera\n\nA digital camera (or digicam) is a camera that encodes digital images and videos digitally and stores them for later reproduction. Most cameras sold today are digital, and digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles.\n\nDigital and film cameras share an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device. The diaphragm and shutter admit the correct amount of light to the imager, just as with film but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. However, unlike film cameras, digital cameras can display images on a screen immediately after being recorded, and store and delete images from memory. Most digital cameras can also record moving videos with sound. Some digital cameras can crop and stitch pictures and perform other elementary image editing.\n\nConsumers adopted digital cameras in 1990s. Professional video cameras transitioned to digital around the 2000s-2010s. Finally movie cameras transitioned to digital in the 2010s.\n\npanoramic camera\n\nPanoramic cameras are fixed-lens digital action cameras. They usually have a single fish-eye lens or multiple lenses, to cover the entire 180° up to 360° in their field of view.\n\nVR Camera \n\nVR cameras are panoramic cameras that also cover the top and bottom in their field of view. . There have also been camera rigs employing multiple cameras to cover the whole 360° by 360° field of view. The most famous VR camera rig is known as 'Google Jump'.\n\nImage gallery\n\nFile:Susse Frére Daguerreotype camera 1839.jpg|The Giroux daguerreotype camera, the first to be commercially produced\nFile:Studijskifotoaparat.JPG|19th century studio camera, with bellows for focusing\nFile:Leica IIIa Rangefinder.jpg|Rangefinder camera, Leica c. 1936\nImage:Leica M9.jpg|Leica M9 with a Summicron-M 28/2 ASPH Lens\nFile:Olympus E-420.jpg|Olympus Four Thirds single-lens reflex camera\nFile:Rolleiflex camera.jpg|Twin-lens reflex camera\nFile:Institut Lumière - CINEMATOGRAPHE Camera.jpg|Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France\nFile:Canon PowerShot A95 - front and back.jpg|Front and back of Canon PowerShot A95, a typical pocket-size digital camera\nFile:Digital_television_camera.jpg| Digital television camera by Sony\nFile:Arri Alexa camera.jpg|Arri Alexa, a digital movie camera\nFile:Zenit - E camera with Helios 44-2 lens.JPG"
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Which series had the characters Felix Unger and Oscar Madison?
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tc_60
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Odd Couple is a play by Neil Simon. Following its premiere on Broadway in 1965, the characters were revived in a successful 1968 film and 1970s television series, as well as other derivative works and spin-offs. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates: the neat, uptight Felix Ungar and the slovenly, easygoing Oscar Madison. Simon adapted the play in 1985 to feature a pair of female roommates (Florence Ungar and Olive Madison) in The Female Odd Couple. An updated version of the 1965 show appeared in 2002 with the title Oscar and Felix: A New Look at the Odd Couple.\n\nHistory\n\nSources vary as to the origins of the play. In Danny Simon's obituary in The Washington Post, Adam Bernstein wrote that the idea for the play came from his divorce. \"Mr. Simon had moved in with a newly single theatrical agent named Roy Gerber in Hollywood, and they invited friends over one night. Mr. Simon botched the pot roast. The next day, Gerber told him: \"Sweetheart, that was a lovely dinner last night. What are we going to have tonight?\" Mr. Simon replied: \"What do you mean, cook you dinner? You never take me out to dinner. You never bring me flowers.\"Bernstein, Adam. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072702568.html \"TV Comedy Writer Danny Simon Dies\"]Washington Post, July 28, 2005 Danny Simon wrote a partial first draft of the play, but then handed over the idea to Neil.\n\nHowever, in the Mel Brooks biography It's Good to Be the King, author James Robert Parish claims that the play came about after Simon observed Brooks, in a separation from his first wife, living with writer Speed Vogel for three months. Vogel later wrote that Brooks had insomnia, \"a brushstroke of paranoia,\" and \"a blood-sugar problem that kept us a scintilla away from insanity.\"\n\nBoston tryout\n\nSimon credited Boston critic Elliot Norton with helping him develop the final act of the play. Norton practiced drama criticism when the relationship between the regional critic and playwrights whose shows were undergoing tryouts in their towns were not as adversarial as they were to become.\n\nAppearing on the public television show Eliott Norton Reviews, during Simon's conversation with the critic, Elliott said that the play went \"flat\" in its final act. As it appeared originally in Boston, the characters the Pigeon Sisters did not appear in the final act. \n\nSimon told the Boston Globe: He invited one of the stars and the writer. He loved the play and gave it a wonderful review but he said the third act was lacking something. On the show he said, 'You know who I missed in the third act was the Pigeon Sisters,' and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. It made an enormous difference in the play. I rewrote it and it worked very well. I was so grateful to Elliot ... Elliot had such a keen eye. I don't know if he saved the play or not, but he made it a bigger success. \n\nPlot overview\n\nFelix Ungar, a neurotic, neat freak newswriter (a photographer in the television series), is thrown out by his wife, and moves in with his friend Oscar Madison, a slovenly sportswriter. Despite Oscar's problems – careless spending, excessive gambling, a poorly kept house filled with spoiled food – he seems to enjoy life. Felix, however, seems utterly incapable of enjoying anything and only finds purpose in pointing out his own and other people's mistakes and foibles. Even when he tries to do so in a gentle and constructive way, his corrections and suggestions prove extremely annoying to those around him. Oscar, his closest friend, feels compelled to throw him out after only a brief time together, though he quickly realizes that Felix has had a positive effect on him.\n\nThe play and the film both spell Felix's name Ungar, while the television series spells it Unger. \n\nCharacters\n\n*Oscar Madison: A slovenly, recently divorced sportswriter.\n*Felix Ungar: A fastidious, hypochondriac photographer whose marriage is ending.\n*Murray: A NYPD policeman, one of Oscar and Felix's poker buddies.\n*Speed: One of the poker buddies. Gruff and sarcastic, often picking on Vinnie and Murray.\n*Vinnie: One of the poker buddies. Vinnie is mild-mannered and henpecked, making him an easy target for Speed's verbal barbs.\n*Roy: One of the poker buddies. Oscar's accountant. Roy has a dry wit but is less acerbic than Speed.\n*Cecily and Gwendolyn Pigeon: Oscar and Felix's giggly upstairs neighbors, a pair of English sisters. The former is a divorcée, the latter a widow.\n\nProductions\n\nThe Odd Couple premiered on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on March 10, 1965 and transferred to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre where it closed on July 2, 1967 after 964 performances and two previews. Directed by Mike Nichols, the cast starred Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art Carney as Felix Ungar.[http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id\n3230 The Odd Couple] Internet Broadway database, accessed April 12, 2012 The production gained Tony Awards for Walter Matthau, Best Actor (Play), Best Author (Play), Best Direction of a Play, and Best Scenic Design (Oliver Smith), and was nominated for Best Play.\n\nMatthau was replaced with Jack Klugman, starting in November 1965 and later Pat Hingle, starting in February 1966. Carney was replaced with Eddie Bracken starting in October 1965 and later Paul Dooley. \n\nStage revivals\n\nIn 1970, the McMaster Shakespearean Players performed The Odd Couple with Martin Short as Felix, Eugene Levy as Oscar, and Dave Thomas as Murray – before any of these performers were famous.\n\nIn 1994, a version of the play moved to Glasgow and toured Scotland, starring Gerard Kelly as Felix, Craig Ferguson as Oscar and Kate Anthony as Gwendolyn Pigeon. Kelly reprised the role of Felix at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe, opposite Andy Gray.\n\nIn 1996, Klugman and Tony Randall reprised their roles from the TV series for a three-month run at the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, London. The production was an effort to raise money to support Randall's National Actors Theatre. (Klugman had previously played Oscar in London opposite Victor Spinetti as Felix.)\n\nIn a 1997 issue of Premiere Magazine, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams announced a possible stage revival, in anticipation of success of their film Fathers' Day. When that film failed at the box office, the Crystal-Williams revival was quickly forgotten.\n\nAlso in 1997, a tour of the US and Canada was mounted by Troupe America and Lake Pepin Players starring Jamie Farr as Oscar, William Christopher as Felix, and William Richard Rogers as Murray. The production was directed by Curt Wollan.\n\nIn 2001, \"Wheel of Fortune\" host Pat Sajak and Hawaii TV News anchor Joe Moore (Sajak's Viet Nam roommate and close friend) played Felix and Oscar at the Hawaii Theatre Center as a benefit for Hawaii's Manoa Valley Theater.\n\nIn 2002, Simon wrote an updated version of The Odd Couple, titled Oscar and Felix: A New Look at the Odd Couple. This version incorporated updated references and elements into the original storyline. This production ran at the Geffen Playhouse (Los Angeles) from June 2002 to July 21, 2002 with a cast that starred Gregory Jbara (Vinnie ), John Larroquette (Oscar), Joe Regalbuto (Felix) and María Conchita Alonso (Ynes) and was directed by Peter Bonerz. The revival opened on Broadway at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre on October 27, 2005, and closed on June 4, 2006 after 249 performances. Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane played Felix and Oscar, respectively. Lane was replaced for three performances in January 2006 due to illness by Brad Garrett who had previously played Murray. \n\nA reading featuring Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup was staged at the Cherry Lane Theatre on January 9, 2011. \n\nA Venezuelan production appeared at the Trasnocho Cultural Theater in 2009. It was Directed by Armando Alvarez and featured Armando Cabrera (Oscar), Luigi Sciamanna (Felix), Juan Carlos Ogando (Richard), Alezander Slorzano (Murray), Alexandra Malave (Clementina), and Stephanie Cardone (Cecilia).\n\nThe all-female Takarazuka Revue Company performed the show under the title in September 2011 in Takarazuka, Japan. It starred Yu Todoroki as Oscar and Misa Noeru as Felix. \n\nIn 2011, Cezary Żak and Artur Barciś (popular actors from the Polish hit TV series Ranczo) performed as Oscar and Felix in Dziwna Para, a Polish rendition of The Odd Couple. The play was performed in the U.S and in Toronto, Canada and received good reviews.\n\nIn 2013, The Dallas Theater Center performed a revival of The Odd Couple that was directed by Kevin Moriarty.\n\nFemale version\n\nIn 1985, Neil Simon revised The Odd Couple for a female cast. The Female Odd Couple was based on the same story line and same lead characters, now called Florence Ungar and Olive Madison. The poker game became Trivial Pursuit with their friends becoming the girlfriends: Mickey, Sylvie, Vera, and Renee. The Pigeon sisters became the Costazuela brothers, Manolo and Jesus.\n\nThe Female Odd Couple opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on June 11, 1985, and closed on February 23, 1986, after 295 performances and nine previews. Directed by Gene Saks the cast starred Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno as Florence (Felix) and Olive (Oscar), with Lewis J. Stadlen and Tony Shalhoub (in his Broadway debut) as the Costazuela brothers. \n\nA London production of this version ran at the Apollo Theatre in 2001 and starred Paula Wilcox (Florence) and Jenny Seagrove (Olive). \n\nFilm and TV adaptations \n\nNeil Simon sold film and TV rights to Paramount Pictures in 1967. Paramount produced two theatrical films, three live-action TV series and an animated series based upon the play. Rights are now split between Paramount and CBS, the result of Paramount owner Viacom's purchase of and eventual spinoff from the latter company.\n\n1968 film \n\nIn 1968, The Odd Couple was made into a highly successful film starring Jack Lemmon as Felix and Walter Matthau (once more) as Oscar. Most of the script from the play is the same, although the setting is expanded: instead of taking place entirely in Oscar's apartment, some scenes take place at various outside locations. The film was also written by Simon (who was nominated for an Academy Award) and was directed by Gene Saks.\n\nIn 1998, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau reprised their roles for the film The Odd Couple II, produced by Neil Simon.\n\n1970–1975 ABC sitcom \n\nThe success of the film was the basis for the 1970–75 ABC television sitcom, starring Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar. Klugman was familiar with the role as he had replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway run. Neil Simon originally disapproved of this adaptation, but by the series' final season, he reassessed the show positively to the point of appearing in a cameo role.\n\nRandall and Klugman also reunited in 1993 for a made-for-TV reunion film based upon the series. The movie was initially broadcast on CBS on September 24, 1993. Robert Klane was the writer and director, with a cast that included Barbara Barrie as Felix's wife, Penny Marshall as Myrna and Dick Van Patten. The Jack Klugman's throat-cancer surgery was written into the script, when Felix (Tony Randall) stays with Oscar and helps with his rehabilitation. \n\n1975 ABC cartoon \n\nIn the fall of 1975, ABC aired a cartoon version of the play entitled The Oddball Couple, produced by Paramount and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. The roles were played by a cat and dog named Spiffy and Fleabag.\n\n1982–1983 ABC sitcom \n\nIn 1982, ABC aired a new version of the series, entitled The New Odd Couple. Produced by Garry Marshall, the premise of the new version has two black actors, Ron Glass as Felix and Demond Wilson as Oscar. The New York Times reviewer noted \"What may be surprising is how little the spine of the show has changed. The dialogue has been updated a little, but the plots are essentially the same. The New Odd Couple bounces along nicely. It adds nothing new to the craft of situation comedy, but it does provide employment and a good showcase for talented black actors, who generally don't have an easy time of it on television these days.\" This new version was not successful and was canceled after just 13 episodes.\n\n2015 CBS sitcom \n\nIn December 2013, it was announced that Matthew Perry would be starring in, co-writing, and executive-producing a remake of The Odd Couple. The multi-camera comedy premiered on February 19, 2015. Perry stars as Oscar while Thomas Lennon stars as Felix. The show also features Wendell Pierce as Teddy, Oscar's agent, Yvette Nicole Brown as Dani, Oscar's assistant, Dave Foley as Roy (a holdover from the original play), and Leslie Bibb and Lindsay Sloane as Casey and Emily (taking over for the Pigeon sisters)."
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Who along with Philips developed the CD in the late 70s?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Royal Philips, commonly known as Philips) is a Dutch technology company headquartered in Amsterdam with primary divisions focused in the areas of electronics, healthcare and lighting. It was founded in Eindhoven in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. It is one of the largest electronics companies in the world and employs around 105,000 people across more than 60 countries.\n\nPhilips is organized into three main divisions: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems) and Philips Lighting. As of 2012 Philips was the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world measured by applicable revenues. In 2013, the company announced the sale of the bulk of its remaining consumer electronics operations to Japan's Funai Electric Co, but in October 2013, the deal to Funai Electric Co was broken off and the consumer electronics operations remain under Philips. Philips said it would seek damages for breach of contract in the $200-million sale. In April 2016, the International Court of Arbitration ruled in favour of Philips, awarding compensation of 135 Million Euro in the process. \n\nPhilips has a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Philips Company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. Frederik, a banker based in Zaltbommel, financed the purchase and setup of a modest, empty factory building in Eindhoven, where the company started the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products in 1892. This first factory has been adapted and is used as a museum. \n\nIn 1895, after a difficult first few years and near bankruptcy, the Philipses brought in Anton, Gerard's younger brother by sixteen years. Though he had earned a degree in engineering, Anton started work as a sales representative; soon, however, he began to contribute many important business ideas. With Anton's arrival, the family business began to expand rapidly, resulting in the founding of Philips Metaalgloeilampfabriek N.V. (Philips Metal Filament Lamp Factory Ltd.) in Eindhoven in 1908, followed in 1912 by the foundation of Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken N.V. (Philips Lightbulb Factories Ltd.). After Gerard and Anton Philips changed their family business by founding the Philips corporation, they laid the foundations for the later electronics multinational.\n\nIn the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes. In 1939 they introduced their electric razor, the Philishave (marketed in the US using the Norelco brand name). The \"Chapel\" is a radio with built-in loudspeaker, which was designed during the early 1930s.\n\nPhilips Radio\n\nOn 11 March 1927 Philips went on the air with shortwave radio station PCJJ (later PCJ) which was joined in 1929 by sister station PHOHI (Philips Omroep Holland-Indië). PHOHI broadcast in Dutch to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) while PCJJ broadcast in English, Spanish and German to the rest of the world.\n\nThe international program on Sundays commenced in 1928, with host Eddie Startz hosting the Happy Station show, which became the world's longest-running shortwave program. Broadcasts from the Netherlands were interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940. The Germans commandeered the transmitters in Huizen to use for pro-Nazi broadcasts, some originating from Germany, others concerts from Dutch broadcasters under German control.\n\nPhilips Radio was absorbed shortly after liberation when its two shortwave stations were nationalised in 1947 and renamed Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the Dutch International Service. Some PCJ programs, such as Happy Station, continued on the new station.\n\nStirling engine\n\nPhilips was instrumental in the revival of the Stirling engine when, in the early 1930s, the management decided that offering a low-power portable generator would assist in expanding sales of its radios into parts of the world where mains electricity was unavailable and the supply of batteries uncertain. Engineers at the company's research lab carried out a systematic comparison of various power sources and determined that the almost forgotten Stirling engine would be most suitable, citing its quiet operation (both audibly and in terms of radio interference) and ability to run on a variety of heat sources (common lamp oil – \"cheap and available everywhere\" – was favoured). They were also aware that, unlike steam and internal combustion engines, virtually no serious development work had been carried out on the Stirling engine for many years and asserted that modern materials and know-how should enable great improvements. \n\nEncouraged by their first experimental engine, which produced 16 W of shaft power from a bore and stroke of , various development models were produced in a programme which continued throughout World War II. By the late 1940s the 'Type 10' was ready to be handed over to Philips' subsidiary Johan de Witt in Dordrecht to be productionised and incorporated into a generator set as originally planned. The result, rated at 180/200 W electrical output from a bore and stroke of , was designated MP1002CA (known as the \"Bungalow set\"). Production of an initial batch of 250 began in 1951, but it became clear that they could not be made at a competitive price, besides which the advent of transistor radios with their much lower power requirements meant that the original rationale for the set was disappearing. Approximately 150 of these sets were eventually produced. \n\nIn parallel with the generator set Philips developed experimental Stirling engines for a wide variety of applications and continued to work in the field until the late 1970s, though the only commercial success was the 'reversed Stirling engine' cryocooler. However, they filed a large number of patents and amassed a wealth of information, which they later licensed to other companies. \n\nShavers\n\nThe first Philips shaver was introduced in the 1930s, and was simply called “The Philishave”. In the USA, it was called the “Norelco”, which remains a part of their product line today. \n\nWorld War II\n\nOn 9 May 1940, the Philips directors learned that the German invasion of the Netherlands was to take place the following day. Having prepared for this, Anton Philips and his son in law Frans Otten, as well as other Philips family members, fled to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the U.S. as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company was moved (on paper) to the Netherlands Antilles to keep it out of American hands.\n\nOn 6 December 1942, The British No. 2 Group RAF led an air raid which heavily damaged the Philips Radio factory in Eindhoven with few casualties among the Dutch workers and civilians. The Philips works in Eindhoven was bombed again by the RAF on 30 March 1943. \n\nFrits Philips, the son of Anton, was the only Philips family member to stay in the Netherlands. He saved the lives of 382 Jews by convincing the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. In 1943 he was held at the internment camp for political prisoners at Vught for several months because a strike at his factory reduced production. For his actions in saving the hundreds of Jews, he was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1995 as a \"Righteous Among the Nations\". \n\n1945 to 2001\n\nAfter the war the company was moved back to the Netherlands, with their headquarters in Eindhoven.\n\nIn 1949, the company began selling television sets. In 1950, it formed Philips Records.\n\nPhilips introduced the audio Compact Audio Cassette tape in 1963, and it was wildly successful. Compact cassettes were initially used for dictation machines for office typing stenographers and professional journalists. As their sound quality improved, cassettes would also be used to record sound and became the second mass media alongside vinyl records used to sell recorded music.\n\nPhilips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder, which was marketed as the \"radiorecorder\", and is now better known as the boom box. Later, the cassette was used in telephone answering machines, including a special form of cassette where the tape was wound on an endless loop. The C-cassette was used as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips reduced the cassette size for the professional needs with the Mini-Cassette, although it would not be as successful as the Olympus Microcassette. This became the predominant dictation medium up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.\n\nIn 1972 Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, in the UK, the N1500. Its relatively bulky video cassettes could record 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Later one-hour tapes were also offered. As competition came from Sony's Betamax and the VHS group of manufacturers, Philips introduced the N1700 system which allowed double-length recording. For the first time, a 2-hour movie could fit onto one video cassette. In 1977, the company unveiled a special promotional film for this system in the UK, featuring comedian Denis Norden. The concept was quickly copied by the Japanese makers, whose tapes were significantly cheaper. Philips made one last attempt at a new standard for video recorders with the Video 2000 system, with tapes that could be used on both sides and had 8 hours of total recording time. As Philips only sold its systems on the PAL standard and in Europe, and the Japanese makers sold globally, the scale advantages of the Japanese proved insurmountable and Philips withdrew the V2000 system and joined the VHS Coalition.\n\nPhilips had developed a LaserDisc early on for selling movies, but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips joined with MCA to launch the first commercial LaserDisc standard and players. In 1982, Philips teamed with Sony to launch the Compact Disc; this format evolved into the CD-R, CD-RW, DVD and later Blu-ray, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997 and 2006 respectively.\n\nIn 1984, Philips split off its activities on the field of photolithographic integrated circuit production equipment, the so-called wafer steppers, into a joint venture with ASM International, located in Veldhoven under the name ASML. Over the years, this new company has evolved into the world's leading manufacturer of chip production machines at the expense of competitors like Nikon and Canon.\n\nIn 1991, the company's name was changed from N.V. Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken to Philips Electronics N.V. At the same time, North American Philips was formally dissolved, and a new corporate division was formed in the U.S. with the name Philips Electronics North America Corp.\n\nIn 1997 the company officers decided to move the headquarters from Eindhoven to Amsterdam along with the corporate name change to Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. The move was completed in 2001. Initially, the company was housed in the Rembrandt Tower, but in 2002 they moved again, this time to the Breitner Tower. Philips Lighting, Philips Research, Philips Semiconductors (spun off as NXP in September 2006) and Philips Design, are still based in Eindhoven. Philips Healthcare is headquartered in both Best, Netherlands (near Eindhoven) and Andover, Massachusetts, United States (near Boston).\n\nIn 2000, Philips bought Optiva Corporation, the maker of Sonicare electric toothbrushes. The company was renamed Philips Oral Healthcare and made a subsidiary of Philips DAP.\n\nIn 2001, Philips acquired the Healthcare Solutions Group (HSG) based in Böblingen, Germany from Agilent Technologies for EUR 2 billion. \n\n2001 to 2011\n\nIn 2004, Philips abandoned the slogan \"Let's make things better\" in favour of a new one: \"Sense and simplicity\".\n\nIn December 2005 Philips announced its intention to sell or demerge its semiconductor division. On 1 September 2006, it was announced in Berlin that the name of the new company formed by the division would be NXP Semiconductors. On 2 August 2006, Philips completed an agreement to sell a controlling 80.1% stake in NXP Semiconductors to a consortium of private equity investors consisting of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Silver Lake Partners and AlpInvest Partners. On 21 August 2006, Bain Capital and Apax Partners announced that they had signed definitive commitments to join the acquiring consortium, a process which was completed on 1 October 2006. In 2006 Philips bought out the company Lifeline Systems headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts.\n\nIn August 2007 Philips acquired the company Ximis, Inc. headquartered in El Paso, Texas for their Medical Informatics Division. In October 2007, it purchased a Moore Microprocessor Patent (MPP) Portfolio license from The TPL Group.\n\nOn 21 December 2007 Philips and Respironics, Inc. announced a definitive agreement pursuant to which Philips acquired all of the outstanding shares of Respironics for US$66 per share, or a total purchase price of approximately €3.6 billion (US$5.1 billion) in cash. \n\nOn 21 February 2008 Philips completed the acquisition of VISICU Baltimore, Maryland through the merger of its indirect wholly owned subsidiary into VISICU. As a result of that merger, VISICU has become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Philips. VISICU was the creator of the eICU concept of the use of Telemedicine from a centralized facility to monitor and care for ICU patients. \n\nThe Philips physics laboratory was scaled down in the early 21st century, as the company ceased trying to be innovative in consumer electronics through fundamental research. \n\n2011 to present\n\nIn January 2011 Philips agreed to acquire the assets of Preethi, a leading India-based kitchen appliances company.\n\nOn 27 June 2011 Philips acquired Sectra Mamea AB, the mammography division of Sectra AB, together with the MicroDose brand. \n\nBecause net profit slumped 85 percent in Q3 2011, Philips announced a cut of 4,500 jobs to match part of an €800 million ($1.1 billion) cost-cutting scheme to boost profits and meet its financial target. \n\nIn March 2012 Philips announced its intention to sell, or demerge its television manufacturing operations to TPV Technology.\n\nIn 2011, the company posted a loss of €1.3 billion, but earned a net profit in Q1 and Q2 2012, however the management wanted €1.1 billion cost-cutting which was an increase from €800 million and may cut another 2,200 jobs until end of 2014. \n\nOn 5 December 2012, the antitrust regulators of the European Union fined Philips and several other major companies for fixing prices of TV cathode-ray tubes in two cartels lasting nearly a decade. \n\nOn 29 January 2013, it was announced that Philips had agreed to sell its audio and video operations to the Japan-based Funai Electric for €150 million, with the audio business planned to transfer to Funai in the latter half of 2013, and the video business in 2017. As part of the transaction, Funai was to pay a regular licensing fee to Philips for the use of the Philips brand. The purchase agreement was terminated by Philips in October because of breach of contract. \n\nIn April 2013, Philips announced a collaboration with Paradox Engineering for the realization and implementation of a “pilot project” on network-connected street-lighting management solutions. This project was endorsed by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). \n\nIn 2013, Philips omitted the word \"Electronics\" from its name, which is now Royal Philips N.V. \n\nOn 13 November 2013 Philips unveiled its new brand line “Innovation and You” and a new design of its shield mark. The new brand positioning is cited by Philips to signify company’s evolution and emphasize that innovation is only meaningful if it is based on an understanding of people’s needs and desires. \n\nOn 28 April 2014 Philips agreed to sell their Woox Innovations subsidiary (consumer electronics) to Gibson Brands for $US135 million.\n\nOn 23 September 2014, Philips announced a plan to split the company into two, separating the lighting business from the healthcare and consumer lifestyle divisions. it moved to complete this in March 2015 to an investment group for $3.3 billion \n\nOn February 2015, Philips acquired Volcano Corporation to strengthen its position in non-invasive surgery and imaging. \n\nOn June 2016, Philips spun off its lighting division to focus on the healthcare division. \n\nCorporate affairs\n\nCEOs\n\nPast and present CEOs:\n\n*1891–1922: Gerard Philips\n*1922–1939: Anton Philips\n*1939–1961: Frans Otten\n*1961–1971: Frits Philips\n*1971–1977: Henk van Riemsdijk\n*1977–1981: Nico Rodenburg\n*1982–1986: Wisse Dekker\n*1986–1990: Cornelis Van der Klugt\n*1990–1996: Jan Timmer\n*1996–2001: Cor Boonstra\n*2001–2011: Gerard Kleisterlee\n*2011–now: Frans van Houten\n\nCFOs\n\nPast CFO (Chief Financial Officer)\n\n*1960-1968: Cor Dillen\n\nAcquisitions\n\nCompanies acquired by Philips through the years include Amperex, Magnavox, Signetics, Mullard, VLSI, Agilent Healthcare Solutions Group, Marconi Medical Systems, ADAC Laboratories, ATL Ultrasound, Sectra Mamea AB, portions of Westinghouse and the consumer electronics operations of Philco and Sylvania. Philips abandoned the Sylvania trademark which is now owned by Havells Sylvania except in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the USA where it is owned by Osram. Formed in November 1999 as an equal joint venture between Philips and Agilent Technologies, the light-emitting diode manufacturer Lumileds became a subsidiary of Phillips Lighting in August 2005 and a fully owned subsidiary in December 2006. An 80.1 percent stake in Lumileds was sold to Go Scale in early 2015. \n\nOn 20 January 2006, Philips Electronics NV said it would buy Lifeline Systems Inc in a deal valued at $750 million, its biggest move yet to expand its consumer-health business (M). \n\nOperations\n\nPhilips is registered in the Netherlands as a naamloze vennootschap and has its global headquarters in Amsterdam. At the end of 2013 Philips had 111 manufacturing facilities, 59 R&D Facilities across 26 countries and sales and service operations in around 100 countries. \n\nPhilips is organized into three main divisions: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems) and Philips Lighting. Philips achieved total revenues of €22.579 billion in 2011, of which €8.852 billion were generated by Philips Healthcare, €7.638 billion by Philips Lighting, €5.823 billion by Philips Consumer Lifestyle and €266 million from group activities. At the end of 2011 Philips had a total of 121,888 employees, of whom around 44% were employed in Philips Lighting, 31% in Philips Healthcare and 15% in Philips Consumer Lifestyle.\n\nPhilips invested a total of €1.61 billion in research and development in 2011, equivalent to 7.1% of sales. Philips Intellectual Property and Standards is the group-wide division responsible for licensing, trademark protection and patenting. Philips currently holds around 54,000 patent rights, 39,000 trademarks, 70,000 design rights and 4,400 domain name registrations.\n\nAsia\n\nThailand\n\nPhilips Thailand was established since 1952. It is a branch of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands which is a healthcare, lifestyle and lighting. Philips started manufacturing in Thailand in 1960 with an incandescent lamp factory. Philips has diversified its production facilities to include a fluorescent lamp factory and a luminaries factory, serving Thai's and worldwide markets.\n \n\nHong Kong\n\nPhilips Hong Kong began operation in 1948. Philips Hong Kong houses the global headquarters of Philips' Audio Business Unit. It also house Philips' Asia Pacific regional office and headquarters for its Design Division, Domestic Appliances & Personal Care Products Division, Lighting Products Division and Medical System Products Division. \n\nIn 1974 Philips opened a lamp factory in Hong Kong. This has a capacity of 200 million pieces a year and is certified with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001. Its product portfolio includes prefocus, lensend and E10 miniature light bulbs.\n\nChina\n\nIn early 2008 Philips Lighting, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, opened a small engineering center in Shanghai to adapt the company's products to vehicles in Asia. \n\nIndia\n\nPhilips began operations in India in 1930 with the establishment of Philips Electrical Co. (India) Pvt Ltd in Kolkata as a sales outlet for imported Philips lamps. In 1938, Philips established its first Indian lamp-manufacturing factory in Kolkata. In 1948, Philips started manufacturing radios in Kolkata. In 1959, a second radio factory was established near Pune. In 1957, the company converted into a public limited company, renamed \"Philips India Ltd\". In 1970 a new consumer electronics factory began operations in Pimpri near Pune; the factory was closed in 2006. In 1996, the Philips Software Centre was established in Bangalore, later renamed the Philips Innovation Campus. In 2008, Philips India entered the water purifier market. In 2014, Philip's was ranked 12th among India's most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory. \n\nIsrael\n\nPhilips has been active in Israel since 1948 and in 1998 set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Philips Electronics (Israel) Ltd. The company has over 700 employees in Israel and generated sales of over $300 million in 2007.\n\nPhilips Medical Systems Technologies Ltd. (Haifa) is a developer and manufacturer of Computerized Tomography (CT), diagnostic and Medical Imaging systems. The company was founded in 1969 as Elscint by Elron Electronic Industries and was acquired by Marconi Medical Systems in 1998, which was itself acquired by Philips in 2001.\n\nPhilips Semiconductors formerly had major operations in Israel; these now form part of NXP Semiconductors.\n\nPakistan\n\nPhilips has been active in Pakistan since 1948 and has a wholly owned subsidiary, Philips Pakistan Limited (Formerly Philips Electrical Industries of Pakistan Limited).\n\nThe head office is in Karachi with regional sales offices in Lahore and Rawalpindi.\n\nEurope\n\nFrance\n\nPhilips France has its headquarters in Suresnes. The company employs over 3600 people nationwide.\n\nPhilips Lighting has manufacturing facilities in Chalon-sur-Saône (fluorescent lamps), Chartres (automotive lighting), Lamotte-Beuvron (architectural lighting by LEDs and professional indoor lighting), Longvic (lamps), Miribel (outdoor lighting), Nevers (professional indoor lighting).\n\nGermany\n\nPhilips Germany was founded in 1926 in Berlin. Now its headquarters is located in Hamburg. Over 4900 people are employed in Germany. \n* Hamburg\n** Distribution center of the divisions Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle, and Lighting.\n** Philips Medical Systems DMC. \n** Philips Innovative Technologies, Research Laboratories.\n* Aachen\n** Philips Innovative Technologies.\n** Philips Innovation Services.\n* Böblingen\n** Philips Medical Systems, patient monitoring systems.\n* Herrsching\n** Philips Respironics.\n* Ulm\n** Philips Photonics, development and manufacture of vertical laser diodes (VCSELs) and photodiodes for sensing and data communication.\n\nGreece\n\nPhilips' Greece is headquartered in Marousi, Attica. As of 2012 Philips has no manufacturing plants in Greece, although there have been in the past.\n\nItaly\n\nPhilips founded its Italian headquarter in 1918, basing it in Monza (Milan) where it still operates, for commercial activities only.\n\nPoland\n\nPhilips' operations in Poland include: a European financial and accounting centre in Łódź; Philips Lighting facilities in Bielsko-Biała, Pabianice, Piła, and Kętrzyn; and a Philips Domestic Appliances facility in Białystok.\n\nPortugal\n\nPhilips started business in Portugal in 1927 as \"Philips Portuguesa S.A.R.L.\". Currently, Philips Portuguesa S.A. is headquartered in Oeiras near Lisbon. There have been three Philips factories in Portugal: the FAPAE lamp factory in Lisbon; the Carnaxide magnetic-core memory factory near Lisbon, where the Philips Service organization is also based; and the Ovar factory in northern Portugal making camera components and remote control devices. The company still operates in Portugal with divisions for commercial lighting, medical systems and domestic appliances. \n\nSweden\n\nPhilips Sweden has two main sites, Kista, Stockholm County, with regional sales, marketing and a customer support organization and Solna, Stockholm County, with the main office of the mammography division.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nPhilips UK has its headquarters in Guildford. The company employs over 2500 people nationwide. \n\n* Philips Healthcare Informatics, Belfast develops healthcare software products.\n* Philips Consumer Products, Guildford provides sales and marketing for televisions, including High Definition televisions, DVD recorders, hi-fi and portable audio, CD recorders, PC peripherals, cordless telephones, home and kitchen appliances, personal care (shavers, hair dryers, body beauty and oral hygiene ).\n* Philips Dictation Systems, Colchester.\n* Philips Lighting: sales from Guildford and manufacture in Hamilton.\n* Philips Healthcare, Reigate. Sales and technical support for X-ray, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, patient monitoring, magnetic resonance, computed tomography, and resuscitation products.\n* Philips Research Laboratories, Cambridge (Until 2008 based in Redhill, Surrey. Originally these were the Mullard Research Laboratories.)\n\nIn the past, Philips UK also included\n* Consumer product manufacturing in Croydon\n* Television Tube Manufacturing Mullard Simonstone\n* Philips Business Communications, Cambridge: offered voice and data communications products, specialising in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, IP Telephony, data networking, voice processing, command and control systems and cordless and mobile telephony. In 2006 the business was placed into a 60/40 joint venture with NEC. NEC later acquired 100% ownership and the business was renamed NEC Unified Solutions.\n* Philips Electronics Blackburn; vacuum tubes, capacitors, delay-lines, Laserdiscs, CDs.\n* Philips Domestic Appliances Hastings: Design and Production of Electric kettles, Fan Heaters, plus former EKCO brand \"Thermotube\" Tubular Heaters and \"Hostess\" Domestic Food Warming Trolleys.\n* Philips Semiconductors, Hazel Grove, Stockport and Southampton, both also earlier part of Mullard. These became part of NXP.\n* London Carriers, logistics and transport division.\n* Mullard Equipment Limited (MEL) which produced products for the military\n* Pye Telecommunications Ltd of Cambridge\n* TMC Limited of Malmesbury\n* Pye TVT Ltd of Cambridge\n\nNorth America\n\nCanada\n\nPhilips Canada was founded in 1934. It is well known in medical systems for diagnosis and therapy, lighting technologies, shavers, and consumer electronics.\n\nThe Canadian headquarters are located in Markham, Ontario.\n\nFor several years, Philips manufactured lighting products in two Canadian factories. The London, Ontario, plant opened in 1971. It produced A19 lamps (including the \"Royale\" long life bulbs), PAR38 lamps and T19 lamps (originally a Westinghouse lamp shape). Philips closed the factory in May 2003. The Trois-Rivières, Quebec plant was a Westinghouse facility which Philips continued to run it after buying Westinghouse's lamp division in 1983. Philips closed this factory a few years later, in the late 1980s.\n\nMexico\n\nPhilips Mexicana SA de CV is headquartered in Mexico City. Philips Lighting has manufacturing facilities in:Monterrey, Nuevo León; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; and Tijuana, Baja California. Philips Consumer Electronics has a manufacturing facility in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Philips Domestic Appliances formerly operated a large factory in the Industrial Vallejo sector of Mexico City but this was closed in 2004.\n\nUnited States\n\nPhilips' Electronics North American headquarters is based in Andover, Massachusetts. Philips Lighting has its corporate office in Somerset, New Jersey, with manufacturing plants in Danville, Kentucky, Dallas, Salina, Kansas and Paris, Texas and distribution centers in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, Ontario, California and Memphis, Tennessee. Philips Healthcare is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts. The North American sales organization is based in Bothell, Washington. There are also manufacturing facilities in Andover, Massachusetts, Bothell, Washington, Baltimore, Maryland, Cleveland, Ohio, Foster City, California, Gainesville, Florida, Milpitas, California and Reedsville, Pennsylvania. Philips Healthcare also formerly had a factory in Knoxville, Tennessee. Philips Consumer Lifestyle has its corporate office in Stamford, Connecticut. Philips Lighting has a Color Kinetics office in Burlington, Massachusetts. Philips Research North American headquarters is in Cambridge, Massachusetts.\n\nIn 2007, Philips entered into a definitive merger agreement with North American luminaires company Genlyte Group Incorporated, which provides the company with a leading position in the North American luminaires (also known as ˜lighting fixtures\"), controls and related products for a wide variety of applications, including solid state lighting. The company also acquired Respironics, which was a significant gain for its healthcare sector. On 21 February 2008 Philips completed the acquisition of VISICU Baltimore, Maryland. VISICU was the creator of the eICU concept of the use of Telemedicine from a centralized facility to monitor and care for ICU patients.\n\nOceania\n\nAustralia and New Zealand\n\nPhilips Australia was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in North Ryde, New South Wales and also manages the New Zealand operation from there. The company currently employs around 800 people. Regional sales and support offices are located in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Auckland.\n\nCurrent activities include: Philips Healthcare (also responsible for New Zealand operations); Philips Lighting (also responsible for New Zealand operations); Philips Consumer Lifestyle (also responsible for New Zealand operations); Philips Sleep & Respiratory Care (formerly Respironics), with its ever increasing national network of Sleepeasy Centres ; Philips Dynalite (Lighting Control systems, acquired in 2009, global design and manufacturing centre) and Philips Selecon NZ (Lighting Entertainment product design and manufacture).\n\nSouth America\n\nBrazil\n\nPhilips do Brasil () was founded in 1924 in Rio de Janeiro. In 1929, Philips started to sell radio receivers. In the 1930s, Philips was making its light bulbs and radio receivers in Brazil. From 1939 to 1945, World War II forced Brazilian branch of Philips to sell bicycles, refrigerators and insecticides. After the war, Philips had a great industrial expansion in Brazil, and was among the first groups to establish in Manaus Free Zone. In the 1970s, Philips Records was a major player in Brazil recording industry. Nowadays, Philips do Brasil is one of the largest foreign-owned companies in Brazil. Philips uses the brand Walita for domestic appliances in Brazil.\n\nFormer operations\n\nPhilips subsidiary ' manufactured pharmaceuticals for human and veterinary use and products for crop protection. Duphar was sold to Solvay in 1990. In subsequent years Solvay sold off all divisions to other companies (crop protection to UniRoyal, now Chemtura, the veterinary division to Fort Dodge, a division of Wyeth, and the pharmaceutical division to Abbott Laboratories).\n\nPolyGram, Philips' music television and movies division, was sold to Seagram in 1998 and merged into Universal Music Group and Universal Studios. Philips Records continues to operate as record label of UMG, its name licensed from its former parent.\n\nOrigin, now part of Atos Origin, is a former division of Philips.\n\nASM Lithography is a spin-off from a division of Philips.\n\nHollandse Signaalapparaten was a manufacturer of military electronics. The business was sold to Thomson-CSF in 1990 and is now Thales Nederland.\n\nNXP Semiconductors, formerly known as Philips Semiconductors, was sold a consortium of private equity investors in 2006. On 6 August 2010, NXP completed its IPO, with shares trading on NASDAQ.\n\nPhilips used to sell major household appliances (whitegoods) under the name Philips. After selling the Major Domestic Appliances division to Whirlpool Corporation it changed from Philips Whirlpool to Whirlpool Philips and finally to just Whirlpool. Whirlpool bought a 53% stake in Philips' major appliance operations to form Whirlpool International. Whirlpool bought Philips' remaining interest in Whirlpool International in 1991.\n\nPhilips Cryogenics was split off in 1990 to form the Stirling Cryogenics BV, Netherlands. This company is still active in the development and manufacturing of Stirling cryocoolers and cryogenic cooling systems.\n\nNorth American Philips distributed AKG Acoustics products under the AKG of America, Philips Audio/Video, Norelco and AKG Acoustics Inc. branding until AKG set up its North American division in San Leandro, California in 1985. (AKG's North American division has since moved to Northridge, California.)\n\nPolymer Vision was a Philips spin-off that manufactured a flexible e-ink display screen. The company closed in 2009. \n\nProducts\n\nPhilips' core products are consumer electronics and electrical products, including small domestic appliances, shavers, beauty appliances, mother and childcare appliances, electric toothbrushes and coffee makers (products like Smart Phones, audio equipment, Blu-ray players, computer accessories and televisions are sold under license); healthcare products (including CT scanners, ECG equipment, mammography equipment, monitoring equipment, MRI scanners, radiography equipment, resuscitation equipment, ultrasound equipment and X-ray equipment); \n\nLighting products\n\n* Professional indoor luminaires \n* Professional outdoor luminaires \n* Professional lamps \n* Lighting controls and Control Systems \n* Digital projection lights \n* Horticulture lighting \n* Solar LED lights \n* Smart office lighting systems \n* Smart retail lighting systems \n* Smart city lighting systems \n* Home lamps \n* Home fixtures \n* Home Systems \n\nAudio products\n\n* Hi-fi systems\n* Wireless speakers\n* Radio systems\n* Docking stations\n* Headphones\n* DJ mixers\n* Alarm clocks\n\nHealthcare products\n\nPhilips healthcare products include:\n* CT scan\n\nClinical informatics\n\n* Cardiology informatics (IntelliSpace Cardiovascular, Xcelera)\n* Enterprise Imaging Informatics (IntelliSpace PACS, XIRIS)\n* IntelliSpace family of solutions\n\nImaging systems\n\n* Cardio/Vascular X-Ray\n* Computed tomography (CT)\n* Fluoroscopy\n* Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)\n*Mammography\n* Mobile C-Arms\n* Nuclear medicine\n* PET (Positron emission tomography)\n* PET/CT\n* Radiography\n* Radiation oncology Systemsroots\n* Ultrasound\n\nDiagnostic monitoring\n\n* Diagnostic ECG\n\nDefibrillators\n\n* Accessories\n* Equipment\n* Software\n\nConsumer\n\n* Philips AVENT\n\nPatient care and clinical informatics\n\n* Anesthetic gas monitoring\n* Blood pressure\n* Capnography\n* D.M.E.\n* Diagnostic sleep testing\n* ECG\n* Enterprise patient informatics solutions\nOB TraceVue\nCompurecord\nICIP\neICU program\nEmergin\n* Hemodynamic\n* IntelliSpace Cardiovascular\n* IntelliSpace PACS\n* IntelliSpace portal\n* Multi-measurement servers\n* Neurophedeoiles\n* Pulse oximetry\n* Temperature\n* Transcutaneous gases\n* Ventilation\n* ViewForum\n* Xcelera\n* XIRIS\n* Xper Information Management\n\nCoat of arms/logotype\n\nImage:Philips history shield.jpg|Original Philips shield introduced in 1938\nImage:Philips old logo.svg|Philips shield in use from 1968 until March 2008 \nImage:Philips logo.svg|The Philips logo in use until March 2008\nImage:Philips logo new.svg|The current Philips logo\nImage:Philips Shield blue.svg|Philips Shield in use until November 2013\nImage:Philips New Shield 2013.svg|Philips shield design introduced in November 2013\n\nSponsorships\n\nIn 1913, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the independence of the Netherlands, Philips founded Philips Sport Vereniging (Philips Sports Club, now commonly known as PSV). The club is active in numerous sports, but is now best known for its football team, PSV Eindhoven, and swimming team. Philips owns the naming rights to Philips Stadion in Eindhoven, which is the home ground of PSV Eindhoven.\n\nOutside of the Netherlands, Philips sponsors and has sponsored numerous sport clubs, sport facilities and events. In November 2008 Philips renewed and extended its F1 partnership with AT&T Williams. Philips owns the naming rights to the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia and to the Philips Championship, the premier basketball league in Australia, traditionally known as the National Basketball League. From 1988 to 1993 Philips was the principal sponsor of the Australian rugby league team The Balmain Tigers.\n\nOutside of sports Philips sponsors the international Philips Monsters of Rock festival.\n\nEnvironmental record\n\nGreen initiatives\n\nPhilips is running the EcoVision4 initiative in which it committed to a number of environmentally positive improvements by 2012. \n\nAlso Philips marks its \"green\" products with the Philips Green Logo, identifying them as products that have a significantly better environmental performance than their competitors or predecessors. \n\nL-Prize competition\n\nIn 2011, Philips won a $10 million cash prize from the US Department of Energy for winning its L-Prize competition, to produce a high-efficiency, long operating life replacement for a standard 60-W incandescent lightbulb. The winning LED lightbulb, which was made available to consumers in April 2012, produces slightly more than 900 lumens at an input power of only 10 W. \n\nGreenpeace ranking\n\nIn Greenpeace's 2012 Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy and how green their products are, Philips ranks 10th place with a score of 3.8/10. The company was the top scorer in the Energy section due to its energy advocacy work calling upon the EU to adopt a 30% reduction for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. It is also praised for its new products which are free from PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Phillips' sourcing of fibres for paper, arguing it must develop a paper procurement policy which excludes suppliers involved in deforestation and illegal logging. \n\nPhilips have made some considerable progress since 2007 (when it was first ranked in this guide), in particular by supporting the Individual Producer Responsibility principle, which means that the company is accepting the responsibility for the toxic impacts of its products on e-waste dumps around the world. \n\nPublications\n\n* A. Heerding: The origin of the Dutch incandescent lamp industry. (Vol. 1 of The history of N.V. Philips gloeilampenfabriek). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-521-32169-7\n* A. Heerding: A company of many parts. (Vol. 2 of The history of N.V. Philips' gloeilampenfabrieken). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-521-32170-0\n* I.J. Blanken: The development of N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken into a major electrical group. Zaltbommel, European Library, 1999. (Vol. 3 of The history of Philips Electronics N.V.). ISBN 90-288-1439-6\n* I.J. Blanken: Under German rule. Zaltbommel, European Library, 1999. (Vol. 4 of The history of Philips Electronics N.V). ISBN 90-288-1440-X"
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Where is the multinational Nestle based?
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"Nestlé S.A. (;,,) is a Swiss transnational food and drink company headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest food company in the world measured by revenues, and ranked #72 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2014. \n\nNestlé’s products include baby food, medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. Twenty-nine of Nestlé’s brands have annual sales of over CHF1 billion (about ), including Nespresso, Nescafé, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer’s, Vittel, and Maggi. Nestlé has 447 factories, operates in 194 countries, and employs around 339,000 people. It is one of the main shareholders of L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company. \n\nNestlé was formed in 1905 by the merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1866 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri Nestlé (born Heinrich Nestle). The company grew significantly during the First World War and again following the Second World War, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. The company has made a number of corporate acquisitions, including Crosse & Blackwell in 1950, Findus in 1963, Libby's in 1971, Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, and Gerber in 2007.\n\nNestlé has a primary listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange and is a constituent of the Swiss Market Index. It has a secondary listing on Euronext. In 2011, Nestlé was listed No.1 in the Fortune Global 500 as the world’s most profitable corporation. With a market capitalisation of , Nestlé ranked No.11 in the FT Global 500 2014. \n\nHistory\n\nNestlé’s origins date back to 1866, when two separate Swiss enterprises were founded that would later form the core of Nestlé. In the succeeding decades, the two competing enterprises aggressively expanded their businesses throughout Europe and the United States.\n\nIn August 1867 Charles (US consul in Switzerland) and George Page, two brothers from Lee County, Illinois, USA, established the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Cham, Switzerland. Their first British operation was opened at Chippenham, Wiltshire, in 1873. \n\nIn September 1866 in Vevey, Henri Nestlé developed milk-based baby food, and soon began marketing it. The following year saw Daniel Peter begin seven years of work perfecting his invention, the milk chocolate manufacturing process. Nestlé was the crucial co-operation that Peter needed to solve the problem of removing all the water from the milk added to his chocolate and thus preventing the product from developing mildew. Henri Nestlé retired in 1875 but the company, under new ownership, retained his name as Société Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé.\n\nIn 1877 Anglo-Swiss added milk-based baby foods to their products; in the following year, the Nestlé Company added condensed milk to their portfolio, which made the firms direct and fierce rivals.\n\nIn 1879 Nestle merged with milk chocolate inventor Daniel Peter.\n\nIn 1904 François-Louis Cailler, Charles Amédée Kohler, Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé participated in the creation and development of Swiss chocolate, marketing the first chocolate - milk Nestlé. \n\nIn 1905 the companies merged to become the Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, retaining that name until 1947, when the name ‘Nestlé Alimentana SA’ was taken as a result of the acquisition of Fabrique de Produits Maggi SA (founded 1884) and its holding company, Alimentana SA, of Kempttal, Switzerland. Maggi was a major manufacturer of soup mixes and related foodstuffs. The company’s current name was adopted in 1977. By the early 1900s, the company was operating factories in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain. The First World War created demand for dairy products in the form of government contracts, and, by the end of the war, Nestlé’s production had more than doubled.\n\nNestlé felt the effects of the Second World War immediately. Profits dropped from US$20 million in 1938, to US$6 million in 1939. Factories were established in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. Ironically, the war helped with the introduction of the company’s newest product, Nescafé (\"Nestlé’s Coffee\"), which became a staple drink of the US military. Nestlé’s production and sales rose in the wartime economy.\n\nAfter the war, government contracts dried up, and consumers switched back to fresh milk. However, Nestlé’s management responded quickly, streamlining operations and reducing debt. The 1920s saw Nestlé’s first expansion into new products, with chocolate-manufacture becoming the company’s second most important activity. Louis Dapples was CEO till 1937, when succeeded by Édouard Muller till his death in 1948.\n\nThe end of World War II was the beginning of a dynamic phase for Nestlé. Growth accelerated and numerous companies were acquired. In 1947 Nestlé merged with Maggi, a manufacturer of seasonings and soups. Crosse & Blackwell followed in 1950, as did Findus (1963), Libby’s (1971) and Stouffer’s (1973). Diversification came with a shareholding in L’Oreal in 1974. In 1977, Nestlé made its second venture outside the food industry, by acquiring Alcon Laboratories Inc.\n\nIn the 1980s, Nestlé’s improved bottom line which allowed the company to launch a new round of acquisitions. Carnation was acquired for $3 billion in 1984 and brought the evaporated milk brand, as well as Coffee-Mate and Friskies to Nestlé. The confectionery company Rowntree Mackintosh was acquired in 1988 for $4.5 billion, which brought brands such as Kit Kat, Smarties and Aero.\n\nThe first half of the 1990s proved to be favourable for Nestlé. Trade barriers crumbled, and world markets developed into more or less integrated trading areas. Since 1996, there have been various acquisitions, including San Pellegrino (1997), Spillers Petfoods (1998), and Ralston Purina (2002). There were two major acquisitions in North America, both in 2002 – in June, Nestlé merged its US ice cream business into Dreyer's, and in August a acquisition was announced of Chef America, the creator of Hot Pockets. In the same time-frame, Nestlé entered in a joint bid with Cadbury and came close to purchasing the iconic American company Hershey's, one of its fiercest confectionery competitors, but the deal eventually fell through. Another recent purchase included the Jenny Craig weight-loss program, for .\n\nNestlé sold the Jenny Craig business unit to North Castle Partners in 2013. \n\nIn December 2005, Nestlé bought the Greek company Delta Ice Cream for €240million. In January 2006, it took full ownership of Dreyer’s, thus becoming the world’s largest ice cream maker, with a 17.5% market share. In November 2006, Nestlé purchased the Medical Nutrition division of Novartis Pharmaceutical for , also acquiring, in 2007, the milk-flavoring product known as Ovaltine.\n\nIn April 2007, returning to its roots, Nestlé bought US baby-food manufacturer Gerber for . In December 2007, Nestlé entered into a strategic partnership with a Belgian chocolate maker, Pierre Marcolini. \n\nNestlé agreed to sell its controlling stake in Alcon to Novartis on 4 January 2010. The sale was to form part of a broader offer, by Novartis, for full acquisition of the world’s largest eye-care company. On 1 March 2010, Nestlé concluded the purchase of Kraft Foods's North American frozen pizza business for .\n\nSince 2010, Nestle has been working to transform itself into a nutrition, health and wellness company in an effort to combat declining confectionery sales and the threat of expanding government regulation of such foods. This effort is being led through the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences under the direction of Ed Baetge. The Institute aims to develop “a new industry between food and pharmaceuticals” by creating foodstuffs with preventative and corrective health properties that would replace pharmaceutical drugs from pill bottles. The Health Science branch has already produced several products, such as drinks and protein shakes meant to combat malnutrition, diabetes, digestive health, obesity and other diseases. \n\nIn July 2011, Nestlé SA agreed to buy 60 percent of Hsu Fu Chi International Ltd. for about . On 23 April 2012, Nestlé agreed to acquire Pfizer Inc.'s infant-nutrition, formerly Wyeth Nutrition, unit for , topping a joint bid from Danone and Mead Johnson. \n\nIn February 2013, Nestlé Health Science bought Pamlab, which makes medical foods based on L-methylfolate targeting depression, diabetes and memory loss. \n\nIn February 2014, Nestlé sold its PowerBar sports nutrition business to Post Holdings, Inc. Later, in November 2014, Nestlé announced that it was exploring strategic options for its frozen food subsidiary, Davigel. \n\nIn recent years, Nestlé Health Science has made several acquisitions. It acquired Vitaflo, which makes clinical nutritional products for people with genetic disorders; CM&D Pharma Ltd., a company that specialises in the development of products for patients with chronic conditions like kidney disease; and Prometheus Laboratories, a firm specialising in treatments for gastrointestinal diseases and cancer. It also holds a minority stake in Vital Foods, a New Zealand-based company that develops kiwifruit-based solutions for gastrointestinal conditions. \n\nIn December 2014, Nestlé announced that it was opening 10 skin care research centres worldwide, deepening its investment in a faster-growing market for healthcare products. That year, Nestlé spend about $350 million on dermatology research and development. The first of the research hubs, Nestlé Skin Health Investigation, Education and Longevity Development (SHIELD) centres, will open mid 2015 in New York, followed by Hong Kong and São Paulo, and later others in North America, Asia and Europe. The initiative is being launched in partnership with the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA), a consortium that includes companies such as Intel and Bank of America. \n\nProducts\n\nNestlé has 64 brands, with a wide range of products across a number of markets, including coffee, bottled water, milkshakes and other beverages, breakfast cereals, infant foods, performance and healthcare nutrition, seasonings, soups and sauces, frozen and refrigerated foods, and pet food.\n\nCorporate affairs\n\nNestlé is the biggest food company in the world, with a market capitalisation of roughly 231 billion Swiss francs, which is more than US$ 247 billion as of May 2015. \n\nIn 2014, consolidated sales were CHF 91.61 billion and net profit was CHF 14.46billion. Research and development investment was CHF 1.63billion. \n* Sales per category in CHF \n** 20.3 billion powdered and liquid beverages\n** 16.7 billion milk products and ice cream\n** 13.5 billion prepared dishes and cooking aids\n** 13.1 billion nutrition and health science\n** 11.3 billion petcare\n** 9.6 billion confectionery\n** 6.9 billion water\n* Percentage of sales by geographic area breakdown \n** 43% from Americas\n** 28% from Europe\n** 29% from Asia, Oceania and Africa\n\nAccording to a 2015 global survey of online consumers by the Reputation Institute, Nestlé has a reputation score of 74.5 on a scale of 1100. \n\nJoint ventures\n\nJoint ventures include:\n* Cereal Partners Worldwide with General Mills (50%/50%) \n* Beverage Partners Worldwide with The Coca-Cola Company(50%/50%) \n* Lactalis Nestlé Produits Frais with Lactalis (40%/60%) \n* Nestlé Colgate-Palmolive with Colgate-Palmolive (50%/50%) \n* Nestlé Indofood Citarasa Indonesia with Indofood (50%/50%) \n* Nestlé Snow with Snow Brand Milk Products (50%/50%) \n* Nestlé Modelo with Grupo Modelo\n* Dairy Partners America Brasil with Fonterra (51%/49%)\n\nSafety of food products\n\nMaggi noodles\n\nIn May 2015, Food Safety Regulators from the Uttar Pradesh, India found that samples of Nestlé's leading noodles Maggi had up to 17 times beyond permissible safe limits of lead in addition to monosodium glutamate. \n\nOn 3 June 2015, New Delhi Government banned the sale of Maggi in New Delhi stores for 15 days because it found lead and monosodium glutamate in the eatable beyond permissible limit. The Gujarat FDA on 4 June 2015 banned the noodles for 30 days after 27 out of 39 samples were detected with objectionable levels of metallic lead, among other things. Some of India's biggest retailers like Future Group, Big Bazaar, Easyday and Nilgiris have imposed a nationwide ban on Maggi. Thereafter multiple state authorities in India found unacceptable amount of lead and it has been banned in more than 5 other states in India. \nOn 5 June 2015, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) orders banned all nine approved variants of Maggi instant noodles from India, terming them \"unsafe and hazardous\" for human consumption. \nIn June 2015 Nepal indefinitely banned Maggi over concerns about lead levels in the product. On the same day Food Safety Agency, United Kingdom has launched an investigation to find levels of lead in Maggi. Maggi noodles has been withdrawn in five African nations- Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Sudan by a super-market chain after a complaint by the Consumer Federation of Kenya, as a reaction to the ban in India. \n\nOn 3 June 2015, Nestlé India's shares fell down 11% due to the incident. Continuously on the second day, Nestlé's share fell down by 3% over concerns related to its safety standards. \n\nAs of August 2015, India's government made public that it was seeking damages of nearly $100 million from Nestlé India for \"unfair trade practices\" following the June ban on Maggi noodles. The 6,400 million rupee suit was filed with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), regarded as the country's top consumer court, but was settled on 13 August 2015. The court ruled that the government ban on the Nestlé product was both \"arbitrary\" and had violated the \"principles of natural justice.\" Although Nestlé was not ordered to pay the fine requested in the government's suit, the court ruled that the Maggi noodle producers must \"send five samples from each batch of Maggi [noodles] for testing to three labs and only if the lead is found to be lower than permitted will they start manufacturing and sale again.\" Although the tests have yet to take place, Nestlé has already destroyed 400 million packets of Maggi products. Although the ban has been repealed by the Government of India, with effect from the end of 2015, a few states still needs to lift their versions of the ban, after newer tests.\n\nMilk products and baby food\n\nIn late September 2008, the Hong Kong government found melamine in a Chinese-made Nestlé milk product. Six infants died from kidney damage, and a further 860 babies were hospitalised. The Dairy Farm milk was made by Nestlé's division in the Chinese coastal city Qingdao. Nestlé affirmed that all its products were safe and were not made from milk adulterated with melamine. On 2 October 2008, the Taiwan Health ministry announced that six types of milk powders produced in China by Nestlé contained low-level traces of melamine, and were \"removed from the shelves\". \n\nIn another incident weevils and fungus were found in Cerelac baby food. \n\nNestlé has implemented initiatives to prevent contamination and utilizes what it calls a “factory and farmers” model that eliminates the middleman. Farmers bring milk directly to a network of Nestlé-owned collection centers, where a computerized system samples, tests, and tags each batch of milk. To reduce further the risk of contamination at the source, the company provides farmers with continuous training and assistance in cow selection, feed quality, storage, and other areas. \n\nIn 2014, the company opened the Nestlé Food Safety Institute (NFSI) in Beijing that will help meet China’s growing demand for healthy and safe food, one of the top three concerns among Chinese consumers. The NFSI will work closely with authorities to help provide the scientific foundation for food-safety policies and standards. Support will include early management of food-safety issues and collaboration with local universities, research institutes and government agencies on food-safety. \n\nCookie dough\n\nIn June 2009, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 was linked to Nestlé's refrigerated cookie dough originating in a plant in Danville, Virginia. In the US, it caused sickness in more than 50 people in 30 states, half of whom required hospitalisation. Following the outbreak, Nestlé voluntarily recalled 30,000 cases of the cookie dough. The cause was determined to be contaminated flour obtained from a raw material supplier. When operations resumed, the flour used was heat-treated to kill bacteria. \n\nSponsorships\n\nAnimation\nIn 1993, plans were made to update and modernise the overall tone of Walt Disney's EPCOT Center, including a major refurbishment of The Land pavilion. Kraft Foods withdrew its sponsorship on 26 September 1993, with Nestlé taking its place. Co-financed by Nestlé and the Walt Disney World Resort, a gradual refurbishment of the pavilion began on 27 September 1993. In 2003, Nestlé renewed its sponsorship of The Land; however, it was under agreement that Nestlé would oversee its own refurbishment to both the interior and exterior of the pavilion. Between 2004 and 2005, the pavilion underwent its second major refurbishment. Nestlé’s withdrawal from the Land dates back from 2009.[http://disneyparkhistory.com/the-land.html The Land - Disney Park History]\n\nMusic festivals\nOn 5 August 2010, Nestlé and the Beijing Music Festival signed an agreement to extend by three years Nestlé's sponsorship of this international music festival. Nestlé has been an extended sponsor of the Beijing Music Festival for 11 years since 2000. The new agreement will continue the partnership through 2013. \n\nNestlé has partnered the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria for 20 years. In 2011, Nestlé renewed its sponsorship of the Salzburg Festival until 2015. \n\nTogether, they have created the \"Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award,\" an initiative that aims to discover young conductors globally and to contribute to the development of their careers. \n\nSports\nNestlé's sponsorship of the Tour de France began in 2001 and the agreement was extended in 2004, a move which demonstrated the company’s interest in the Tour. In July 2009, Nestlé Waters and the organisers of the Tour de France announced that their partnership will continue until 2013. The main promotional benefits of this partnership will spread on four key brands from Nestlé's product portfolio: Vittel, Powerbar, Nesquik or Ricore. \n\nIn 2014, Nestlé Waters sponsored the UK leg of the Tour de France through its Buxton Natural Mineral Water brand. \nIn 2002 Nestlé announced it was main sponsor for the Great Britain Lionesses Women's rugby league team for the team's second tour of Australia with its Munchies product. \n\nOn 27 January 2012, the International Association of Athletics Federations announced that Nestlé will be the main sponsor for the further development of IAAF's Kids' Athletics Programme, which is one of the biggest grassroots development programmes in the world of sports. The five-year sponsorship started in January 2012. On 11 February 2016, Nestlé decided to withdraw its sponsorship of the IAAF's Kids' Athletics Programmes because of doping and corruption allegations against the IAAF. Nestlé followed suit after other large sponsors, including Adidas, also stopped supporting the IAAF. \n\nNestlé supports the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) on a number of nutrition and fitness fronts, funding a Fellowship position in AIS Sports Nutrition; nutrition activities in the AIS Dining Hall; research activities; and the development of education resources for use at the AIS and in the public domain. \n\nControversy and criticisms\n\nNestlé baby formula boycott\n\nA boycott was launched in the United States on 7 July 1977, against the Swiss-based Nestlé corporation. It spread in the United States, and expanded into Europe in the early 1980s. It was prompted by concern about Nestlé's \"aggressive marketing\" of breast milk substitutes, particularly in less economically developed countries (LEDCs), largely among the poor. The boycott was officially suspended in the U.S. in 1984, after Nestlé agreed to follow an international marketing code endorsed by the World Health Organization. The boycott was also ended in the UK by several organisations including the General Synod of the Church of England in July 1994, the Royal College of Midwives in July 1997, and the Methodist Ethical Investment Committee in November 2005 and the Reformed Churches in November 2011 as a result of the company’s inclusion in the responsible investment index FTSE4Good Responsible Investment Index. \nSince 2011, Nestlé is the only infant formula manufacturer to have met the 104 criteria on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes (FTSE4Good BMS Criteria) of the FTSE4Good Responsible Investment Index. Nestlé’s inclusion in the index is based on results of independent and transparent verifications conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers every 18 months. Every year since 2009, Bureau Veritas - one of the world’s leading verification and auditing firm - conducts independent assurance of compliance with the Nestlé Policy and Instructions for Implementation of the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Their Assurance Statements are transparently available in the public domain. \n\nIn May 2011, the debate over Nestlé's unethical marketing of infant formula was relaunched in the Asia-Pacific region. Nineteen leading Laos-based international NGOs, including Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE International, Plan International and World Vision have launched a boycott of Nestlé and written an open letter to the company. Among other unethical practices, the NGOs criticised the lack of labelling in Laos and the provision of incentives to doctors and nurses to promote the use of infant formula. In November 2011, Bureau Veritas, commissioned by Nestlé S.A. to provide independent assurance of Nestlé Indochina’s compliance with the Nestlé policy for the implementation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes (1981). There were no significant evidence that indicated Nestlé Indochina was systematically operating in violation of the WHO Code and Lao PDR Decree in Lao PDR. The presence of promotional materials in retail units constituted a non-conformance and Bureau Veritas recommended that the Nestlé’s Policy and Procedures Manual on the Marketing of breastmilk substitutes be reviewed and updated to ensure consistency against the more stringent requirements of the Lao PDR Decree. Ernest W. Lefever and the Ethics and Public Policy Center were criticized for accepting a $25,000 contribution from Nestlé while the organization was in the process of developing a report investigating medical care in developing nations which was never published, in an alleged deal to minimize Nestlé's marketing of infant formula in many of these countries. \n\nBottled water\n\nAt the second World Water Forum, Nestlé and other corporations persuaded the World Water Council to change its statement so as to reduce access to drinking water from a \"right\" to a \"need.\" Nestlé chairman and former CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe stated that \"access to water should not be a public right.\" Nestlé continues to take control of aquifers and bottle their water for profit. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has later changed his statement. \n\nEthiopian debt (2002)\n\nIn 2002, Nestlé demanded that the nation of Ethiopia repay US$6 million of debt to the company. Ethiopia was suffering a severe famine at the time. Nestlé backed down from its demand after more than 8,500 people complained via e-mail to the company about its treatment of the Ethiopian government. The company agreed to re-invest any money it received from Ethiopia back into the country. In 2003, Nestlé agreed to accept an offer of $1.5 million, and donated the money to three active charities in Ethiopia: the Red Cross, Caritas and UNHCR. \n\nChild labour\n\nIn 2005, after the cocoa industry had not met the Harkin–Engel Protocol deadline for certifying the worst forms of child labour (according to the International Labour Organization's Convention 182) had been eliminated from cocoa production, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in 2005 under the Alien Tort Claims Act against Nestlé and others on behalf of three Malian children. The suit alleged the children were trafficked to Ivory Coast, forced into slavery, and experienced frequent beatings on a cocoa plantation. In September 2010, the US District Court for the Central District of California determined corporations cannot be held liable for violations of international law and dismissed the suit. The case was appealed to the US Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Nestle's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's decision. \n\nThe 2010 documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate brought attention to purchases of cocoa beans from Ivorian plantations that use child slave labour. The children are usually 12 to 15 years old, and some are trafficked from nearby countries. The first allegations that child slavery is used in cocoa production appeared in 1998. In late 2000, a BBC documentary reported the use of enslaved children in the production of cocoa in West Africa. Other media followed by reporting widespread child slavery and child trafficking in the production of cocoa. In September 2001, Bradley Alford, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé USA, signed the Harkin–Engel Protocol (commonly called the Cocoa Protocol), an international agreement aimed at ending child labour in the production of cocoa.\n\nIn 2012, Nestlé became the first company in the food industry to join the Fair Labor Association (FLA). This followed collaborations with the FLA on special projects to assess labor conditions and compliance risks throughout Nestlé’s supply chain of hazelnuts and cocoa. As a Participating Company, Nestlé has committed to ten Principles of Fair Labor and Responsible Sourcing, and to upholding the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct throughout their supply chains, starting with farms. \n\nThe 2014 Assessments of Shared Hazelnut Supply Chain In Turkey published by the Fair Labor Association identified \"a total of 46 child workers younger than 15 years\" as well as \"a total of 83 young workers (between 15 and 18 years of age) working the same hours as adults and performing similar hazardous\nand strenuous tasks, such as carrying heavy bags of\nhazelnuts weighing up to 70 kilograms\". \n\nChocolate price fixing\n\nIn Canada, the Competition Bureau raided the offices of Nestlé Canada (along with those of Hershey Canada Inc. and Mars Canada Inc) in 2007 to investigate the matter of price fixing of chocolates. It is alleged that executives with Nestlé, the maker of KitKat, Coffee Crisp and Big Turk, colluded with competitors in Canada to inflate prices. \n\nThe Bureau alleged that competitors' executives met in restaurants, coffee shops and at conventions and that Nestlé Canada CEO, Robert Leonidas once handed a competitor an envelope containing his company’s pricing information, saying: \"I want you to hear it from the top – I take my pricing seriously.\"\n\nNestlé and the other companies were subject to class-action lawsuits for price fixing after the raids were made public in 2007. Nestlé settled for $9 million, without admitting liability, subject to court approval in the new year. A massive class-action lawsuit continues in the United States.\n\nFormer Nestlé Canada CEO Robert Leonidas is under threat of a criminal charge for his role in the price fixing of chocolates in Canada when he was at the helm of Nestlé Canada from 2006 to 2010.\n\nPackaging claims (2008)\n\nA coalition of environmental groups filed a complaint against Nestlé to the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards after Nestlé took out full-page advertisements in October 2008 claiming that \"Most water bottles avoid landfill sites and are recycled\", \"Nestlé Pure Life is a healthy, eco-friendly choice\" and that \"Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.\" A spokesperson from one of the environmental groups stated: \"For Nestlé to claim that its bottled water product is environmentally superior to any other consumer product in the world is not supportable.\" In their 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report, Nestlé themselves stated that many of their bottles end up in the solid-waste stream, and that most of their bottles are not recycled. The advertising campaign has been called greenwashing. Nestlé defended its ads, saying they will show they have been truthful in their campaign. \n\nWater bottling operations in California and Oregon\n\nConsiderable controversy has surrounded Nestlé's bottled water brand 'Arrowhead' sourced from wells alongside a spring in Millard Canyon situated in a Native American Reservation at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains in California. While corporate officials and representatives of the governing Morongo tribe have asserted that the company, which started its operations in 2000, is providing meaningful jobs in the area and that the spring is sustaining current surface water flows, a number of local citizen groups and environmental action committees have started to question the amount of water drawn in the light of the ongoing drought, and the restrictions that have been placed on residential water use. Additionally, recent evidence suggests that representatives of the Forest Service failed to follow through on a review process for Nestlé's permit to draw water from the San Bernardino wells, which expired in 1988. The former forest supervisor Gene Zimmerman has explained that the review process was rigorous, and that the Forest Service \"didn't have the money or the budget or the staff\" to follow through on the review of Nestlé's long-expired permit. However, Zimmerman's observations and action have come under scrutiny for a number of reasons. Firstly, along with the natural resource manager for Nestlé, Larry Lawrence, Zimmerman is a board member for and played a vital role in the founding of the nonprofit Southern California Mountains Foundation, of which Nestlé is the most noteworthy and longtime donor. Secondly, the Zimmerman Community Partnership Award - an award inspired by Zimmerman's actions and efforts \"to create a public/private partnership for resource development and community engagement\" - was presented by the foundation to Nestlé's Arrowhead Water division in 2013. Finally, while Zimmerman retired from his former role in 2005, he currently works as a paid consultant for Nestlé, leading many investigative journalists to question Zimmerman's allegiances prior to his retirement from the Forest Service.\n\nIn April 2015, the city of Cascade Locks, Oregon and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife using water for a salmon hatchery, applied with the Oregon Water Resources Department to permanently trade their water rights to Nestlé, which does not require a public-interest review. Nestlé approached them in 2008 and they had been considering to trade their well water with Oregon's Oxbow Springs water, a publicly owned water source in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, and to sell the spring water at over 100 million gallons of water per year to Nestlé. The plan has been criticized by legislators and 80,000 citizens. The 250,000-square-foot, $50 million Nestlé bottling plant in Cascade Locks with an unemployment rate of 18.8 percent would have 50 employees and would increase property-tax collections by 67 percent. The Oregon Water Resources Department is expected to issue a proposal in 2015, that would allow Nestlé to utilise spring water for its bottling operation. \n\nBoycott Nestlé products manufactured in Russia\n\nIn August 2015 the Ukrainian TV channel \"Ukrayina\" refused to hire a worker of the weekly magazine \"Krayina\", Alla Zheliznyak, as a host of a cooking show because she speaks Ukrainian. The demand to only hire a Russian speaking host was allegedly set by a sponsor of the show - \"Nesquik\", which is a brand of \"Nestlé S.A.\" Activists of the Vidsich civil movement held a rally near the office of the company in Kyiv accusing Nestlé for discriminating against people who speak Ukrainian and supporting russification of Ukraine. They also added that goods sold in Ukraine are manufactured in Russia. Activists threatened to start a boycott campaign against Nestlé if they will not fulfill their requirements. In September 2015 there were \"Russian kills!\" flashmobs protesting against Nestlé products that are manufactured in Russia. \n\nForced Labour in Thailand Fishing Industry\n\nAt the conclusion of a year-long, self-imposed investigation in November 2015, Nestlé disclosed that seafood products sourced in Thailand were produced with forced labour. Nestlé is not a major purchaser of seafood in Southeast Asia but does some business in Thailand, primarily for its Purina cat food. The study found virtually all U.S. and European companies buying seafood from Thailand are exposed to the same risks of abuse in their supply chains. This type of disclosure was a surprise to many in the industry because international companies rarely acknowledge abuses in supply chains. \n\nNestlé is expected to launch a yearlong program in 2016 focused on protecting workers across its supply chain. The company has promised to impose new requirements on all potential suppliers, train boat owners and captains about human rights, and hire auditors to check for compliance with new rules. \n\nCorporate social responsibility\n\nWorld Cocoa Foundation\nIn 2000, Nestlé and other chocolate companies formed the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF). The WCF is an international membership organization representing more than 100 member companies across the cocoa value chain. It is committed to creating a sustainable cocoa economy by putting farmers first, promoting agricultural & environmental stewardship, and strengthening development in cocoa-growing communities. \n\nSustainable Agriculture Initiative\nIn 2002 Nestlé, Unilever and Danone created the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, a non-profit organization to facilitate sharing of knowledge and initiatives to support the development and implementation of sustainable agriculture practices involving the different stakeholders of the food chain.\n\nThe SAI Platform has more than 60 members, which actively share the same view on sustainable agriculture seen as \"the efficient production of safe, high quality agricultural products, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment, the social and economic conditions of farmers, their employees and local communities, and safeguards the health and welfare of all farmed species.”\n\nAmong the latest deliverables produced, the SAI Platform developed (or co-developed) Principles and Practices for sustainable water management at farm level; recommendations for Sustainability Performance Assessment (SPA); a standardised methodology for the dairy sector to assess green house gas emissions; an Executives Training on Sustainable Sourcing; and many more. \n\nA case of Nestlé's impact on sustainable agricultural practices has been documented in academic literature. \n\nCreating Shared Value\nCreating Shared Value (CSV) is a business concept intended to encourage businesses to create economic and social value simultaneously by focusing on the social issues that they are capable of addressing. In 2006, Nestlé adopted the CSV approach, focusing on three areas – nutrition, water and rural development – as these are core to their business activities.\n\nNestlé now publishes an annual progress report on its goals. \n\nNestlé CEO Paul Bulcke describes CSV as follows: “Creating Shared Value, these three words, are the fundamental way we want to behave as a company, and by nature, also as persons; it is the fundamental way we want to go about our activities; it also is linked with the conviction that in order to be meaningful and successful, a company must intersect with society in a very positive and constructive way.” \n\nNestlé has also established the Creating Shared Value Prize, which is awarded every other year with the aim of rewarding the best examples of CSV initiatives worldwide and to encourage other companies to adopt a shared value approach. These initiatives should take a business-oriented approach in addressing challenges in nutrition, water or rural development. The winner can win up to CHF 500,000. Nestlé was an early mover in the shared value space and hosts a global forum, the Creating Shared Value Global Forum.\n \n\nNestlé Cocoa Plan\nIn October 2009, Nestlé announced \"The Cocoa Plan.\" The company is working to get 100 percent of its chocolate portfolio using certified sustainable cocoa. For third-party certification, Nestlé has partnered with UTZ Certified to ensure that best practices are being used. Many of Nestlé’s efforts are focused on the Ivory Coast, where 40 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from. The company has developed a higher-yielding, more drought- and disease-resistant cocoa tree; and they have given 3 million of these super trees to farmers thus far and plan to give away 12 million of them in total. They are also training farmers in efficient and sustainable growing techniques, which focuses on better farming practices, including pruning trees, pest control (with an emphasis on integrated pest management) and harvesting, as well as caring for the environment. In addition, they have built 23 new schools so far and plan to build 40 in total by 2015. \n\nAnother important part of the plan has been to address child labor. Nestlé says that according to U.S. statistics, there are about 800,000 children who work the cocoa supply chain. With this in mind, Nestlé approached the Fair Labor Association to map out strategies to help curb child labor in the cocoa sector, and these efforts – including community education and the building of schools – have become a focus of the Cocoa Plan.\n\nEcolaboration\nOn 22 June 2009, Nestlé Nespresso and Rainforest Alliance signed a pact called \"Ecolaboration\". One of the shared goals is to reduce the environmental impacts and increase the social benefits of coffee cultivation in enough tropical regions so that 80 percent of Nespresso's coffee comes from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms by the year 2013. Certified farms comply with comprehensive standards covering all aspects of sustainable farming, including soil and water conservation, protection of wildlife and forests, and ensuring that farm workers, women and children have all the proper rights and benefits, such as good wages, clean drinking water, access to schools and health care and security. \n\nThe Nescafé Plan\nIn 2010, Nestlé launched the Nescafé Plan, an initiative to increase sustainable coffee production and make sustainable coffee farming more accessible to farmers. The plan aims to increase the company’s supply of coffee beans without clearing rainforests, as well as using less water and fewer agrochemicals. According to Nestlé, Nescafé will invest 350 million Swiss francs (about $336 million) over the next ten years to expand the company's agricultural research and training capacity to help benefit many of the 25 million people who make their living growing and trading coffee. The Rainforest Alliance and the other NGOs in the Sustainable Agriculture Network will support Nestlé in meeting the objectives of the plan. \n\nCommitted to Health Care and Nutrition\nIn September 2010, Nestlé announced to invest more than $500 million between 2011 and 2020 to develop health and wellness products to help prevent and treat major ailments like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s, which are placing an increasing burden on governments at a time when budgets are being squeezed. Nestlé created a wholly owned subsidiary, Nestlé Health Science, as well as a research body, the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences. \n\nMember of Fair Labour Association\nIn 2011, Nestlé started to work with the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a non-profit, multi-stakeholder association that works with major companies to improve working conditions in their supply chains.\n\nOn 29 February 2012, Nestlé became the first food company to join the FLA. Building on Nestlé's efforts under the Cocoa Plan, the FLA will send independent experts to Ivory Coast in 2012 and where evidence of child labour is found, the FLA will identify root causes and advise Nestlé how to address them in sustainable and lasting ways. \n\nRural Development Framework\nIn 2012, Nestlé developed the Rural Development Framework, which supports farmers and cocoa growing communities. It is an investment program aimed at improving infrastructure, increasing access to safe water, address financing and market efficiency gaps and improving labor conditions. \n\nPartnership with IFRC\nIn 2014, Nestlé renewed its long-standing partnership long with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to increase access to safe water and sanitation in rural communities. In recent years, the partnership has brought clean drinking water and sanitation facilities to 100,000 people in Ivory Coast’s cocoa communities. Nestlé has committed to contributing five million Swiss francs over the next five years to the IFRC. \n\nRecognition and awards\n\n* In May 2006, Nestlé’s executive board decided to adapt the existing Nestlé management systems to full conformity with the international standards ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems) and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems), and to certify all Nestlé factories against these standards by 2010. In the meanwhile a lot of the Nestlé factories have obtained these certifications.\n* Nestlé Purina received in 2010 the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for their excellence in the areas of leadership, customer and market focus, strategic planning, process management, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus and results. \n* In March 2011, Nestlé became the first infant formula company to meet the FTSE4Good Index criteria in full. \n* In September 2011, Nestlé occupied 19th position in the Universum's global ranking of Best Employers Worldwide. According to a survey by Universum Communications Nestlé was in 2011 the best employer to work for in Switzerland. \n* The International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) honoured Nestlé in 2010 with the Global Food Industry Award. \n* In May 2011, Nestlé won the 27th World Environment Center (WEC) Gold Medal award for its commitment to environmental sustainability. \n* On 19 April 2012, The Great Place to Work® Institute Canada mentioned Nestlé Canada Inc. as one of the '50 Best Large and Multinational Workplaces' in Canada (with more than 1,000 employees working in Canada and/or worldwide). \n* On 21 May 2012, Gartner published their annual Supply Chain Top 25, a list with global supply chain leaders. Nestlé ranks 18th in the list. \n* In September 2012, Nestlé was among the top-scoring companies on the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI)\n* In 2013, Nestlé retained its number one position in charity Oxfam’s sustainability scorecard, and improved its ratings on the issues of land, workers and climate. \n* In 2014, Nestlé received the Henry Spira Corporate Progress Awards for altering its policies and practices to minimize adverse impacts on animals. \n* In March 2015, Nestlé ranked second in Oxfam’s Behind the Brands scorecard, where the NGO ranks the world’s ‘Big 10’ consumer food and beverage companies on their policies and commitments to improve food security and sustainability. Nestlé assumed the number one ranking for land rights, while the company also outperformed its peers on transparency and water. \n\nBibliography\n\n* La stratégie Nestlé (Nestlé Strategy), Helmut Maucher, French translation by Monique Thiollet, Maxima Ed., Paris, 1995, ISBN 2840010720"
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19969 was the Chinese year of which creature?
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tc_66
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as 1500 BC under the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC). Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and the Bamboo Annals describe a Xia dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BC), which had no system of writing on a durable medium, before the Shang. The Yellow River is said to be the cradle of Chinese civilization, although cultures originated at various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys millennia ago in the Neolithic era. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization. \n\nMuch of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). The Zhou dynasty began to bow to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the kingdom eventually broke apart into smaller states, beginning in the Spring and Autumn period and reaching full expression in the Warring States period. This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history, the most recent being the Chinese Civil War that started in 1927.\n\nBetween eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties have ruled parts or all of China; in some eras control stretched as far as Xinjiang and Tibet, as at present. In 221 BC Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created for himself the title of \"emperor\" (huangdi) of the Qin dynasty, marking the beginning of imperial China. Successive dynasties developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the emperor to control vast territories directly. China's last dynasty was the Qing (1644–1912), which was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912, and in the mainland by the People's Republic of China in 1949.\n\nIn the 21 centuries from 206 BC until AD 1912, routine administrative tasks were handled by a special elite, the Scholar-officials (\"Scholar-gentlemen\"). Young men were carefully selected through difficult examinations and were well-versed in calligraphy and philosophy. \nThe conventional view of Chinese history is that of alternating periods of political unity and disunity, with China occasionally being dominated by steppe peoples, most of whom were in turn assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from other parts of Asia and the Western world, carried by successive waves of immigration, cultural assimilation, expansion, and foreign contact, form the basis of the modern culture of China.\n\nPrehistory \n\nPaleolithic\n\nWhat is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated to 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago.\nThe excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923–27. Fossilised teeth of Homo sapiens dating to 125,000–80,000 BCE have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Dao County in Hunan. \n\nNeolithic\n\nThe Neolithic age in China can be traced back to about 10,000 BC. \n\nEarly evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC. The earliest evidence of cultivated rice, found by the Yangtze River, is carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago. Farming gave rise to the Jiahu culture (7000 to 5800 BC). At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered, \"featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing.\" These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BC, Dadiwan from 5800 BC to 5400 BC, Damaidi around 6000 BC and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BC. Some scholars have suggested that Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BC) were the earliest Chinese writing system. Excavation of a Peiligang culture site in Xinzheng county, Henan, found a community that flourished in 5,500 to 4,900 BC, with evidence of agriculture, constructed buildings, pottery, and burial of the dead. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of Yangshao culture (5000 BC to 3000 BC), and the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of these was found at Banpo, Xi'an. Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC.\n\nBronze Age\n\nBronze artifacts have been found at the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC), The Bronze Age is also represented at the Lower Xiajiadian culture (2200–1600 BC ) site in northeast China.\n\nAncient China \n\nXia dynasty (c. 2100 – c. 1600 BC)\n\nThe Xia dynasty of China (from c. 2100 to c. 1600 BC) is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals.\n\nAlthough there is disagreement as to whether the dynasty actually existed, there is some archaeological evidence pointing to its possible existence. Writing in the late 2nd century BC, Sima Qian dated the founding of the Xia dynasty to around 2200 BC, but this date has not been corroborated. Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period found on pottery and shells are thought to be ancestral to modern Chinese characters. With few clear records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.\n\nAccording to mythology, the dynasty ended around 1600 BC as a consequence of the Battle of Mingtiao.\n\nShang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC)\n\nCapital: Yin, near Anyang\n\nArchaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang dynasty, c. 1600–1046 BC, are divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period, comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou, and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, is at Anyang, in modern-day Henan, which has been confirmed as the last of the Shang's nine capitals (c. 1300–1046 BC). The findings at Anyang include the earliest written record of Chinese past so far discovered: inscriptions of divination records in ancient Chinese writing on the bones or shells of animals — the so-called \"oracle bones\", dating from around 1500 BC.\n\n31 kings reigned over the Shang dynasty. During their reign, according to the Records of the Grand Historian, the capital city was moved six times. The final (and most important) move was to Yin in 1350 BC which led to the dynasty's golden age. The term Yin dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although it has lately been used to refer specifically to the latter half of the Shang dynasty.\n\nChinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.\n\nAlthough written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements that are contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.\n\nZhou dynasty (1046–256 BC)\n\nCapitals: Xi'an, Luoyang\n\nThe Zhou dynasty (1046 BC to approximately 256 BC) was the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the territory of the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou lived west of the Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed Western Protector by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent, managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye.\n\nThe king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every succeeding dynasty. Like Shangdi, Heaven (tian) ruled over all the other gods, and it decided who would rule China. It was believed that a ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven when natural disasters occurred in great number, and when, more realistically, the sovereign had apparently lost his concern for the people. In response, the royal house would be overthrown, and a new house would rule, having been granted the Mandate of Heaven.\n\nThe Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, on the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.\n\nSpring and Autumn period (722–476 BC)\n\nCapitals: Beijing ; Xi'an \n\nIn the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn period, named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second major phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. The Spring and Autumn period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Some local leaders even started using royal titles for themselves. China now consisted of hundreds of states, some of them only as large as a village with a fort.\n\nThe Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded, partly in response to the changing political world.\n\nWarring States period (476–221 BC)\n\nCapitals: several \n\nAfter further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other are known as the Warring States period. Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power.\n\nAs neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣/郡县). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn period, and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣/省县).\n\nThe final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC, enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang).\n\nImperial China \n\nQin dynasty (221–206 BC)\n\nCapital: Xianyang\n\nHistorians often refer to the period from Qin dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty as Imperial China. Though the unified reign of the First Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (close to modern Xi'an). The doctrine of Legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peacetime. The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.\n\nMajor contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, development of the written language, measurement, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts—which need to match ruts in the roads—had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire. Also as part of its centralization, the Qin connected the northern border walls of the states it defeated, making the first Great Wall of China.\n\nA major Qin innovation that lasted until 1912 was reliance upon a trained intellectual elite, the Scholar-official (\"Scholar-gentlemen\"). They were civil servants appointed by the Emperor to handle daily governance. Talented young men were selected through an elaborate process of imperial examination. They had to demonstrate skill at calligraphy, and had to know knew Confucian philosophy. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:\nGenerally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse. \n\nHan dynasty (202 BC–AD 220)\n\nCapitals: Chang'an, Luoyang, Liyang, Xuchang\n\nWestern Han\n\nThe Han dynasty was founded by Liu Bang, who emerged victorious in the civil war that followed the collapse of the unified but short-lived Qin dynasty. A golden age in Chinese history, the Han dynasty's long period of stability and prosperity consolidated the foundation of China as a unified state under a central imperial bureaucracy, which was to last intermittently for most of the next two millennium. During the Han dynasty, territory of China was extended to most of the China proper and to areas far west. Confucianism was officially elevated to orthodox status and was to shape the subsequent Chinese Civilization. Art, culture and science all advanced to unprecedented heights. With the profound and lasting impacts of this period of Chinese history, the dynasty name \"Han\" had been taken as the name of the Chinese people, now the dominant ethnic group in modern China, and had been commonly used to refer to Chinese language and written characters.\n\nAfter the initial Laissez-faire policies of Emperors Wen and Jing, the ambitious Emperor Wu brought the empire to its zenith. To consolidate his power, Confucianism, which emphasizes stability and order in a well-structured society, was given exclusive patronage to be the guiding philosophical thoughts and moral principles of the empire. Imperial Universities were established to support its study and further development, while other schools of thoughts were discouraged.\n\nMajor military campaigns were launched to weaken the nomadic Xiongnu Empire, limiting their influence north of the Great Wall. Along with the diplomatic efforts led by Zhang Qian, the sphere of influence of the Han Empire extended to the states in the Tarim Basin, opened up the Silk Road that connected China to the west, stimulating bilateral trade and cultural exchange. To the south, various small kingdoms far beyond the Yangtze River Valley were formally incorporated into the empire.\n\nEmperor Wu also dispatched a series of military campaigns against the Baiyue tribes. The Han annexed Minyue in 135 BC and 111 BC, Nanyue in 111 BC, and Dian in 109 BC. Migration and military expeditions led to the cultural assimilation of the south. It also brought the Han into contact with kingdoms in Southeast Asia, introducing diplomacy and trade. \n\nAfter Emperor Wu, the empire slipped into gradual stagnation and decline. Economically, the state treasury was strained by excessive campaigns and projects, while land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. Various consort clans exerted increasing control over strings of incompetent emperors and eventually the dynasty was briefly interrupted by the usurpation of Wang Mang.\n\nXin dynasty\n\nIn AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang claimed that the Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the Han dynasty and the rise of his own, and he founded the short-lived Xin (\"New\") dynasty. Wang Mang started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms, including the outlawing of slavery and land nationalization and redistribution. These programs, however, were never supported by the landholding families, because they favored the peasants. The instability of power brought about chaos, uprisings, and loss of territories. This was compounded by mass flooding of the Yellow River; silt buildup caused it to split into two channels and displaced large numbers of farmers. Wang Mang was eventually killed in Weiyang Palace by an enraged peasant mob in AD 23.\n\nEastern Han\n\nEmperor Guangwu reinstated the Han dynasty with the support of landholding and merchant families at Luoyang, east of the former capital Xi'an. Thus, this new era is termed the Eastern Han dynasty. With the capable administrations of Emperors Ming and Zhang, former glories of the dynasty was reclaimed, with brilliant military and cultural achievements. The Xiongnu Empire was decisively defeated. The diplomat and general Ban Chao further expanded the conquests across the Pamirs to the shores of the Caspian Sea, thus reopening the Silk Road, and bringing trade, foreign cultures, along with the arrival of Buddhism. With extensive connections with the west, the first of several Roman embassies to China were recorded in Chinese sources, coming from the sea route in AD 166, and a second one in AD 284.\n\nThe Eastern Han dynasty was one of the most prolific era of science and technology in ancient China, notably the historic invention of papermaking by Cai Lun, and the numerous contributions by the polymath Zhang Heng.\n\nThree Kingdoms (AD 220–280)\n\nCapitals: Luoyang ; Chengdu ; Jiankang ; Chang'an \n\nBy the 2nd century, the empire declined amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in AD 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the period of the Three Kingdoms. This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.\n\nAfter Cao Cao reunified the north in 208, his son proclaimed the Wei dynasty in 220. Soon, Wei's rivals Shu and Wu proclaimed their independence, leading China into the Three Kingdoms period. This period was characterized by a gradual decentralization of the state that had existed during the Qin and Han dynasties, and an increase in the power of great families.\n\nIn 265, the Jin dynasty overthrew the Wei and later unified the country in 280, but this union was short-lived.\n\nJin dynasty (AD 265–420)\n\nCapitals: Chang'an ; Jiankang \n\nThe Jin dynasty was severely weakened by interceine fighting among imperial princes and lost control of northern China after non-Han Chinese settlers rebelled and captured Luoyang and Chang’an. In 317, a Jin prince in modern-day Nanjing became emperor and continued the dynasty, now known as the Eastern Jin, which held southern China for another century. Prior to this move, historians refer to the Jin dynasty as the Western Jin.\n\nNorthern China fragmented into a series of independent kingdoms, most of which were founded by Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di and Qiang rulers. These non-Han peoples were ancestors of the Turks, Mongols, and Tibetans. Many had, to some extent, been \"sinicized\" long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Qiang and the Xiongnu, had already been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall since late Han times. During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, warfare ravaged the north and prompted large-scale Han Chinese migration south to the Yangtze Basin and Delta.\n\nNorthern and Southern dynasties (AD 420–589)\n\nCapitals: Ye, Chang'an ; Jiankang \n\nIn the early 5th century, China entered a period known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, in which parallel regimes ruled the northern and southern halves of the country. In the south, the Eastern Jin gave way to the Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang and finally Chen. Each of these Southern Dynasties were led by Han Chinese ruling families and used Jiankang (modern Nanjing) as the capital. They held off attacks from the north and preserved many aspects of Chinese civilization, while northern barbarian regimes began to sinify.\n\nIn the north, the last of the Sixteen Kingdoms was extinguished in 439 by the Northern Wei, a kingdom founded by the Xianbei, a nomadic people who unified northern China. The Northern Wei eventually split into the Eastern and Western Wei, which then became the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. These regimes were dominated by Xianbei or Han Chinese who had married into Xianbei families.\n\nDespite the division of the country, Buddhism spread throughout the land. In southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, towards the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, Buddhists and Taoists reached a compromise and became more tolerant of each other.\n\nIn 589, the Sui dynasty united China once again, ending a prolonged period of division in Chinese history. In the nearly four centuries between the Han and Sui dynasties, the country was united for only 24 years during the Western Jin.\n\nSui dynasty (AD 589–618)\n\nCapital: Daxing ; Dongdu \n\nThe Sui dynasty, which lasted 29 years, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. The Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. These included the government system of Three Departments and Six Ministries, standard coinage, improved defense and expansion of the Great Wall, and official support for Buddhism. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overused their resources and collapsed.\n\nTang dynasty (AD 618–907)\n\nCapitals: Chang'an, Luoyang\n\nAccording to historian Mark Edward Lewis:\nMost Chinese regard the Tang dynasty (618-907) as the high point of Imperial China, both politically and culturally. The empire reached its greatest size prior to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, becoming the center of and East Asian world linked by religion, script, and many economic and political institutions. Moreover, Tang writers produce the finest poetry in China's great lyric tradition. \n\nThe Tang dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on 18 June 618. It was a golden age of Chinese civilization with significant developments in art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion for common people. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world of its time. \n\nThe second emperor, Taizong, started military campaigns to eliminate threats from nomadic tribes, extend the border, and submit neighboring states into a tributary system. Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang'an to Central Asia and areas far to the west. In the south, lucrative maritime trade routes began from port cities such as Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries, and many foreign merchants settled in China, encouraging a cosmopolitan culture. The Tang culture and social systems were observed and imitated by neighboring countries such as Japan. Internally the Grand Canal linked the political heartland in Chang'an to the economic and agricultural centers in the eastern and southern parts of the empire.\n\nUnderlying the prosperity of the early Tang dynasty was a strong centralized bureaucracy with efficient policies. The government was organized as \"Three Departments and Six Ministries\" to separately draft, review, and implement policies. These departments were run by royal family members as well as scholar officials who were selected by imperial examinations. These practices, which matured in the Tang dynasty, were continued by the later dynasties, with some modifications.\n\nUnder the Tang \"equal-field system\" all land was owned by the Emperor and granted to people according to household size. Men granted land were conscripted for military service for a fixed period each year, a military policy known as the \"Fubing system\". These policies stimulated a rapid growth in productivity and a significant army without much burden on the state treasury. By the dynasty's midpoint, however, standing armies had replaced conscription, and land was continuously falling into the hands of private owners.\n\nThe dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached its zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people.\n\nAt the zenith of prosperity of the empire, the An Lushan Rebellion from 755 to 763 was a watershed event that devastated the population and drastically weakened the central imperial government. Upon suppression of the rebellion, regional military governors, known as Jiedushi, gained increasingly autonomous status. With loss of revenue from land tax, the central imperial government relied heavily on salt monopoly. Nevertheless, civil society recovered and thrived amidst the weakened imperial bureaucracy. Externally, former submissive states raided the empire and the vast border territories were irreversibly lost for subsequent centuries.\n\nIn late Tang period. ineffective and corrupted rules in imperial court and regional warlords triggered widespread revolts. The most catastrophic was the Huang Chao Rebellion, from 874 to 884, which raided the entire empire for a decade. The sack of southern port Guangzhou in 879 was followed by massacre of most of its inhabitants, along with the large foreign merchant enclaves. By 881, both capitals Luoyang and Chang'an fell successively. The reliance on ethnic Han and Turkic warlords in suppressing the rebellion escalated their powers. Consequently, upon the fall of the dynasty by Zhu Wen's usurpation. an era of fragmentation followed.\n\nFive Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907–960)\n\nCapitals: Kaifeng, Luoyang (Five Dynasties), various cities (Ten Kingdoms)\n\nThe period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, lasted from 907 to 960. During this half-century, China was in all respects a multi-state system. Five regimes, namely, (Later) Liang, Tang, Jin, Han and Zhou, rapidly succeeded one another in control of the traditional Imperial heartland in northern China. Among the regimes, rulers of (Later) Tang, Jin and Han were sinicized Shatuo Turks, which ruled over a majority of Chinese people. More stable and smaller regimes of mostly ethnic Han rulers coexisted in south and western China over the period, cumulatively constituted the \"Ten Kingdoms\".\n\nAmidst political chaos in the north, the strategic Sixteen Prefectures (region along today's Great Wall) were ceded to the emerging Khitan Liao Dynasty, which drastically weakened the defense of the China proper against northern nomadic empires.To the south, Vietnam gained lasting independence after being a Chinese prefecture for many centuries. With wars dominated in Northern China, there were mass southward migrations of population, which further enhanced the southward shift of cultural and economic centers in China. The era ended with the coup of Later Zhou general Zhao Kuangyin, and the establishment the Song dynasty in 960, which would eventually annihilated the remains of the \"Ten Kingdoms\" and reunified China.\n\nSong, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia dynasties (AD 960–1234)\n\nCapitals: Kaifeng and Lin'an ; Shangjing, Nanjing, Tokmok ; Shangjing, Zhongdu, Kaifeng ; Yinchuan \n\nIn 960, the Song dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu, with its capital established in Kaifeng (also known as Bianjing). In 979. the Song dynasty reunified most of the China proper, while large swaths of outskirt territories were occupied by sinicized nomadic empires. The Khitan Liao dynasty, which lasted from 907 to 1125, ruled over Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of Northern China. Meanwhile, in what are now the northwestern Chinese provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, the Tangut tribes founded the Western Xia dynasty from 1032 to 1227.\n\nAiming to recover the strategic Sixteen Prefectures lost in the previous dynasty, campaigns were launched against the Liao dynasty in the early Song period, which all ended in failure. Then in 1004, the Liao cavalry swept past the exposed North China Plain and reached the outskirt of Kaifeng, forcing the Song's submission to the Chanyuan Treaty, which imposed heavy annual tributes from the Song treasury. The treaty was a significant reversal of Chinese dominance in traditional tributary system. Yet the annual outflow of Song's silver to the Liao were paid back for Chinese goods and products, which expanded the Song economy, and replenished its treasury. This would have dampened the incentive for the Song to further campaign against the Liao. Meanwhile, such cross-border trade and contact induced further sinicization within the Liao Empire, in the expense of its military might derived from primitive nomadic lifestyle. Similar treaties and social-economical consequences recurred in Song's relation to the Jin dynasty.\n\nWithin the Liao Empire, the Jurchen tribes revolted against their overlords to establish the Jin dynasty in 1115. In 1125, the devastating Jin cataphract annihilated the Liao dynasty, while remnants of Liao court members fled to Central Asia to found the Qara Khitai Empire (Western Liao Dynasty). Jin's invasion of Song dynasty followed swiftly. In 1127, Kaifeng was sacked, a massive catastrophe known as the Jingkang Incident, ending the era of Northern Song Dynasty. Later the entire northern China was conquered. The survived members of Song court regrouped in the new capital city of Hangzhou (杭州), and initiated the era of Southern Song dynasty, which ruled territories south of the Huai River. In the ensuing years, the territory and population of China were divided between the Song dynasty, the Jin dynasty and the Western Xia dynasty. The era ended by the Mongol conquest, as Western Xia fell in 1227, the Jin dynasty in 1234, and finally the Southern Song dynasty in 1279.\n\nDespite its military weakness, the Song dynasty is widely considered to be the high point of classical Chinese civilization. The Song economy, facilitated by technology advancement, had reached such sophistication probably unseen in world history before its time. Population soared to over 100 millions and the living standard of common people tremendously enhanced, due to improvement of rice cultivation, and the wide availability of coal for production. The capital cities of Kaifeng, and subsequently Hangzhou, were both the most populous cities in the world of their time, and boosted vibrant civil societies unmatched by previous Chinese dynasties. As land trading routes to far west were blocked by nomadic empires, there were extensive maritime trade with neighboring states, which facilitated the use of Song coinage as the de facto currency of exchange, while giant wooden vessels equipped with compasses roamed throughout the China Seas and north Indian Ocean. Concept of insurance was practiced by merchants to hedge the risks of such long-haul maritime shipment. With prosperous economic activities, the historically first use of paper currency emerged in the western city of Chengdu, as supplement to copper coins to some extents.\n\nIn science and technology, with innovative scholar-officials such as Su Song (1020–1101) and Shen Kuo (1031–1095). There was court intrigue between the political rivals of the reformers and conservatives, led by the chancellors Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, respectively. By the mid-to-late 13th century, the Chinese had adopted the dogma of Neo-Confucian philosophy formulated by Zhu Xi. Enormous literary works were compiled during the Song dynasty, such as the historical work of the Zizhi Tongjian (\"Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government\"). Invention of movable-type printing further facilitated the spread of knowledge. Culture and the arts flourished, with grandiose artworks such as Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, along with great Buddhist painters such as the prolific Lin Tinggui\n\nSong dynasty also recorded major innovation in the history of warfare. Gunpowder, while invented in the Tang Dynasty, was first put into use in battlefields by the Song army, inspiring successions of new firearms and siege engines designs. During the Southern Song Dynasty, as its survival hinged decisively on guarding the Yangtze and Huai River against the cavalry forces from the north, the first standing navy in China was assembled in 1132, with its admiral's headquarter setup at Dinghai. Paddle-wheel warships equipped with trebuchets could launch incendiary bombs of gunpowder and lime, as recorded in Song's victory over the invading Jin forces at the Battle of Tangdao in the East China Sea, and the Battle of Caishi on Yangtze River in 1161.\n\nThe great civilization development of the Song dynasty came to an abrupt end by the devastating Mongol conquest, during which population sharply dwindled, with marked contraction in economy. Despite resistively halting Mongol advance for more than three decades, Hangzhou was sacked in 1276, followed by the final annihilation of the Song standing navy at the Battle of Yamen in 1279.\n\nYuan dynasty (AD 1271–1368)\n\nCapitals: Xanadu, Dadu\n\nThe Jurchen-founded Jin dynasty was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war in which firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the Chinese.\n\nKublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, wanting to adopt the customs of China, established the Yuan dynasty. This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan Yun. Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.\n\nBefore the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reported approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest had been completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people. This major decline is not necessarily due only to Mongol killings. Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than an actual decrease; others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment among a huge portion of the Chinese populace, causing many to disappear from the census altogether; other historians including William McNeill and David Morgan consider that plague was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period.\n\nIn the 14th century China suffered additional depredations from epidemics of plague, estimated to have killed 25 million people, 30% of the population of China. \n\nMing dynasty (AD 1368–1644)\n\nCapitals: Nanjing, Beijing\n\nThroughout the Yuan dynasty, which lasted less than a century, there was relatively strong sentiment among the populace against Mongol rule. The frequent natural disasters since the 1340s finally led to peasant revolts. The Yuan dynasty was eventually overthrown by the Ming dynasty in 1368.\n\nUrbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.\n\nDespite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He.\n\nZhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of Zhu's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of the Yongle Emperor, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes.\n\nThe dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the \"Grand Secretariat\" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.\n\nThe Yongle Emperor strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond its borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million ) was created. The Chinese armies conquered Vietnam for around 20 years, while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained influence in eastern Moghulistan. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded and became a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.\n\nIn 1449 Esen Tayisi led an Oirat Mongol invasion of northern China which culminated in the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor at Tumu. Since then, the Ming became on the defensive on the northern frontier, which led to the Ming Great Wall being built. Most of what remains of the Great Wall of China today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watchtowers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.\n\nAt sea, the Ming became increasingly isolationist after the death of the Yongle Emperor. The treasure voyages which sailed Indian Ocean were discontinued, and the maritime prohibition laws were set in place banning the Chinese from sailing abroad. European traders who reached China in the midst of the Age of Discovery were repeatedly rebuked in their requests for trade, with the Portuguese being repulsed by the Ming navy at Tuen Mun in 1521 and again in 1522. Domestic and foreign demands for overseas trade, deemed illegal by the state, led to widespread wokou piracy attacking the southeastern coastline during the rule of the Jiajing Emperor (1507-1567), which only subsided after the opening of ports in Guangdong and Fujian and much military suppression. The Portuguese were allowed to settle in Macau in 1557 for trade, which remained in Portuguese hands until 1999. The Dutch entry into the Chinese seas was also met with fierce resistance, with the Dutch being chased off the Penghu islands in the Sino-Dutch conflicts of 1622–1624 and were forced to settle in Taiwan instead. The Dutch in Taiwan fought with the Ming in the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633 and lost, and eventually surrendered to the Ming loyalist Koxinga in 1662, after the fall of the Ming dynasty.\n\nIn 1556, during the rule of the Jiajing Emperor, the Shaanxi earthquake killed about 830,000 people, the deadliest earthquake of all time.\n\nQing dynasty (AD 1644–1911)\n\nCapitals: Shenyang, Beijing\n\nThe Qing dynasty (1644–1911) was the last imperial dynasty in China. Founded by the Manchus, it was the second conquest dynasty to rule the entire territory of China and its people. The Manchus were formerly known as Jurchens, residing in the northeastern part of the Ming territory outside the Great Wall. They emerged as the major threat to the late Ming dynasty after Nurhaci united all Jurchen tribes and established an independent state. However, the Ming dynasty would be overthrown by Li Zicheng's peasants rebellion, with Beijing captured in 1644 and the Chongzhen Emperor, the last Ming emperor, committing suicide. The Manchus allied with the former Ming general Wu Sangui to seize Beijing, which was made the capital of the Qing dynasty, and then proceeded to subdue the Ming remnants in the south. The decades of Manchu conquest caused enormous loss of lives and the economic scale of China shrank drastically. In total, the Qing conquest of the Ming (1618–1683) cost as many as 25 million lives. Nevertheless, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule and were considered a Chinese dynasty.\n\nThe Manchus enforced a 'queue order,' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle. Officials were required to wear Manchu-style clothing Changshan (bannermen dress and Tangzhuang), but ordinary Han civilians were allowed to wear traditional Han clothing, or Hanfu. Most Han then voluntarily shifted to wearing Qipao anyway. The Kangxi Emperor ordered the creation of the Kangxi Dictionary, the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters that had been compiled. The Qing dynasty set up the Eight Banners system that provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. Bannermen could not undertake trade or manual labor; they had to petition to be removed from banner status. They were considered a form of nobility and were given preferential treatment in terms of annual pensions, land, and allotments of cloth.\n\nOver the next half-century, all areas previously under the Ming dynasty were consolidated under the Qing. Xinjiang, Tibet, and Mongolia were also formally incorporated into Chinese territory. Between 1673 and 1681, the Kangxi Emperor suppressed the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, an uprising of three generals in Southern China who had been denied hereditary rule of large fiefdoms granted by the previous emperor. In 1683, the Qing staged an amphibious assault on southern Taiwan, bringing down the rebel Kingdom of Tungning, which was founded by the Ming loyalist Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) in 1662 after the fall of the Southern Ming, and had served as a base for continued Ming resistance in Southern China. The Qing defeated the Russians at Albazin, resulting in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.\n\nBy the end of Qianlong Emperor's long reign, the Qing Empire was at its zenith. China ruled more than one-third of the world's population, and had the largest economy in the world. By area it was one of the largest empires ever.\n\nIn the 19th century the empire was internally stagnant and externally threatened by western powers. The defeat by the British Empire in the First Opium War (1840) led to the Treaty of Nanking (1842), under which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and importation of opium (produced by British Empire territories) was allowed. Subsequent military defeats and unequal treaties with other western powers continued even after the fall of the Qing dynasty.\n\nInternally the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the \"Heavenly King\" Hong Xiuquan, raided roughly a third of Chinese territory for over a decade until they were finally crushed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. This was one of the largest wars in the 19th century in terms of troop involvement; there was massive loss of life, with a death toll of about 20 million. A string of civil disturbances followed, including the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars, Nian Rebellion, Dungan Revolt, and Panthay Rebellion. All rebellions were ultimately put down, but at enormous cost and with many casualties, seriously weakening the central imperial authority. The Banner system that the Manchus had relied upon for so long failed: Banner forces were unable to suppress the rebels, and the government called upon local officials in the provinces, who raised \"New Armies\", which successfully crushed the challenges to Qing authority. China never rebuilt a strong central army, and many local officials became warlords who used military power to effectively rule independently in their provinces. \n\n \nIn response to calamities within the empire and threats from imperialism, the Self-Strengthening Movement was an institutional reform in the second half of the 1800s. The aim was to modernize the empire, with prime emphasis on strengthening the military. However, the reform was undermined by corrupt officials, cynicism, and quarrels within the imperial family. As a result, the \"Beiyang Fleet\" were soundly defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The Guangxu Emperor and the reformists then launched a more comprehensive reform effort, the Hundred Days' Reform (1898), but it was soon overturned by the conservatives under Empress Dowager Cixi in a military coup.\n\nAt the turn of the 20th century, the violent Boxer Rebellion opposed foreign influence in Northern China, and attacked Chinese Christians and missionaries. When Boxers entered Beijing, the Qing government ordered all foreigners to leave. But instead the foreigners and many Chinese were besieged in the foreign legations quarter. The Eight-Nation Alliance sent the Seymour Expedition of Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, American, and Austrian troops to relieve the siege. The Expedition was stopped by the Boxers at the Battle of Langfang and forced to retreat. Due to the Alliance's attack on the Dagu Forts, the Qing government in response sided with the Boxers and declared war on the Alliance. There was fierce fighting at Tientsin. The Alliance formed the second, much larger Gaselee Expedition and finally reached Beijing; the Qing government evacuated to Xi'an. The Boxer Protocol ended the war.\n\nRepublic and People's Republic of China \n\nRepublic of China (1912–1949)\n\nCapitals: Nanjing, Beijing, Chongqing, several short-lived wartime capitals, Taipei \n\nFrustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform and by China's weakness, young officials, military officers, and students began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the creation of a republic. They were inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on 10 October 1911, in Wuhan. The provisional government of the Republic of China was formed in Nanjing on 12 March 1912. The Xinhai Revolution ended 2,000 years of dynastic rule in China.\n\nAfter the success of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, Sun Yat-sen was declared President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai, who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision Sun would later regret). Over the next few years, Yuan proceeded to abolish the national and provincial assemblies, and declared himself emperor in late 1915. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates; faced with the prospect of rebellion, he abdicated in March 1916, and died in June of that year.\n\nYuan's death in 1916 left a power vacuum in China; the republican government was all but shattered. This ushered in the Warlord Era, during which much of the country was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.\n\nIn 1919, the May Fourth Movement began as a response to the terms imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, but quickly became a nationwide protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The protests were a moral success as the cabinet fell and China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which had awarded German holdings to Japan. The New Culture Movement stimulated by the May Fourth Movement waxed strong throughout the 1920s and 1930s. According to Ebrey:\n\"Nationalism, patriotism, progress, science, democracy, and freedom were the goals; imperialism, feudalism, warlordism, autocracy, patriarchy, and blind adherence to tradition were the enemies. Intellectuals struggled with how to be strong and modern and yet Chinese, how to preserve China as a political entity in the world of competing nations.\" \n\nThe discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst leftist Chinese intellectuals led to more radical lines of thought inspired by the Russian Revolution, and supported by agents of the Comintern sent to China by Moscow. This created the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century.\n\nIn the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With assistance from the Soviet Union (themselves fresh from a socialist uprising), he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China. After Sun's death from cancer in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition (1926–1927). Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic, the CPC forces embarked on the Long March across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).\n\nThe bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year-long Japanese occupation of various parts of the country (1931–1945). The two Chinese parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese in 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), which became a part of World War II. Japanese forces committed numerous war atrocities against the civilian population, including biological warfare (see Unit 731) and the Three Alls Policy (Sankō Sakusen), the three alls being: \"Kill All, Burn All and Loot All\". \n\nFollowing the defeat of Japan in 1945, the war between the Nationalist government forces and the CPC resumed, after failed attempts at reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. By 1949, the CPC had established control over most of the country (see Chinese Civil War). Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists told different groups, such as peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and cloaked themselves in the cover of Chinese Nationalism. During the civil war both the Nationalists and Communists carried out mass atrocities, with millions of non-combatants killed by both sides. These included deaths from forced conscription and massacres. When the Nationalist government forces were defeated by CPC forces in mainland China in 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan with its forces, along with Chiang and most of the KMT leadership and a large number of their supporters; the Nationalist government had taken effective control of Taiwan at the end of WWII as part of the overall Japanese surrender, when Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to Republic of China troops. \n\nPeople's Republic of China (since 1949)\n\nMajor combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with Kuomintang (KMT) pulling out of the mainland, with the government relocating to Taipei and maintaining control only over a few islands. The Communist Party of China was left in control of mainland China. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. \"Communist China\" and \"Red China\" were two common names for the PRC. \n\nThe PRC was shaped by a series of campaigns and five-year plans. The economic and social plan known as the Great Leap Forward caused an estimated 45 million deaths. Mao's government carried out mass executions of landowners, instituted collectivisation and implemented the Laogai camp system. Execution, deaths from forced labor and other atrocities resulted in millions of deaths under Mao. In 1966 Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which continued until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society.\n\nIn 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met US president Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations in place of the Republic of China, with permanent membership of the Security Council.\n\nA power struggle followed Mao's death in 1976. The Gang of Four were arrested and blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of a turbulent political era in China. Deng Xiaoping outmaneuvered Mao's anointed successor chairman Hua Guofeng, and gradually emerged as the de facto leader over the next few years.\n\nDeng Xiaoping was the Paramount Leader of China from 1978 to 1992, although he never became the head of the party or state, and his influence within the Party led the country to significant economic reforms. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some as \"market socialism\", and officially by the Communist Party of China as \"Socialism with Chinese characteristics\". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982.\n\nIn 1989 the death of former general secretary Hu Yaobang helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of that year, during which students and others campaigned for several months, speaking out against corruption and in favour of greater political reform, including democratic rights and freedom of speech. However, they were eventually put down on 4 June when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared the square, with many fatalities. This event was widely reported, and brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government. A filmed incident involving the \"tank man\" was seen worldwide.\n\nCPC general secretary and PRC President Jiang Zemin and PRC Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen PRC in the 1990s. Under Jiang and Zhu's ten years of administration, the PRC's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.\n\nAlthough the PRC needs economic growth to spur its development, the government began to worry that rapid economic growth was degrading the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from the PRC's economic development; one example of this is the wide gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, under former CPC general secretary and President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC initiated policies to address issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome was not known . More than 40 million farmers were displaced from their land, usually for economic development, contributing to 87,000 demonstrations and riots across China in 2005. For much of the PRC's population, living standards improved very substantially and freedom increased, but political controls remained tight and rural areas poor."
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In the 90s how many points have been awarded for finishing second in a Grand Prix?
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tc_67
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"A Formula One race or Grand Prix is a sporting event which takes place over three days (usually Friday to Sunday), with a series of practice and qualifying sessions prior to a race on Sunday.\n\nCurrent regulations provide for two free practice sessions on Friday, a morning practice session and an afternoon qualifying session held on Saturday, and the race held on Sunday afternoon or evening, though the structure of the weekend has changed numerous times over the history of the sport.\n\nAt most Formula One race weekends, other events such as races in other FIA series (such as the GP2 Series) are staged.\n\nFree practice sessions\n\nSince 2006, three practice sessions are held before the race; the first on Friday morning and the second on Friday afternoon. Both sessions last one and a half hours. The third session is held on Saturday morning and lasts an hour. A third driver is permitted to take part in the Friday free practice sessions in the place of a regular driver. With testing in the middle of the season banned, many teams will nominate their third driver to take part in the first session. The Monaco Grand Prix traditionally begins on a Thursday, with Friday as a day of rest. Practice sessions for the Singapore and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix take place in the evening as these races are run at night. \n \nQualifying sessions\n\nTraditionally before , qualifying was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday (Thursday at Monaco) afternoon from 13:00 to 14:00 local time, with the second held on Saturday afternoon at the same time. The fastest time set by each driver from either session counted towards his final grid position. Each driver was limited to twelve laps per qualifying session.\n\nIn 1996 qualifying was amended with the Friday qualifying session abolished in a favour for a single qualifying session held on Saturday afternoon. As previously, each driver was limited to twelve laps with the inclusion of a 107% rule to exclude drivers with slow lap times. This was calculated by using the time of the driver on pole position and adding on 7% to create a cut-off time. This format remained until the conclusion of the 2002 season.\n\nBetween and , the qualifying session was run as a one-lap session and took place on Friday and Saturday afternoon with the cars running one at a time.\n\nIn 2003 the Friday running order was determined with the leader of the Drivers' Championship heading out first. The Saturday running order was determined by times set in Friday afternoon qualifying with the fastest heading out last and the slowest running first. No refuelling was allowed between the start of Saturday qualifying and the start of the race, so drivers qualified on race fuel. The lap times from the Friday afternoon session did not determine the grid order.\n\nIn 2004 the Friday session was moved to Saturday. The running order for the first session was now based on the result of the previous race. At first both sessions were held back-to-back, but the first session was later moved earlier in the day.\n\nAt the start of 2005 the sessions were held on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Lap times from both sessions were counted to give the overall aggregate position. From the 2005 European Grand Prix onwards, the Sunday morning session was dropped for a single run on Saturday afternoon having proved unpopular with drivers, teams and broadcasters. The running order was the reverse of the previous race result. \n\nSince , qualifying takes place on Saturday afternoon in a three-stage \"knockout\" system. One hour is dedicated to determining the grid order, divided into three periods with short intermissions between them. \n\nCurrently, the first qualifying period is eighteen minutes long, with all twenty two cars on the circuit. At the end of the period, the six slowest drivers are eliminated, and they fill positions seventeen to twenty two on the grid. Any driver attempting to set a qualifying time when the period ends is permitted to finish his lap, though no new laps may be started once the chequered flag is shown. After a short break, the second period begins, with sixteen cars on the circuit. At the end of the fifteen-minute period, the six slowest drivers are once again eliminated, filling grid positions eleven to sixteen. Finally, the third qualifying period features the ten fastest drivers from the second period. The drivers have twelve minutes to set a qualifying time, which will determine the top ten positions on the grid. The driver who sets the fastest qualifying time is said to be on pole position, the grid position that offers the best physical position from which to start the race. For the first two races of the 2016 season, a modified format was used where drivers were eliminated during the sessions rather than just at the end and only eight drivers progressed to the final session. Qualifying reverted to the previous format from the third race of the season onwards.\n\nDrivers may complete as many laps as they choose. However, the top ten drivers must start the race on the set of tyres they used during their fastest lap time in the second qualifying period. These may only be changed if qualifying and the race are held under different weather conditions, or if a tyre is damaged as a result of an accident. The remaining ten drivers are free to start the race with any tyres they choose.\n\nGenerally, a driver will leave the pits and drive around the track in order to get to the start/finish line (the out-lap). Having crossed the line, they will attempt to achieve the quickest time around the circuit that they can in one or more laps (the flying lap or hot lap). This is the lap time which is used in calculating grid position. Finally, the driver will continue back around the track and re-enter the pit-lane (the in-lap). However, this is merely strategy, and no teams are obliged by the rules to follow this formula.\n\nDNQ\n\nAs of 2016, eleven teams are entered for the Formula One World Championship, each entering two cars for a total of twenty two cars. The regulations place a limit of twenty-six entries for the championship. At some periods in the history of Formula One the number of cars entered for each race has exceeded the number permitted, which historically would vary from race to race according to the circuit used. Monaco, for example, for many years allowed only twenty cars to compete because of the restricted space available. The slowest cars excess to the circuit limit would not qualify for the race and would be list as 'Did Not Qualify' (DNQ) in race results. \n\nPre-qualifying\n\nIn the late 1980s and early 1990s the number of cars attempting to enter each race was as high as thirty-nine for some races. Because of the dangers of having so many cars on the track at the same time, a pre-qualifying session was introduced for the teams with the worst record over the previous six months, including any new teams. Only the four fastest cars from this session were then allowed into the qualifying session proper, where thirty cars competed for twenty-six places on the starting grid for the race. The slowest cars from the pre-qualifying session were listed in race results as 'Did Not Pre-Qualify' (DNPQ). Pre-qualifying was discontinued after 1992 when many small teams withdrew from the sport. \n\n107% rule\n\nAs the number of cars entered in the world championship fell below twenty-six, a situation arose in which any car entered would automatically qualify for the race, no matter how slowly it had been driven. The 107% rule was introduced in to prevent completely uncompetitive cars being entered in the championship. If a car's qualifying time was not within 107% of the pole sitter's time, that car would not qualify for the race, unless at the discretion of the race stewards for a situation such as a rain affected qualifying session. For example, if the pole-sitter's time was one minute and forty seconds, then all cars must set a time within one minute and forty-seven seconds. \n\nThe 107% rule was removed since the FIA's rules indicated previously that 24 cars can take the start of a Formula One race, and a minimum of twenty cars must enter a race. In , the qualifying procedure changed to a single-lap system, rendering the rule inoperable. However, there were concerns about the pace of the new teams in the 2010 season. As the qualifying procedure had been changed since the 2006 season to a three-part knockout system, the rule could now be reintroduced. As such, the 107% rule has been reintroduced for the 2011 Formula One season. Currently, cars have to be within 107% of the fastest Q1 time in order to qualify for the race. \n\nRace \n\nSee Formula One regulations for detailed information on the race start procedure.\n\nThe race itself is held on Sunday afternoon, with the exception of night races at Singapore since 2008 and Bahrain since 2014. \n\nThirty minutes prior to race time, the cars take to the track for any number of warm-up laps (formally known as reconnaissance laps), provided they pass through the pit lane and not the grid, after which they assemble on the starting grid in the order they qualified. At the hour of the race, a green light signifies the beginning of the relatively slow formation lap during which all cars parade around the course doing a final tire warmup and system checks. The cars then return to their assigned grid spot for the standing race start. The starting light system, which consists of five pairs of lights mounted above the start/finish line, then lights up each pair at one-second intervals. Once all five pairs are illuminated, after a random length of time (one to nine seconds), the red lights are turned off by the race director, at which point the race starts. The race length is defined as the smallest number of complete laps that exceeds 305 kilometers (the Monaco Grand Prix is the sole exception with a race length of 78 laps / 260.5 km), though occasionally some races are truncated due to special circumstances. The race can not exceed two hours in length; if this interval is reached the race will be ended at the end of that lap. The only exception is if the race is halted by a Red flag in which case the total time including the red flag stoppage must not exceed 4 hours (since 2012), and the total time excluding the red flag stoppage may not exceed 2 hours. \n\nSince the 2007, teams are supplied by the sole tyre supplier (currently Pirelli which replaced Bridgestone in 2011 ), and receive two different types of slick dry tyre compounds: \"Prime\" tyres (now either the Hard, Medium or Soft compound), and \"Option\" tyres (either the Medium, Soft or Supersoft compound). The Prime tyres are more durable than the Option tyres, however the Option tyres produce faster lap times than the Prime tyres (the Option tyres are said to be one second per lap quicker than the Prime tyres, though this figure varies between circuits). From 2014, drivers who qualify in the top ten must start the race with the tyres they used in the second qualifying session (previously this had been the tyres they used in the final qualifying session); all other drivers have freedom over which tyres they can start with. Each driver is also required to use both types of dry compound during a dry race, and so must make a mandatory pit-stop. Timing pitstops with reference to other cars is crucial - if they are following another car but are unable to pass, the driver may try to stay on the track as long as possible, or pit immediately, as newer tyres are usually faster. Prior to the 2010 season, drivers used to make pitstops for fuel more than once during a race, as the cars on average consumed two kilometres per litre (approximately five miles per gallon)- nowadays this figure is lower, due to changes in engines from 2014. From 2010, refuelling has been forbidden during a race. \n\nAt the end of the race, the first, second and third-placed drivers take their places on a podium, where they stand as the national anthem of the race winner's home country and that of his team is played. Dignitaries from the country hosting the race then present trophies to the drivers and a constructor's trophy to a representative from the winner's team, and the winning drivers spray champagne and are interviewed, often by a former racing driver. The three drivers then go to a media room for a press conference where they answer questions in English and their native languages.\n\nPoints system \n\nPoints are awarded to drivers and teams exclusively on where they finish in a race. The winner receives 25 points, the second-place finisher 18 points, with 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points for positions 3 through 10. If a race has to be abandoned before 75% of the planned distance has been completed all points are halved. In a dead heat, prizes and points are added together and shared equally for all those drivers who tie. The winner of the annual championship is the driver (or team, for the Constructors' Championship) with the most points. If the number of points is the same, priority is given to the driver with more wins. If that is the same it will be decided on the most second places and so on. \n\nHistorically, the races were scored on the basis of a five-place tally: i.e. via an 8–6–4–3–2 scoring system, with the holder of the fastest race lap also receiving a bonus point. In 1961, the scoring was revised to give the winner nine points instead of eight, and the single point awarded for fastest lap was given for sixth place for the first time the previous year. In 1991, the points system was again revised to give the victor 10 points, with all other scorers recording the same 6–4–3–2–1 result. In 2003, the FIA further revised the scoring system to apportion points to the first eight classified finishers (a classified finisher must complete 90% of race distance) on a 10–8–6–5–4–3–2–1 basis.\n\nAt certain periods in Formula One's history, the world champion has been determined by virtue of the \"best 7 scores\" in each \"half\" of the world championship, meaning that drivers have had to \"discard\" lower scores in either half of the season. This was done in order to equalise the footings of teams which may not have had the wherewithal to compete in all events. With the advent of the Concorde Agreements, this practice has been discontinued, though it did feature prominently in several world championships through the 1970s and 1980s.\n\nThe change in the awarding of world championship points has rendered the comparison of historical teams and drivers to current ones largely ineffective. For instance, Michael Schumacher is widely credited with being the most successful GP driver of all time. While his statistics are very impressive and easily outstrip those of his nearest competitor, it is worth noting that his points tally vs points available, and winning percentage of grands prix entered, do not significantly exceed those of Juan Manuel Fangio, whom he recently dethroned as winner of the most World Championships. As with most other sports, it is very difficult to compare stars of different eras owing to the changes in the sport and regulations.\n\nWorldwide appeal \n\nDespite having the highest budget in all of auto racing, Formula One racing has often been accused of being unexciting when compared to less expensive categories. The differences in driver ability are usually dwarfed when compared to the relative speed of the different makes of cars, and on-track overtaking is very rare due to the aerodynamics of trailing cars being adversely affected by the car in front (making overtaking only possible by very risky and thus rarely taken chances, or a much faster car trailing a slower one). So, beginning in the 2011 season F1 adopted 2 new innovations to help with passing/overtaking and to bring a little more excitement to the races. These innovations are \"DRS\" and the \"KERS\" systems. The DRS (Drag Reduction System) allows for one of the horizontal fins/blade on the rear spoiler to be \"lifted\" open which reduces the downforce and increases the race car speed. This system is only operable on straightaways where rear downforce is not as important. The system cannot be activated unless the driver is within (1) second or less behind the car he is trying to pass. The DRS zones on each track are set by the F1 governing body. And although the system on is controlled by computers and timers, the driver has to activate it by pushing a button on the steering wheel when he wants to use it. The \"KERS\" (kinetic energy recovery system) grabs and stores the energy usually lost during braking (which has always been wasted) and stores the energy into the batteries. Again, when allowed and the driver wants to use this system it is a matter of pushing a button and the engine gets another 60-80 horse power for a short time. The system will deplete/discharge this stored energy quickly and the driver has to wait until it gets charged back up. Also the use of electronic driver aids such as semi-automatic gearboxes and traction control has been widely criticized by F1 fans around the globe. Traction control was banned in the 2008 Formula One season.\n\nThe sport is lesser-known in the United States than the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series or their mostly domestic open-wheel racing series, the IndyCar Series, but in terms of budgets and global TV audiences F1 is bigger than both combined.\n\nEstimates for Ferrari's racing budget in 1999 were around 240 million USD, and even tailender Minardi reportedly spent 50 million. Estimates of TV audiences are around 300 million per race.",
"Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton, MBE (born 7 January 1985) is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. He is the , and Formula One World Champion.\n\nIn December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, \"I want to race for you one day ... I want to race for McLaren.\" Less than three years later McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme. After winning the British Formula Renault, Formula Three Euroseries, and GP2 championships on his way up the racing career ladder, he drove for McLaren in 2007, making his Formula One debut 12 years after his initial encounter with Dennis. Hamilton's contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in a Formula One drive.\n\nComing from a mixed background, with a black father and white mother, Hamilton is often labelled \"the first black driver in Formula One\", although Willy T. Ribbs tested a Formula One car in 1986. \n\nIn his first season in Formula One, Hamilton set numerous records while finishing second in the 2007 Formula One Championship, just one point behind Kimi Räikkönen. He won the World Championship the following season in dramatic fashion, becoming the then-youngest Formula One world champion in history before Sebastian Vettel broke the record two years later. Following his second world title in 2014, he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In 2015, he became the first British driver in history to win consecutive F1 titles, and the second Brit to win three titles after Jackie Stewart. He also became the first English driver to reach that milestone. He is the only driver in the history of the sport to have won at least one race in each season he has competed to date, with McLaren from 2007 until 2012, and with Mercedes since 2013. He has more race victories than any other British driver in the history of Formula One and is currently third on the all-time wins list, with wins. \n\nEarly life\n\nHamilton was born on 7 January 1985 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. Although widely reported as being named after American sprinter Carl Lewis, Hamilton states that this is not the case. Hamilton's mother, Carmen (Larbalestier), is white British, while his father, Anthony Hamilton, is black British, making him mixed-race; Anthony Hamilton's parents moved to the UK from Grenada in the 1950s. Lewis Hamilton's parents separated when he was two; as a result of this, he lived with his mother and half-sisters Nicola and Samantha until he was twelve, when he started living with his father, stepmother Linda and half-brother Nicolas, also a professional racing driver, who has cerebral palsy. In early 2011, Nicolas signed with Total Control Racing to start a racing career in the 2011 Renault Clio Cup. Hamilton was raised a Roman Catholic. \n\nHamilton's father bought him a radio-controlled car in 1991, which gave him his first taste of racing competition. Hamilton finished second in the national BRCA championship the following year. He said of the time: \"I was racing these remote-controlled cars and winning club championships against adults\". As a result of this his father bought him his first go-kart as a Christmas present at the age of six. His father told him that he would support his racing career as long as he worked hard at school. Supporting his son became problematic, which caused him to take redundancy from his position as an IT Manager and become a contractor. He was sometimes employed in up to three jobs at a time, while still managing to find enough time to attend all Hamilton's races. He later set up his own computer company as well as working as a full-time manager for Hamilton. Hamilton ended his working relationship with his father in early 2010 and subsequently signed a management deal in March 2011 with Simon Fuller's firm XIX Entertainment. In November 2014, Hamilton announced that he would not be renewing his management contract with Fuller. \n\nHamilton was educated at The John Henry Newman School, a voluntary aided Catholic secondary school in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Alongside his interest for racing, he played association football for his school team with England international midfielder Ashley Young. Hamilton said that if Formula One had not worked for him he would have been a footballer, being a big fan of Arsenal F.C. or a cricketer, having played both for his school teams as a youngster. He subsequently attended, in February 2001, Cambridge Arts and Sciences (CATS), a private sixth-form college in Cambridge. At the age of five Hamilton took up karate to defend himself as a result of bullying at school. At around 12, he learned to ride a unicycle, as part of his karting rivalry with future F1 Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, who could already ride one. \n\nEarly career\n\nKarting\n\nHamilton began karting in 1993 at the age of eight, at the Rye House Kart Circuit and quickly began winning races and Cadet class championships. At the age of ten he approached McLaren F1 team boss Ron Dennis for an autograph, and told him, \"Hi. I'm Lewis Hamilton. I won the British Championship and one day I want to be racing your cars.\" Dennis wrote in his autograph book, \"Phone me in nine years, we'll sort something out then.\" Hamilton drove for Martin Hines's Zip Young Guns Karting Team. From the Cadet ranks, he progressed through to Junior Yamaha (1997) and Ron Dennis actually called him in 1998 after Hamilton won an additional Super One series and his second British championship. Dennis delivered on his promise and signed Hamilton to the McLaren driver development program. This contract included an option of a future F1 seat, which would eventually make Hamilton the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in an F1 drive.\n\nHamilton continued his progress in the Intercontinental A (1999), Formula A (2000) and Formula Super A (2001) ranks, and became European Champion in 2000 with maximum points. In Formula A and Formula Super A, racing for TeamMBM.com, his team mate was Nico Rosberg who would later drive for the Williams and Mercedes teams in Formula One; they would later team up again for Mercedes in 2013. Following his karting successes the British Racing Drivers' Club made him a \"Rising Star\" Member in 2000. \n\nIn 2001, Michael Schumacher made a one-off return to karts and competed against Hamilton along with other future F1 drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nico Rosberg. Hamilton ended the final in seventh, four places behind Schumacher. Although the two saw little of each other on the track Schumacher praised the young Briton (see quote box). \n\nFormula Renault and Formula Three\n\nHamilton began his car racing career in the 2001 British Formula Renault Winter Series. Despite crashing on his third lap in the car in testing, he finished fifth overall in the winter series. This led to a full 2002 Formula Renault UK campaign with Manor Motorsport. Hamilton finished third overall with three wins and three pole positions. He remained with Manor for another year and won the championship with ten wins and 419 points to the two wins and 377 points of his nearest rival, Alex Lloyd. Having clinched the championship, Hamilton missed the last two races of the season to make his debut in the season finale of the British Formula 3 Championship. Here he was less successful: in the first race he was forced out with a puncture, and in the second he crashed out and was taken to hospital after a collision with his team-mate Tor Graves. He did show his speed at both the Macau Grand Prix and Korea Super Prix, in the latter he qualified on pole position in his first visit to the track and in only his fourth F3 race. Asked in 2002 about the prospect of becoming one of the youngest ever Formula One drivers, Hamilton replied that his goal was \"not to be the youngest in F1 ...[but] to be experienced and then show what I can do in F1\".\n\nLater in 2004, Williams would announce that they had come close to signing him but were refused the opportunity due to BMW, their engine supplier at the time, refusing to fund Hamilton's career. Hamilton eventually re-signed with McLaren, and made his debut with Manor in the 2004 Formula 3 Euro Series. They won one race and Hamilton ended the year fifth in the championship. He also won the Bahrain F3 Superprix and raced one of the Macau F3 Grand Prix. Hamilton first tested for McLaren in late 2004 at Silverstone. \n\nHamilton moved to the reigning Euro Series champions ASM for the 2005 season and dominated the championship, winning 15 of the 20 rounds. This would have been 16 but for being disqualified from one win at Spa-Francorchamps on a technical infringement that caught out several other drivers. He also won the Marlboro Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort. After the season British magazine Autosport featured him in their \"Top 50 Drivers of 2005\" issue, ranking Hamilton 24th. \n\nGP2\n\nDue to his success in Formula Three, he moved to ASM's sister GP2 team ART Grand Prix for 2006. Just like their sister team in F3, ART were the leaders of the field and reigning champions having taken the 2005 GP2 crown with Nico Rosberg. Hamilton won the GP2 championship at his first attempt, beating Nelson Piquet, Jr. and Timo Glock.\n\nHis performances included a dominant win at the Nürburgring, despite serving a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. At his home race at Silverstone, supporting the , Hamilton overtook two rivals at Becketts, a series of high-speed (up to 150 mph in a GP2 car) bends where overtaking is rare. In Istanbul he recovered from a spin that left him in eighteenth place to take second position in the final corners. He won the title in unusual circumstances, inheriting the final point he needed after Giorgio Pantano was stripped of fastest lap in the Monza feature race. In the sprint race, though he finished second with Piquet sixth, he finished twelve points clear of his rival. \n\nHis 2006 GP2 championship coincided with a vacancy at McLaren following the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya to NASCAR and Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari. After months of speculation on whether Hamilton, Pedro de la Rosa or Gary Paffett would be paired with defending champion Fernando Alonso for , Hamilton was confirmed as the team's second driver. He was told of McLaren's decision on 30 September, but the news was not made public until 24 November, for fear that it would be overshadowed by Michael Schumacher's retirement announcement. \n\nFormula One career\n\nMcLaren (2007–2012)\n\n2007\n\nIt was announced prior to the start of the season that Hamilton would be partnering defending double World Champion Fernando Alonso who had joined McLaren after leaving Renault. On his debut at the , he finished third in the race, becoming the thirteenth driver to finish on the podium in his first F1 career race (excluding those in the first ever World Championship round). In Bahrain and Barcelona, Hamilton finished second behind Felipe Massa to take the lead in the drivers championship. This meant that Hamilton broke Bruce McLaren's record of being the youngest driver to ever lead the world championship. \n\nHamilton finished second behind Alonso at Monaco and afterwards he suggested he was prevented from racing his team mate. The FIA cleared McLaren following an investigation. Hamilton had both his first pole position and first victory of his F1 career in the in Montreal. A week later Hamilton won the , becoming the first Briton since John Watson in 1983 to win an F1 race in the US, and only the second person, after Jacques Villeneuve, to win more than one race in his rookie Formula One season since the first year of the Championship.\n\nBy finishing third at Magny-Cours behind Ferrari drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa, Hamilton extended his lead in the Driver's Championship to 14 points. In Hamilton's first home Grand Prix at Silverstone he finished third. Having secured this podium finish meant he equalled Jim Clark's record of 9 consecutive podium finishes for a British driver.\n\nDuring qualifying for the , Hamilton crashed at the Schumacher chicane after a problem with the wheel nut caused by the wheel gun used on his car. He was taken to the circuit's medical centre on a stretcher with an oxygen mask and drip, but was conscious throughout. He was unable to complete qualifying and his existing laptime was surpassed by all other competitors during Q3, thus he qualified in tenth position. After a final medical check on Sunday morning, Hamilton was cleared to race. During a heavy rainstorm which caused the race to be red-flagged Hamilton slid off into a gravel trap, however as he kept his engine running he was lifted back on to the circuit and able to rejoin the race after the restart. His ninth-place finish in this race was his first non-podium and non-points finish. Controversially, Hamilton became the first and only driver to have his car recovered by a crane and put back on the track during a Formula One race. This led some to the conclusion Hamilton was getting preferential treatment by the FIA as all other drivers who went off into the gravel were not craned back onto the track. The FIA subsequently banned the use of mechanical assistance to move a car back on track afterwards. \n\nHamilton won the from pole position following a controversial qualifying session. Alonso had set the fastest time, but was relegated five places down the grid to sixth for preventing Hamilton from leaving the pit lane in time to complete his final qualifying lap. After the race Hamilton declared that he had restored his relationship with Alonso. At the Turkish Grand Prix Hamilton suffered a puncture which saw him finish in fifth place. \n\nAlonso beat Hamilton in the Italian and Belgian Grands Prix, leaving Hamilton with a two-point lead in the title race. However he extended his lead to 12 points after winning the in heavy rain after Alonso crashed. Following the race Hamilton was investigated by the race stewards over his involvement in an incident behind the safety car, which saw both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber crash out of the race while following him. The trio were cleared on the Friday of the weekend. \n\nAt the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton started from pole, but failed to finish after McLaren left him out for too long on worn tyres, (despite advice from Bridgestone), and he slid into a gravel trap as he came into the pit lane. Hamilton thus went into the final race of the season four and seven points ahead of Alonso and Räikkönen respectively. \n\nIn the Hamilton finished in seventh place and Räikkönen won, which meant that Hamilton came second in the championship by one point. On the first lap Hamilton was passed by several cars and dropped to eighth place. On the ninth lap of the race Hamilton could not select a gear and ending up coasting for 40 seconds. He recovered to seventh place but Ferrari switched their two drivers allowing the championship to go to Räikkönen. Hamilton took the record of Youngest World Drivers' Championship runner-up, at 22 years and 288 days, previously held by Kimi Räikkönen at 23 years and 360 days (since beaten by Sebastian Vettel in 2009).\n\nOn 21 October 2007 it was announced that the FIA were investigating BMW Sauber and Williams for fuel irregularities, the BMW drivers had finished in fifth and sixth place, and if they were to be excluded Hamilton would be promoted to fifth and would win the 2007 Drivers World Championship by one point over Räikkönen. Ultimately no penalty whatsoever was given to any team as there was \"sufficient doubt as to render it inappropriate to impose a penalty\", though McLaren officially appealed this decision. Hamilton subsequently told the BBC he did not want to win an F1 title through the disqualifications of other drivers. \n\nTeam tensions\n\nHamilton's relationship with McLaren team boss Ron Dennis dates back to 1995, with the first indication that Hamilton was unhappy with his team appearing after he finished second at Monaco in 2007. After post-race comments made by Hamilton which suggested he had been forced into a supporting role, the FIA initiated an inquiry to determine whether McLaren had broken rules by enforcing team orders. McLaren denied favouring double world champion Fernando Alonso, and the FIA subsequently vindicated the team, stating that: \"McLaren were able to pursue an optimum team strategy because they had a substantial advantage over all other cars. They did nothing which could be described as interfering with the race result\".\n\nThe tensions within the team surfaced again at the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix. During the final qualifying session for the race Hamilton was delayed in the pits by Alonso and thus unable to set a final lap time before the end of the session. McLaren pointed out that Hamilton had disobeyed an earlier instruction to let Alonso pass in qualifying, for fear of losing his own position. Alonso was relegated to sixth place on the starting grid, thus elevating Hamilton (who had originally qualified second) to first, while McLaren were docked constructors championship points. Hamilton said he thought Alonso's penalty was \"quite light if anything\" and only regretted the loss of constructors' points. Hamilton was reported to have sworn at Dennis on the team radio following the incident. British motorsport journal Autosport claimed that this \"[led] Dennis to throw his headphones on the pit wall in disgust (a gesture that was misinterpreted by many to be in reaction to Alonso's pole)\". However McLaren later issued a statement on behalf of Hamilton which denied the use of any profanity. As a result of these events, the relationship between Hamilton and Alonso temporarily collapsed, with the pair not on speaking terms for a short period. In the aftermath it was reported that Hamilton had been targeted by Luca di Montezemolo regarding a Ferrari drive for . \n\nFollowing the stewards' investigation into the incident at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, Alonso stated: \"I'm not thinking of this championship any more, it's been decided off the track. The drivers' briefing has no purpose. You go there to hear what Charlie Whiting and the other officials say. Twenty one drivers have an opinion, Charlie and the officials another, and so it's like talking to a wall\". \n\nThe rivalry between Hamilton and teammate Alonso led to speculation that one of the pair would leave McLaren at the end of the 2007 season and Alonso and McLaren subsequently terminated their contract by mutual consent on 2 November 2007. \n\n2008\n\nOn 14 December 2007, it was confirmed that Heikki Kovalainen who drove for Renault in 2007 would drive the second car for McLaren-Mercedes for the 2008 Formula One season alongside Hamilton. In January 2008, Hamilton signed a new five-year multimillion-pound contract to stay with McLaren-Mercedes until the end of the 2012 season. \n\nHamilton won the first race of the 2008 season, the , having qualified on pole position. In Malaysia, he finished fifth after he had started from ninth on the grid, serving a penalty for impeding Nick Heidfeld's qualifying lap. He was back on the podium in Spain finishing third. Hamilton finished second in Turkey, and won the , putting him in the lead of the championship. In Montreal, Hamilton crashed into the back of Räikkönen during the race, after failing to see that the Finn was waiting at a red light at the end of the pit lane as the whole field went past under the guide of the safety car. Both cars were forced to retire and Hamilton was given a 10 position grid penalty for the next race, the . Despite an error in qualifying that saw him start fourth on the grid, Hamilton went on to win the in difficult, wet conditions. His performance was stated as being one of his best drives to date. Hamilton himself said in the post race press conference that it was his most difficult and most meaningful win. In the next race at Hockenheim, Hamilton won the race despite a tactical blunder by the team. \n\nHamilton won the , however he was later judged to have gained an unfair advantage by cutting a chicane when he used a tarmac run off area to avoid hitting Kimi Räikkönen. McLaren said that their telemetry showed Hamilton backed off to let Räikkönen past but Hamilton was given a 25-second penalty, thereby dropping him to third. As a result, his main title rival Massa inherited the win. Hamilton's lead in the Drivers' Championship was cut to two points, and a subsequent appeal by McLaren to the FIA World Motor Sport Council was rejected on the grounds that the case was inadmissible. \n\nThe Italian Grand Prix saw Hamilton finish in seventh place. This result cut Hamilton's lead in the Championship to one point. Hamilton finished third at the next race in Singapore, while Massa failed to score any points, allowing Hamilton to increase his championship lead to seven points. At Fuji, Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for forcing other cars off the track when he made an error on the first lap. Before he could serve the penalty Hamilton attempted to pass Massa who hit him after the Ferraris driver made a mistake. Massa was later given a drive-through penalty for this move. Hamilton could only finish in 12th position, however Massa finished seventh after being given an extra point after a penalty was given to Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais. This meant that with just two races to go Hamilton led the World Championship by five points from Massa. At the , Hamilton won the race from Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen, taking a 7-point lead in the World Championship into the last race of the season. Speaking afterwards, Hamilton said \"All weekend we have had God on our side as always, and the team did a phenomenal job in preparing the car, which has been a dream to drive.\" \n\nAt the , Hamilton needed to finish at least in fifth position if Massa won the race to secure the World Championship. In mixed conditions, Hamilton became the youngest Formula One World Champion as he snatched the championship on the very last corner. Just before the race began a rain shower hit and Hamilton ran in fourth place before dropping down to sixth to put on dry weather tyres. Hamilton moved back to fourth place after passing Fisichella and overtaking the three stopping Vettel. Hamilton held Vettel off and after they pitted for wet weather tyres as another shower he was fifth. But with two laps to go Vettel overtook Hamilton and the Brit could not get back past, but on the final lap he and Vettel made up an eighteen-second gap on Glock who had stayed out on dry tyres and Hamilton overtook him for fifth place and the championship by one point in the very last corner as Massa won the race. This meant that Hamilton had clinched the 2008 Formula One World Championship, becoming the youngest driver to win the title, as well as the first black driver. He is also the first British driver to win the World Championship since Damon Hill triumphed in 1996. \n\nRacial abuse\n\nOn 4 February 2008, Hamilton was verbally heckled and otherwise abused during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Catalonia by several Spanish spectators who wore black face paint and black wigs, as well as shirts bearing the words \"Hamilton's \". Hamilton became widely unpopular in Spain because of his rivalry with Spanish former team-mate Fernando Alonso. The FIA have warned Spanish authorities about the repetition of such behaviour. In reaction to this behaviour, the FIA announced on 13 February 2008 that it will launch a \"Race Against Racism\" campaign. \n\nShortly before the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, a website owned by the Spanish branch of the New York-based advertising agency TBWA and named \"pinchalaruedadeHamilton\" (burst Hamilton's tyre) was featured in the British media. The website contained an animated image of Interlagos that allowed users to leave nails and porcupines on the track for Hamilton's car to run over. Among thousands of comments left since 2007, some included racial insults. His rival Fernando Alonso condemned the racist supporters. \n\n2009\n\nHamilton started the season-opening from 18th place on the grid after the McLaren team incurred a penalty for changing his gearbox during qualifying. Hamilton benefited from a late crash between Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica to move into fourth place by the end of the race. He was then promoted to third after Jarno Trulli was penalised for overtaking him under safety-car conditions. During a post-race stewards' hearing, Hamilton and McLaren officials told stewards they had not purposely let Trulli pass, but it was revealed by release of the McLaren race radio communication that this was not true. Hamilton was then disqualified from the race for providing \"misleading evidence\" during the stewards' hearing. He later privately apologised to FIA race director Charlie Whiting for having lied to the stewards. He went on to describe the incident as the hardest week of his life, and considered quitting Formula One. \n\nHamilton scored minor points at the Malaysian, Chinese and Bahrain Grands Prix. Hamilton's fortunes were reversed at the Hungaroring, the tenth round of the season where he won the race, 11.529 seconds clear of Räikkönen to take his 10th career win and the first for a KERS-equipped car. McLaren's return to form continued in Valencia, where Hamilton finished second. In , Hamilton took his second win of the season. He finished third at the Japanese and Brazilian Grands Prix. In the inaugural , Hamilton led the race, but retired on lap 20 due to a rear brake problem, his first technical-related retirement in Formula One.\n\n2010\n\nFor the new season Hamilton would drive alongside Jenson Button, after Heikki Kovalainen moved to Lotus Racing. \n\nHamilton finished third in Bahrain, In Australia, Hamilton ended the race in sixth place, after a late-race collision with Mark Webber. In Malaysia a misjudgement on the weather by his team in qualifying, left him on tyres that were unfavourable for the wet conditions. This restricted him to 20th on the grid for the race, but he made his way through the field to finish in sixth place. Hamilton was given a warning during the race, after he weaved four times on a straight as he tried to break the tow that Vitaly Petrov was receiving and was not intending to block him. After the race the rules were clarified by stewards to only allow a driver to make one move during an overtaking manoeuvre.\n\nHamilton achieved a second-place finish in China behind Jenson Button. This completed McLaren's first 1–2 finish since the 2007 Italian Grand Prix. Hamilton was involved in a pit lane incident with Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel, for which both later received a reprimand from race stewards. In Monaco Hamilton qualified and finished 5th. In the Grand Prix, Hamilton claimed his first victory of the 2010 season as he and Button completed a 1–2. Hamilton qualified on pole for the , continuing a 100% pole record at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. After setting his pole lap, Hamilton received instructions from his team to stop on circuit due to a lack of fuel in the car which would not be equivalent to the level necessary for a sample to be taken by the FIA. Hamilton was reprimanded after failing to complete his in-lap in a sufficient time, while his team received a $10,000 fine. But Hamilton went on to win the race and take the lead in the Drivers' Championship after McLaren's third 1–2 of the season. In Valencia Alonso complained on his radio that Hamilton had gained an advantage by not following the safety car which led to the stewards giving Hamilton a drive through penalty. However Alonso and the Ferrari were furious as the length of time to make a decision meant that the penalty did not alter the result of the race as Hamilton finished second. This led to Hamilton to accuse Alonso of \"sour grapes\", although the pair reconciled before the next race. \n\nHe finished second at his home race at Silverstone, and followed it up with fourth at the . Despite running into the gravel at Spa-Francorchamps, Hamilton won his third race of the season and reclaimed the championship lead. At the , Hamilton finished fifth. In South Korea, Hamilton finished second and finished fourth at the . In the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi Hamilton finished second to Vettel in the race, who broke Hamilton's record for being the youngest ever Formula One World Champion.\n\n2011\n\nAt the start of the 2011 season Hamilton dismissed Red Bull Racing as \"just a drinks company\". Hamilton began the season qualifying and finishing second in the , despite having to deal with a damaged floor on his McLaren. In the , he qualified second and finished seventh on-the-road, struggling partly due to tyre wear and being tagged by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the closing stages. Hamilton received a 20-second time penalty post-race for weaving whilst defending and unsuitable driving, which dropped Hamilton to eighth place. Hamilton took his first win of the season in China. He then finished fourth in Turkey, and second in Spain. \n\nIn Monaco, he qualified tenth after Q3 was red-flagged before he could set a competitive time due to a heavy crash from Sergio Pérez. During the race Hamilton received a drive through penalty after he bumped into Massa at the Hotel Harpin. Later on, Alguersuari crashed into Hamilton, breaking his rear wing; the race was red-flagged as Petrov crashed at the same time allowing his team to fix the car. On the restart he had a collision with Maldonado at Sainte Devote, which later he was given a 20-second time penalty for but it did not affect his finishing position. In an interview with the BBC Hamilton, said that he had been to the stewards five races out of six thus far in the season and felt victimised. When prompted why he had been to the stewards so much Hamilton replied \"Maybe it's because I'm black. That's what Ali G says.\" He later returned to the stewards and explained the joke and escaped further punishment. \n\nAt the , Hamilton collided with Webber at the first corner before rejoining behind his team mate. A few laps later Hamilton tried to capitalise on a mistake attempted to pass teammate Button who pushed the former into the pitwall causing Hamilton to retire with a broken driveshaft, both agreed that it was one of those things. In Valencia and Silverstone Hamilton finished fourth after holding off Massa whilst managing high tyre wear in the former and conserve fuel in the later. In Germany, Hamilton took his second victory of 2011 as he held off Webber and Alonso. In Hungary Hamilton had five pitstops and a drive-through penalty for sending Paul di Resta onto the grass as he finished fourth. He finished fourth at Monza after a race long battle with Michael Schumacher, who he refused to blame the German after his aggressive tactics. \n\nIn , Hamilton caused an accident with Felipe Massa which left Hamilton needing a new front wing and a drive through penalty. Hamilton was accused by Massa of being \"incapable of using his brain,\" during a post race interview. Whilst the pair conducted interviews, Massa grabbed Hamilton's shoulder saying \"Good job, man, well done\" which Hamilton responded by telling the Brazilian to leave him alone. Before the Japanese Grand Prix Hamilton insisted that he had not done anything wrong during the season. During the race Hamilton suffered a puncture before once again tangling with Massa; despite Ferrari pushing for Hamilton to be punished, Hamilton escaped a reprimand as he finished fifth. Hamilton later told Massa to \"grow up\", after admitting that his Formula One career had driven over a cliff. \n\nIn Korea, Hamilton qualified on pole position, ending a run of 16 consecutive pole positions for Red Bull. He led only until turn four on lap 1, where World Champion Sebastian Vettel overtook him and went on to win the race as Hamilton finished second. At the inaugural race in India, Hamilton recorded the second-fastest time in qualifying, but was penalised three places on the starting grid, after a yellow flag infraction in Friday practice. Hamilton finished seventh after yet another incident with Massa which left the Brazilian facing the penalty as Hamilton had to replace the front wing. In Abu Dhabi, Hamilton qualified second and won the race. In Brazil Hamilton and Massa ended their feud as he retired from the race and finish fifth overall in the championship. \n\n2012\n\nHamilton remained at McLaren alongside Button for the 2012 season. Hamilton qualified in pole position for the , but finished third after being passed by Button at the start, and by Vettel after pitting before a safety car. Hamilton again qualified on pole for the , but in the race was passed early on by Fernando Alonso and Sergio Pérez, finishing third. Hamilton took his third consecutive third-place finish in China, with Nico Rosberg and Button ahead. Hamilton qualified in second place in Bahrain, but during the race, a series of poor pitstops put him out of contention, and he finished eighth. Hamilton was also involved in a controversial racing incident with Rosberg, with Rosberg appearing to push Hamilton off track while he attempted to overtake. Hamilton qualified on pole position for the , but had to stop the car on track in order for a reputable fuel sample to be given post-qualifying. The stewards decided he had breached qualifying rules introduced after a similar incident involving Hamilton at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix. Race stewards excluded him from the qualifying results, and demoted him to the back of the grid; but despite this, Hamilton finished eighth, ahead of Button, who had started in tenth.\n\nHamilton achieved his first victory of the season at the – winning the race for the third time – after overtaking Fernando Alonso in the closing stages. \n\nHamilton won the on 29 July 2012 to claim his second win of the season. Hamilton, along with championship leader Fernando Alonso, retired from the after being involved in a multiple car accident on the first corner of the race. Romain Grosjean was deemed responsible for causing the accident and was given a one-race ban. Hamilton bounced back with pole position for the , and led for the majority of the race to claim his third victory of the season and keep his hopes of winning the Drivers' Championship alive. Hamilton again qualified on pole at the , but suffered a gearbox failure whilst leading the race. He also retired from the lead of the , before he won the in Austin. Hamilton's season ended with another pole position and retirement in the Brazilian GP, when he was involved in a collision with Nico Hülkenberg while leading in the late stages.\n\nMercedes (2013–present)\n\n2013\n\nOn 28 September 2012, it was announced after much speculation that Hamilton would be leaving McLaren after the 2012 season to join the Mercedes-Benz works team for the season onwards, partnering Nico Rosberg after signing a three-year contract with the team. \n\nIn his first race weekend for Mercedes, the , Hamilton qualified in third and ended the race in fifth place. Hamilton finished third in Malaysia to take his first podium for the team, although Nico Rosberg was prevented from attempting to overtake him by team orders. At the following race in China, Hamilton secured his first pole position for Mercedes.\n\nAt Monaco after being out-qualified by his team-mate Rosberg for the third successive race, Hamilton admitted that he was struggling to control the car under braking. Prior to the race, both Red Bull and Ferrari had lodged formal complaints against Mercedes for taking part in what was determined to be an illegal 1000 km tyre test. Neither Mercedes drivers received any punishment for the breach of rules, and Mercedes was given a reprimand.\n\nAt the , Hamilton secured his first race win as a Mercedes driver, the first British driver to win a Formula One race in a Mercedes works car since Stirling Moss did so at the 1955 British Grand Prix, at Silverstone. He won the race from an unexpected pole position, eventually crossing the line nearly 11 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Kimi Räikkönen. By winning the Hungarian Grand Prix, Hamilton continued his personal record of winning at least one race prior to the mid-season break, and went into the summer break in the fourth place in the Drivers' Championship. At the he secured his fifth and last pole position of the season and finished the race third. Although he did not score any podiums for the rest of the season, a string of point finishes helped him end the season in fourth place.\n\n2014\n\nA new rule for the 2014 season allowed the drivers to pick a unique car number that they will use for their entire career. Hamilton picked No. 44, the same number he used during his karting days. \n\nDuring pre-season testing in Jerez, Hamilton along with Mercedes team-mate Rosberg showed themselves as the team to beat. This was realised at the where Hamilton took pole. He was forced to retire, but Rosberg dominated to win by over 20 seconds. In Malaysia, Hamilton's potential was realised when he won from pole in a Mercedes one-two, the first since . In Bahrain, Mercedes were unstoppable with Rosberg claiming pole in a Mercedes front-row lock-out. Hamilton got a better start but still battled hard with Rosberg through the early part of the race. Mercedes chose split strategies for their drivers, and Hamilton opened up a gap on the faster option tyres. But the safety car was called out after Esteban Gutiérrez rolled his Sauber. Hamilton was forced to battle Rosberg in a gripping race to the finish with tight wheel-to-wheel racing. In the end Hamilton won, taking consecutive victories for the first time since the season, when he won in Turkey and Canada. \t\n\nMercedes's dominance was further confirmed in China where Hamilton took pole and then led every lap of the race while his teammate finished in second place. This completed a hat-trick of wins, the first of Hamilton's career. Mercedes continued to dominate in Spain where Hamilton once again set pole position and went on to win the race – his fourth successive win – despite close competition from team-mate Nico Rosberg who finished in second place. At Monaco, Hamilton qualified 2nd behind Rosberg. Rosberg was investigated by the stewards after he went down the escape road at the Mirabeau corner. The resulting yellow flags forced Hamilton to back off in the final moments of the session, which could have cost Hamilton a chance at pole position. Rosberg was cleared of any wrongdoing in that incident. Rosberg won the race with Hamilton finishing 2nd. During qualifying for the , Hamilton had a brake failure and started 20th but managed to finish 3rd. An engine fire in qualifying for the meant he would start from the pit lane from where he again managed to climb to third ahead of Rosberg, despite being ordered by his race engineer to let his teammate past. \n\nAt the first race after the summer break in Belgium, Hamilton took the lead from Rosberg at the start but a collision between them on lap two punctured his rear tyre and he later retired from the race. He then won the Italian, and Singapore Grands Prix each from pole to take the lead in the Drivers' Championship. This was followed by victories at the – which was stopped due to heavy rain – the Russian and United States Grands Prix to achieve five consecutive victories for the first time in his career. His tenth victory of the season was also his 32nd career victory, the most of any British driver. Hamilton became the World Champion after winning the , beating team mate Rosberg by 67 points, after Rosberg's car encountered mechanical trouble during the race. Hamilton said in the podium interview \"This is the greatest day of my life\". At the end of the year, Hamilton was awarded with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. \n\n2015\n\nHamilton enjoyed a continuation of Mercedes's dominance heading into the season, as the new W06 Hybrid completed more laps in pre-season testing than any rival car, and did so using just one power unit. At the opening race in Australia, Hamilton qualified in pole position, 0.594 seconds quicker than team-mate Rosberg and 1.391 seconds clear of Felipe Massa's Williams in third. Hamilton then won the race ahead of Rosberg in second, with Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari in third, 34 seconds back. In Monaco he lost first position to his team mate Rosberg after leading the race for 65 laps due to a pit-stop error made by his team, eventually finishing third.\n\nAhead of the Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes announced they had extended the contract with Hamilton for three additional years, keeping him at the squad until the end of the 2018 season. This followed months of widely publicised contract talks between the driver, who chose to negotiate on his own behalf, and the team. The deal is reportedly worth more than 100 million pounds over the full three years, making Hamilton one of the best paid drivers in Formula One. It was also reported that the extension contract granted Hamilton the right to maintain his own image rights, which is considered unusual in the sport, and keep his championship winning cars as well as the trophies he collects. \n\nAfter a win-less start to the European round, Hamilton went on to win the British Grand Prix for the second time in a row and third overall, also surpassing Jackie Stewart's 45-year-old record of laps led in eighteen consecutive Grands Prix. He finished 6th in an eventful Hungarian Grand Prix, ending his run of 16 consecutive podium finishes, the second-longest in F1 history. Hamilton won the next two races at Spa and Monza and extended his championship lead over Nico Rosberg, who was forced to retire in the latter race due to engine failure, to 53 points. At the Singapore Grand Prix, Hamilton was only able qualify in 5th ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg, and had moved up to 4th in the race before he was forced to retire due to a power unit issue. By winning the United States Grand Prix, Hamilton secured his third Drivers' Championship with three races left to run. \n\n2016\n\nJust before the season opener in Australia, Hamilton was pictured riding a motorcycle in New Zealand on the public road whilst using a mobile phone, against the law. Though urged by triple world champion Jackie Stewart to apologise, Hamilton refused to comment on the incident. At the season opening Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton qualified on pole however made a poor start to the race before recovering to finish second behind his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. In the second race of the season, the Bahrain Grand Prix, Hamilton again qualified on pole. On the first lap however there was a collision between him and Bottas with Bottas getting a drive-through penalty. Hamilton finished the race in third behind Rosberg and Räikkönen. In the next race, the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton did not set a time in qualifying so started at the back of the grid. He got as high up fifth but was overtaken by Räikkönen and Ricciardo near the end of the race to finish seventh. In the fourth race of the season, the Russian Grand Prix, Hamilton did not set a time in the third part of qualifying so he started in tenth. Hamilton came second behind Rosberg despite having zero water pressure for the last 16 laps. In the next race in Spain, Hamilton qualified on pole. On the opening lap a collision between Hamilton and Rosberg meant that both Mercedes cars retired instantly. The stewards decided that the collision was a racing incident. On 3 July 2016, Hamilton went on to win the Austrian Grand Prix despite having a last lap collision with Rosberg. On 10 July 2016, Hamilton completed a hat-trick of home wins by triumphing in the British Grand Prix to cut his Mercedes team-mate's championship lead to just one point. \n\nHelmet\n\nHamilton's helmet was made yellow so that his father could tell which kart his son was driving back in his karting days. Hamilton chose the colours blue, green and red and they were originally in a ribbon design; however before entering F1, Hamilton felt that the design was \"a bit old hat\" so it was changed. In later years a white ring was added and the ribbons moved forward to make room for adverts and logos. \n\nDuring the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton had an altered helmet design with the addition of a roulette wheel image on the top. Hamilton had said, \"I'll also be wearing a specially-painted helmet for the occasion. When you see it, you'll know why I'll be hoping for it to swing the odds in my favour.\" \n\nHamilton's helmet underwent one major change during his F1 career. From his debut in 2007 until 2010 his helmet was yellow with a metallic green ribbon on the upper visor and a metallic blue ribbon on the lower visor (these being visually near identical to the helmet of Ayrton Senna, apart from the fact that their designs did not loop all around the back of the helmet, but were cut off either side of the helmet.) It furthermore featured a bright red diagonal patch where these stripes bordered the visor. The yellow however was not a rich, sunburst yellow like Senna's helmet but was a whiter, pastel yellow.\n\nFrom 2011 onwards Hamilton's helmet was changed whereby it no longer resembled Senna's helmet as much as it had done. The green and blue ribbons were changed to the diagonal style of the red patch, with a single red stripe behind the helmet with the letters \"Hamilton\" printed within it.\n\nFor the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix, Hamilton wore a special helmet that was a fusion of his post 2011 helmet, and that of Ayrton Senna. The helmet was auctioned after the race in aid of the Ayrton Senna Foundation. \n\nRacing record\n\nCareer summary\n\n* Season still in progress.\n\nComplete Formula 3 Euro Series results\n\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete GP2 Series results\n\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete Formula One results\n\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\n* Season still in progress.\n Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.\n Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed.\n\nFormula One records\n\nHamilton holds the following Formula One records:\n\n;Footnotes:\n\nPersonal life\n\nIn October 2007, Hamilton announced his intention to live in Switzerland, stating that this was because he wished to get away from the media scrutiny that he experienced living in the United Kingdom. Hamilton admitted under questioning on the television show Parkinson, which was broadcast on 10 November 2007, that taxation was partly responsible for his decision, in addition to wanting more privacy. Hamilton received public criticism from UK MPs including Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell for avoiding UK taxes. He settled in Luins in Vaud canton on Lake Geneva; other Formula One drivers, including world champions Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso, also live in Switzerland. Hamilton was one of several super-rich figures whose tax arrangements were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008. \n\nIn November 2007, Hamilton started dating Nicole Scherzinger, the lead singer of the American girl band Pussycat Dolls; it was announced in January 2010 that they split up to focus on their respective careers. However, they were seen together at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix and at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, on 13 June 2010. The couple split up and reunited numerous times between 2011 and 2013, but appeared to have got back together in November 2013. They split up again in February 2015. \t\n\nAt the start of 2012, he moved his personal residence from Switzerland to Monaco, which is also a tax haven. \n\nAt the start of 2013, Hamilton took delivery of a metallic red and black Bombardier Challenger 600 series private jet, tail plate number G-LCDH. \n\nHamilton was awarded an MBE by the Queen in the 2009 New Year Honours. \n\nOn 18 March 2009, Madame Tussauds unveiled a waxwork of Hamilton in his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes race suit. This wax replica cost around £150,000 and took over six months to complete. In 2012, Hamilton featured in the cartoon Tooned, alongside Jenson Button and comedian Alexander Armstrong.\n\nOn 18 December 2007, Hamilton was suspended from driving in France for a month after being caught speeding at 196 km/h on a French motorway. His Mercedes-Benz CLK was also impounded.\n\nTwo days before the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, Victoria Police witnessed Hamilton \"deliberately losing traction\" in his silver Mercedes-AMG C63, and impounded the car for 48 hours. Hamilton immediately released a statement of apology for \"driving in an over-exuberant manner\". After being charged with intentionally losing control of a vehicle, Hamilton was eventually fined A$500 (£288), being described as a \"Hoon\" [boy racer] by the magistrate. \n\nHamilton is a fan of art; one of his favourite artists is Andy Warhol. Prior to the 2014 United States Grand Prix, Hamilton wore a gold-framed version of Warhol's Cars, Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Coupe painting hanging from a chain around his neck.\n\nOne of Hamilton's favourite cars is the AC Cobra. He owns two unrestored 1967 models, one black and one red. In February 2015, it was reported that Hamilton had purchased a Ferrari LaFerrari from \"his rivals in Maranello.\" \n\nHamilton has an estimated personal fortune of £88m.",
"In motorsport the pole position is the position at the inside of the front row at the start of a racing event. This position is typically given to the vehicle and driver with the best qualifying time in the trials before the race (the leader in the starting grid). This number-one qualifying driver is referred to as the pole sitter.\n\nGrid position is typically determined by a qualifying session prior to the race, where race participants compete to ascend to the number 1 grid slot, the driver, pilot, or rider having recorded fastest qualification time awarded the advantage of the number 1 grid slot (i.e. pole-position) ahead of all other vehicles for the start of the race. \n\nHistorically, the fastest qualifier was not necessarily the designated pole-sitter. Different sanctioning bodies in motor sport employ different qualifying formats in designating who starts from pole position. Often, a starting grid is derived either by current rank in the championship, or based on finishing position of a previous race. In particularly important events where multiple qualification attempts spanned several days, the qualification result was segmented or staggered, by which session a driver qualified, or by which particular day a driver set his qualification time, only drivers having qualified on the initial day eligible for pole position. In a phenomenon known as race rigging, where race promoters or sanctioning bodies invert their starting grid for the purpose of entertainment value (e.g., pack racing; to artificially stimulate passing), the slowest qualifier would be designated as pole-sitter. \n\nIn contrast to contemporary motorsport, where only a race participant is designated pole-sitter, prior to World War II, once upon a time the pace car was designated as official pole-sitter for the Indianapolis 500.\n\nOrigin\n\nThe term has its origins in horse racing, in which the fastest qualifying horse would be placed on the inside part of the course, next to the pole.\n\nFormula One\n\nOriginally in Grand Prix racing, grid positions, including pole, were determined by lottery among the drivers. Prior to the inception of the Formula 1 World Championship, the first instance of grid positions being determined by qualifying times was at the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix. Since then, the FIA have introduced many different qualifying systems to F1. From the long-standing one session on Friday and Saturday, to the current knockout style qualifying leaving 10 out of 22 drivers to battle for pole, there have been many changes to qualifying systems. Between 1996 and 2006, the FIA made 6 significant changes to the qualifying procedure, each with the intention of making the battle for pole more interesting to an F1 viewer at home.\n\nTraditionally, pole was always occupied by the fastest driver due to low-fuel qualifying. The race-fuel qualifying era between 2003 and 2009 briefly changed this. Despite the changing formats, drivers attempting pole were required between 2003 and 2009 to do qualifying laps with the fuel they would use to start the race the next day. An underfuelled slower car and driver would therefore be able to take pole ahead of a better but heavier-fueled car. In this situation, pole was not always advantageous to have in the race as the under-fueled driver would have to pit for more fuel before their rivals. With the race refueling ban introduced, low-fuel qualifying returned and these strategy decisions are no longer in play.\n\nAlso, when F1 enforced the 107% rule between 1996 and 2002, a driver's pole time might affect slower cars also posting times for qualifying, as cars that could not get within 107% of the pole time were disqualified for the race. Since the reintroduction of the rule in 2011, this only applies to the quickest first session (Q1) time, not the pole time.\n\nFIA Pole Trophy\n\nSince 2014, the FIA has awarded a trophy to the driver who wins the most pole positions in the season. \n\n(WC) indicates that the driver won the World Championship in the same season.\n\nIndyCar\n\nIndyCar uses four formats for qualifying: one for most oval tracks, one for Iowa Speedway, one for the Indianapolis 500, and another for road and street circuits. Oval qualifying is almost like the Indianapolis 500, with two laps, instead of four, averaged together with one attempt, although with just one session.\n\nAt Iowa, each car takes one qualifying lap, and the top six cars advance to the feature race for the pole position. Positions from 7th onward are assigned to their races, based on time, with cars in the odd-numbered finishing order starting in one race, and cars in the even-numbered finishing order starting in the second race. The finishing order for the odd-numbered race starts on the inside, starting in Row 6 (11th), and even-numbered race on the outside based on finishing position, again from Row 6 (12th), except for the top two in each race, which start in the inside and outside, respectively (Row 4 and 5) of the race for the pole position. The result of the feature race determines positions 1–10. All three races are 50 laps.\n\nOn road and street courses, cars are drawn randomly into two qualifying groups. After each group has one twenty-minute session, the top six cars from each group qualify for a second session. The cars that finished seventh or worse are lined up by their times, with the best of these times starting 13th. The twelve remaining cars run a 15-minute session, after which the top six cars move on to a final 10-minute session to determine positions one through six on the grid.\n\nThe Iowa format was instituted in 2012 with major modifications (times set based on open qualifying session in second practice, positions 11th and back in odd positions raced in the inside heat, positions 12th and back in even positions raced in the outside heat, and positions 1–10 raced for the pole, each heat 30 laps), and non-Iowa oval format in August 2010, while the Indianapolis format was in 2010. The road course format was installed for 2008. In prior seasons, oval qualifying ran for four laps, Indianapolis-style, from 2008, and previously two laps with the best lap used for qualification. Street and road circuits used a two-phase format similar to oval qualifying except that cars took one qualifying lap, then the top six advanced to the ten-minute session for the pole.\n\nIndianapolis 500\n\nThe pole position for the Indianapolis 500 is determined on the first day (or first full round) of time trials. Cars run four consecutive laps (10 miles), and the total elapsed time on the four laps determines the positioning. The fastest car on the first day of time trials wins the pole position. Times recorded in earlier days (rounds) start ahead of subsequent days (rounds). A driver could record a time faster than that of the pole winner on a subsequent day; however he will be required to line up behind the previous day(s)' qualifiers.\n\nStarting in 2010, the first day is split into Q1 and Q2. At the end of Q1, positions 10–24 are set. The top nine cars will then have their times wiped out and advance to Q2 where cars will have 90 minutes to run for pole. If inclement weather causes officials to cancel Q2, positions 1–24 are set. If inclement weather in Q1 is early where Q2 is late (past 6 PM usually), drivers will have only one attempt in Q2.\n\nGrand Prix motorcycle racing\n\nSince , there has been one hour-long session on Saturday where the riders have an unlimited number of laps to record a fast lap time. Simply, the rider with the fastest lap gains pole position for the race.\n\nIn a new format was introduced whereby qualifying is conducted over two 15-minute sessions labelled Q1 and Q2. The fastest 10 riders over combined practice times advance automatically to Q2, while the rest of the field compete in Q1. At the conclusion of Q1 the fastest 2 riders progress to Q2 with a chance to further improve their grid position\n\nTop ten riders in Grand Prix motorcycle racing with most pole positions\n\nNASCAR\n\nBefore 2001, NASCAR used a two-day qualifying format in its national series. Before 2002 only one lap was run on oval tracks except short tracks and restrictor plate tracks. Until 2014, the pole position has been determined by a two-lap time trial (one lap on road courses) with the faster lap time used as the driver's qualifying speed. In 2014, NASCAR used a knockout qualifying format for all races except the Daytona 500, non-points races, and the Camping World Truck Series' Mudsummer Classic: after a 25-minute session (on tracks longer than ; tracks shorter than 1.25 miles have a 30-minute session), the 24 fastest cars advance to a ten-minute session, with the top 12 advancing to a final five-minute session. Starting in 2003, if a driver's team changed their car's engine after the qualifying segment was over, the car would be relegated to the rear of the 43-car field. In the case of multiple teams changing engines on the same weekend after a qualifying segment (although this is a rare occurrence), qualifying times from that segment are used to determine the starting order for those cars.\n\nIn the Mudsummer Classic, two-lap qualifying runs are held, which determine the starting grids for five heat races of eight laps each. The top five fastest qualifiers started on pole for each heat, and the winner of the first heat is awarded the pole for the feature race. \n\nTop ten most Sprint Cup Series pole positions\n\nRadio-controlled racing\n\nIn radio-controlled car racing, the term Top Qualifier (TQ) is used to determine the fastest qualifying driver, usually over a two-day, five/six rounds qualifying sessions, depending on the overall duration of the event. The result is determined by the best half of the driver's performance. As the event bring in over 100 entrants, the fastest driver is guaranteed directly a place in front of the A-main final, the group that carries a chance of being the overall winner. The slower drivers are allocated a spot to compete in their groups to determine the overall positions."
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Stapleton international airport is in which US state?
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tc_68
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Stapleton International Airport was the primary airport serving Denver, Colorado, United States from 1929 to 1995. At different times it served as a hub for Continental Airlines, the original Frontier Airlines, People Express, Trans World Airlines, (TWA), United Airlines and Western Airlines. Other airlines with smaller hub operations at Stapleton included Aspen Airways, the current version of Frontier Airlines and Rocky Mountain Airways with all three of these air carriers being based in Denver at the time. \n\nIn 1995, Stapleton was replaced by Denver International Airport. It has since been decommissioned and the property redeveloped as a retail and residential neighborhood.\n\nHistory\n\nStapleton opened on October 17, 1929, as Denver Municipal Airport. Its name became Stapleton Airfield after a 1944 expansion, in honor of Benjamin F. Stapleton, the city's mayor most of the time from 1923 to 1947, and the force behind the project when it began in 1928. Concourse A, the original building from 1929, was still in use when the airport closed. The airport was created by Ira Boyd Humphreys in 1919.\n\nThe March 1939 Official Aviation Guide shows nine weekday departures: seven United and two Continental. The April 1957 shows 38 United, 12 Continental, seven Braniff, seven Frontier, seven Western, five TWA and one Central. The jet age arrived during the summer of 1959 when Continental began operating Boeing 707 jetliners into Stapleton.\n\nRunway 17/35 and a new terminal building opened in 1964. Concourse D was built in 1972. After deregulation three airlines had hubs at Stapleton: (Frontier Airlines, Continental Airlines, and United Airlines). To combat congestion runway 18/36 was added in the 1980s and the terminal was again expanded with the $250 million (or $58 million according to the New York Times ) 24 gate Concourse E opening in 1988, despite Denver's replacement airport already under construction. When it closed in 1995 Stapleton had six runways (2 sets of 3 parallel runways) and five terminal concourses.\n\n[http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll5/id/335 1938,] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/12530375@N08/8085581195/sizes/h/ 1956] and [https://www.flickr.com/photos/12530375@N08/15586694927/sizes/h/ 1984 airport diagrams]\n\nIn the early 1980s Stapleton was a hub for four airlines—United, Continental, Frontier and Western—making it one of the most competitive markets in the United States. Southwest Airlines and People Express tried low-cost service to Denver in the mid-1980s, but Southwest withdrew and People Express was acquired by Continental. \n\nIn September 1982 the first revenue flight of the Boeing 767 arrived at Stapleton from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.\n\nDuring the energy boom of the early 1980s, several skyscrapers were built in downtown Denver, including Republic Plaza (Denver's tallest at 714′). Due to Stapleton's location 3 mi east of downtown, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a building height restriction of 700'-715' (depending on where the building was). This allowed an unimpeded glide slope for runways (8L/26R) and (8R/26L). The height restriction was lifted in 1995, well after the city's skyscrapers had been erected.\n\nStapleton Airport was the site for Ted Fujita's studies of microbursts.\n\nContinental Airlines closed its Stapleton pilot and flight attendant bases in October 1994, reducing operations and making United Airlines the airport's largest carrier. On February 25, 1995, George Hosford, Air Traffic Controller, cleared the last plane (Continental Flight 34, to London Gatwick) to depart from Stapleton International Airport. This would also mark the end of Continental Airlines' use of Denver as its hub.\n\nDecommissioning\n\nBy the 1980s, plans were under way to replace Stapleton with a new airport. Stapleton was plagued with a number of problems, including:\n* inadequate separation between runways, leading to extremely long waits in bad weather\n* little or no room for other airlines that proposed/wanted to use Stapleton for new destinations (an example of this was Southwest Airlines)\n* a lawsuit over aircraft noise, brought by residents of the nearby Park Hill community\n* legal threats by Adams County, Colorado, to block a runway extension into Rocky Mountain Arsenal lands\n\nThe Colorado General Assembly brokered a deal in 1985 to annex a plot of land in Adams County into the city of Denver, and use that land to build a new airport. Adams County voters approved the plan in 1988, and Denver voters approved the plan in a 1989 referendum.\n\nAfter weeks of delays, a Continental Airlines flight, with a destination of London Gatwick, was the last flight to depart Stapleton. The airport was then shut down. A convoy of vehicles of many kinds (rental cars, baggage carts, fuel trucks, etc.) traveled to the new Denver International Airport (DEN), which officially opened for all operations the following morning. \n\nThe runways at Stapleton were then marked with large yellow \"X\"s, which indicated it was no longer legal or safe for any aircraft to land there. The IATA and ICAO airport codes of DEN and KDEN were then transferred to the new DIA, to coincide with the same changes in airline and ATC computers, to ensure that flights to Denver would land at the new DIA. \n\nOriginally Denver sought tenants for Stapleton's terminal and concourses, but these buildings proved ill-suited for alternative uses. A July 1997 hail storm punched roughly 4,000 holes in the roofs of the old terminal and concourses, causing severe water damage, which compelled the city to tear them down. However, the airport's 12-story control tower will be retained as a monument to the airport's history and is likely to have an added observation deck for tourists.\n\nAll of Stapleton's airport infrastructure has been removed, except for the former control tower. The final parking structure was torn down to make room for the \"Central Park West\" section of the housing development in May 2011.\n\nFacilities\n\nAt the time of its decommissioning, the airport had the following runways:\n* 17R/35L (11,500 ft)\n* 17L/35R (12,000 ft)\n* 8L/26R (8,599 ft)\n* 8R/26L (10,004 ft)\n* 7/25 (4,871 ft)\n* 18/36 (7,750 ft)\n\nThe terminal had five concourses:\n* Concourse A – Commuter flights, Mesa Air Group, United Airlines\n* Concourse B – United Airlines\n* Concourse C – Continental Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Mexicana Airlines\n* Concourse D – Continental Express, Delta Air Lines, MarkAir, Pan American World Airways, Trans World Airlines\n* Concourse E – America West Airlines, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Sun Country, USAir\n\nContinental Airlines was once headquartered in Stapleton, moving there in October 1937. Airline president Robert F. Six arranged to have the headquarters moved to Denver from El Paso, Texas because he believed that the airline should have its headquarters in a large city with a potential base of customers. At a 1962 press conference in the office of Mayor of Los Angeles Sam Yorty, Continental Airlines announced that it planned to move its headquarters to Los Angeles in July 1963. \n\nRedevelopment\n\nWhile Denver International was being constructed, planners began to consider how the Stapleton site would be redeveloped. A private group of Denver civic leaders, the Stapleton Development Foundation, convened in 1990 and produced a master plan for the site in 1995, emphasizing a pedestrian-oriented design rather than the automobile-oriented designs found in many other planned developments.\n\nAccidents and incidents\n\nSeveral major air crashes involved Stapleton as the origin or destination airport, with four evidently occurring at Stapleton.\n\nAt Stapleton\n\n* On July 11, 1961, United Airlines Flight 859, a DC-8-12 tail number N8040U, was destroyed after landing. Asymmetric thrust on engines 1 & 2 (left wing) forced a loss of control on the runway. The aircraft struck a maintenance vehicle, killing the driver. In the ensuing disaster, 17 of the DC-8's 122 occupants died.\n* On August 7, 1975, Continental Airlines Flight 426 crashed due to windshear after taking off and climbing to 100 ft on runway 35L. Nobody was killed in the accident.\n* On November 16, 1976, a Texas International DC-9-10 aircraft stalled after takeoff at Stapleton and crashed. The 81 passengers and 5 crewmembers suffered a total of 14 injured, but there were no deaths.\n* On November 15, 1987, Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a DC-9-14 jetliner bound for Boise, Idaho, crashed on takeoff at Stapleton during a snowstorm. The probable cause of the crash was the failure of the flight crew to have the aircraft de-iced prior to take-off and the over-rotation of the aircraft on take-off. Twenty-eight of the plane's 82 occupants were killed."
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What was Kevin Kline's first movie?
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tc_70
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Kevin Delaney Kline (born October 24, 1947) is an American film and stage actor, comedian, and singer. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee. \n\nKline began his career on stage in 1972 with The Acting Company. He went on to win two Tony Awards for his work in Broadway musicals, winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical for the 1978 original production of On the Twentieth Century and Best Actor in a Musical for the 1981 revival of The Pirates of Penzance. \n\nHe made his film debut the following year, opposite Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice (1982). For his role in the 1988 comedy hit A Fish Called Wanda, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2003, he starred as Falstaff in the Broadway production of Henry IV, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play.\n\nHe has been nominated for an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. His other films include The Big Chill (1983), Silverado (1985), Cry Freedom (1987), Dave (1993), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Ice Storm (1997), In & Out (1997), De-Lovely (2004) and My Old Lady (2014).\n\nEarly life\n\nKline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Margaret Agnes Kirk (1918-2000) and Robert Joseph Kline. His father was a classical music lover and an amateur opera singer who owned and operated The Record Bar, a record store in St. Louis that opened in the early 1940s, and sold toys during the 1960s and 1970s; his father's family also owned Kline's Inc., a department store chain. Kline has described his mother as the \"dramatic theatrical character in our family\". Kline's father was Jewish, from a family that had emigrated from Germany, and had become an agnostic. Kline's mother was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, the daughter of an immigrant from County Louth. Kline was raised in his mother's Catholic faith. He has three siblings, Alex, Christopher, and Kate. He graduated from the Saint Louis Priory School in 1965. \n\nIn 1997, the school named its new auditorium the Kevin Kline Theater, and Kline did a benefit performance of selections from Shakespeare at the dedication.\n\nHe attended Indiana University, Bloomington, where he began studying composing and conducting music, but switched to a theater and speech major for his last two years, graduating in 1970. Kline remembers: \"When I switched to the Theater Department, all I did was theater...I could barely make it to class because this was my passion.\" While an undergraduate, he was a co-founder of the Vest Pocket Players, an off-campus theatrical troupe. \n\nCareer\n\nIn 1970, Kline was awarded a scholarship to the newly formed Drama Division at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, he joined with fellow Juilliard graduates, including Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers, and formed the City Center Acting Company (now The Acting Company), under the aegis of John Houseman. \n\nThe Company traveled across the U.S. performing Shakespeare's plays, other classical works, and the musical The Robber Bridegroom, founding one of the most widely praised groups in American repertory theatre. At Juilliard he studied singing with Beverley Peck Johnson. \n\nIn 1976, Kline left The Acting Company and settled in New York City, doing a brief appearance as the character \"Woody Reed\" in the now-defunct soap opera Search for Tomorrow. He followed this with a return to the stage in 1977 to play Clym Yeobright opposite Donna Theodore as Eustacia Vye in The Hudson Guild Theater production of Dance on a Country Grave, Kelly Hamilton's musical version of Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native. In 1978 he played the role of Bruce Granit, a matinée idol caricature, in Harold Prince's On the Twentieth Century, for which he won his first Tony Award. In 1981, Kline appeared with rock diva Linda Ronstadt and singer Rex Smith in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Central Park production of The Pirates of Penzance, winning another Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, for his comically dashing portrayal of the Pirate King. In 1983, he played the role in a film version of the musical, also with Ronstadt, Smith and Angela Lansbury, which had a limited theatrical release. \n\nIn the ensuing years, Kline appeared many times in New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Shakespeare plays, including starring roles in Richard III (1983), Much Ado About Nothing (1988), Henry V (1984) and two productions of Hamlet, in 1986 and 1990 (which he also directed). \n\nHe also appeared in a Lincoln Center production that combined the two parts of Henry IV on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 2003 as Falstaff. Kline was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award, Actor in a Play. \n\nDubbed \"the American Olivier\" by New York Times theater critic Frank Rich for his stage acting, Kline finally ventured into film in 1982 in Sophie's Choice. He won the coveted role of the tormented and mercurial Nathan opposite Meryl Streep. Streep won an Academy Award for her performance in the film. Kline was nominated for a 1983 Golden Globe award (New Star of the Year) and BAFTA Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer To Film. \n\nDuring the 1980s and early 1990s, Kline made several films with director Lawrence Kasdan, including The Big Chill, Silverado, Grand Canyon, I Love You to Death, and French Kiss. He played Donald Woods in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom opposite Denzel Washington about the friendship between Activist Stephen Biko and editor Donald Woods.\n\nIn 1989, Kline won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the British comedy A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played a painfully inept American ex-CIA thug opposite John Cleese's genteel British barrister and Jamie Lee Curtis' femme fatale/con woman. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film twenty-first on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. \n\nKline had a reputation for being so picky about his roles that it was actually detrimental to his career, and thus earned himself the nickname \"Kevin Decline\". Other awards have included Drama Desk Awards, Golden Globe awards, a Gotham Award, a Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man of the Year Award, and a St. Louis International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2003. He has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Film reviewers have praised Kline. Newsday critic Lynn Darling wrote on July 13, 1988 that Kline \"has proved himself to be one of the most talented and versatile American actors of his generation.\"\n\nKline played the title role in King Lear at the Public Theater, and took the lead role in a Broadway production of Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Jennifer Garner. That production was forced to close temporarily after only 11 performances as a result of the Broadway stagehands' strike, but subsequently reopened. Cyrano was filmed in 2008 and aired as part of PBS's Great Performances series in January 2009.\n\nIn January 2008, Kline won a Screen Actors Guild award for his portrayal of Jaques in Kenneth Branagh's film As You Like It, adapted from Shakespeare's play. The film premiered theatrically in 2006 in Europe. It bypassed theatres and was sent straight to HBO in the U.S. Kline's film The Conspirator premiered during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and was described as an \"old fashioned historical thriller\". It was well received by most critics. Kline also starred in the 2012 comedy Darling Companion alongside Diane Keaton.\n\nIn December 2004, Kline became the 2,272nd recipient of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his contributions to the motion picture industry, located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. \n\nPersonal life\n\nDuring the 1970s Kline was in a relationship with his Juilliard classmate Patti LuPone. He met actress Phoebe Cates in 1983 and they were married in 1989. The couple live in New York City and they have two children, including a daughter, Greta, a musician currently performing as Frankie Cosmos. \n\nAfter his son, Owen, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, Kline became active with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In November 2004, he was presented with the JDRF's Humanitarian of the Year award by Meryl Streep for his volunteer efforts on behalf of the organization.\n\nThe Kevin Kline Awards honor theatre professionals in St. Louis in an array of categories, which include best actor and actress, set design, choreography, and new play or musical. \n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nAwards and nominations"
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What day of the week was the Wall Street Crash?
|
tc_77
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday (October 29), the Great Crash, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began on October 24, 1929 (\"Black Thursday\"), and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its aftereffects. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries. \n\nTimeline\n\nThe Roaring Twenties, the decade that followed World War I and led to the Crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war optimism, rural Americans immigrated to the cities in vast numbers throughout the decade with the hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever growing expansion of America's industrial sector. While the American cities prospered, the overproduction of agricultural produce created widespread financial despair among American farmers throughout the decade. This would later be blamed as one of the key factors that led to the 1929 stock market crash. \n\nDespite the dangers of speculation, many believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. On March 25, 1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, a mini crash occurred as investors started to sell stocks at a rapid pace, exposing the market's shaky foundation. Two days later, banker Charles E. Mitchell announced his company the National City Bank would provide $25 million in credit to stop the market's slide. Mitchell's move brought a temporary halt to the financial crisis and call money declined from 20 to 8 percent. However, the American economy showed ominous signs of trouble: steel production declined, construction was sluggish, automobile sales went down, and consumers were building up high debts because of easy credit. Despite all these economic trouble signs and the market breaks in March and May 1929, stocks resumed their advance in June and the gains continued almost unabated until early September 1929 (the Dow Jones average gained more than 20% between June and September). The market had been on a nine-year run that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase in value tenfold, peaking at 381.17 on September 3, 1929. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, \"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.\" The optimism and financial gains of the great bull market were shaken on September 18, 1929, when prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) abruptly fell a few days after a well publicized warning from financial expert Roger Babson that \"a crash was coming\". The initial September decline was thus called the \"Babson Break\" in the press.\n\nOn September 20, the London Stock Exchange officially crashed when top British investor Clarence Hatry and many of his associates were jailed for fraud and forgery. The London crash greatly weakened the optimism of American investment in markets overseas. In the days leading up to the crash, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery.\n\nOn October 24 (\"Black Thursday\"), the market lost 11 percent of its value at the opening bell on very heavy trading. The huge volume meant that the report of prices on the ticker tape in brokerage offices around the nation was hours late, so investors had no idea what most stocks were actually trading for at that moment, increasing panic. Several leading Wall Street bankers met to find a solution to the panic and chaos on the trading floor. The meeting included Thomas W. Lamont, acting head of Morgan Bank; Albert Wiggin, head of the Chase National Bank; and Charles E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank of New York. They chose Richard Whitney, vice president of the Exchange, to act on their behalf.\n\nWith the bankers' financial resources behind him, Whitney placed a bid to purchase a large block of shares in U.S. Steel at a price well above the current market. As traders watched, Whitney then placed similar bids on other \"blue chip\" stocks. This tactic was similar to one that ended the Panic of 1907. It succeeded in halting the slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered, closing with it down only 6.38 points for the day. The rally continued on Friday, October 25, and the half day session on Saturday the 26th but, unlike 1907, the respite was only temporary.\n\nOver the weekend, the events were covered by the newspapers across the United States. On October 28, \"Black Monday\", more investors facing margin calls decided to get out of the market, and the slide continued with a record loss in the Dow for the day of 38.33 points, or 13%.\n\nThe next day, \"Black Tuesday\", October 29, 1929, about 16 million shares traded as the panic selling reached its crescendo. Some stocks actually had no buyers at any price that day (\"air pockets\"). The Dow lost an additional 30 points, or 12 percent. The volume of stocks traded on October 29, 1929 was a record that was not broken for nearly 40 years.\n\nOn October 29, William C. Durant joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks to demonstrate to the public their confidence in the market, but their efforts failed to stop the large decline in prices. Due to the massive volume of stocks traded that day, the ticker did not stop running until about 7:45 p.m. that evening. The market had lost over $30 billion in the space of two days which included $14 billion on October 29 alone.[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/ New York: A Documentary Film] PBS\n\nAfter a one-day recovery on October 30, where the Dow regained an additional 28.40 points, or 12 percent, to close at 258.47, the market continued to fall, arriving at an interim bottom on November 13, 1929, with the Dow closing at 198.60. The market then recovered for several months, starting on November 14, with the Dow gaining 18.59 points to close at 217.28, and reaching a secondary closing peak (i.e., bear market rally) of 294.07 on April 17, 1930. The following year, the Dow embarked on another, much longer, steady slide from April 1931 to July 8, 1932 when it closed at 41.22—its lowest level of the 20th century, concluding an 89 percent loss rate for all of the market's stocks. For most of the 1930s, the Dow began slowly to regain the ground it lost during the 1929 crash and the three years following it, beginning on March 15, 1933, with the largest percentage increase of 15.34 percent, with the Dow Jones closing at 62.10, with an 8.26 point increase. The largest percentage increases of the Dow Jones occurred during the early and mid-1930s. In late 1937, there was a sharp dip in the stock market, but prices held well above the 1932 lows. The market would not return to the peak closing of September 3, 1929 until November 23, 1954. \n\nAnalysis\n\nEconomic fundamentals\n\nThe crash followed a speculative boom that had taken hold in the late 1920s. During the later half of the 1920s, steel production, building construction, retail turnover, automobiles registered, even railway receipts advanced from record to record. The combined net profits of 536 manufacturing and trading companies showed an increase, in fact for the first six months of 1929, of 36.6% over 1928, itself a record half-year. Iron and steel led the way with doubled gains. Such figures set up a crescendo of stock-exchange speculation which had led hundreds of thousands of Americans to invest heavily in the stock market. A significant number of them were borrowing money to buy more stocks. By August 1929, brokers were routinely lending small investors more than two-thirds of the face value of the stocks they were buying. Over $8.5 billion was out on loan, more than the entire amount of currency circulating in the U.S. at the time. \n\nThe rising share prices encouraged more people to invest; people hoped the share prices would rise further. Speculation thus fueled further rises and created an economic bubble. Because of margin buying, investors stood to lose large sums of money if the market turned down—or even failed to advance quickly enough. The average P/E (price to earnings) ratio of S&P Composite stocks was 32.6 in September 1929, clearly above historical norms. \n\nGood harvests had built up a mass of 250 million bushels of wheat to be \"carried over\" when 1929 opened. By May there was also a winter-wheat crop of 560 million bushels ready for harvest in the Mississippi Valley. This oversupply caused a drop in wheat prices so heavy that the net incomes of the farming population from wheat were threatened with extinction. Stock markets are always sensitive to the future state of commodity markets, and the slump in Wall Street predicted for May by Sir George Paish arrived on time. In June 1929, the position was saved by a severe drought in the Dakotas and the Canadian West, plus unfavorable seed times in Argentina and eastern Australia. The oversupply would now be wanted to fill the big gaps in the 1929 world wheat production. From 97¢ per bushel in May, the price of wheat rose to $1.49 in July. When it was seen that at this figure the American farmers would get rather more for their smaller crop than for that of 1928, up went stocks again and from far and wide orders came to buy shares for the profits to come.\n\nIn August, the wheat price fell when France and Italy were bragging of a magnificent harvest, and the situation in Australia improved. This sent a shiver through Wall Street and stock prices quickly dropped, but word of cheap stocks brought a fresh rush of 'stags,' amateur speculators and investors. Congress had also voted for a 100 million dollar relief package for the farmers, hoping to stabilize wheat prices. By October though, the price had fallen to $1.31 per bushel. \n\nOther important economic barometers were also slowing or even falling by mid-1929, including car sales, house sales, and steel production. The falling commodity and industrial production may have dented even American self-confidence, and the stock market peaked on September 3 at 381.17 just after Labor Day, then started to falter after Roger Babson issued his prescient \"market crash\" forecast. By the end of September, the market was down 10% from the peak (the \"Babson Break\"). Selling intensified in early and mid October, with sharp down days punctuated by a few up days. Panic selling on huge volume started the week of October 21 and intensified and culminated on October 24, the 28th and especially the 29th (\"Black Tuesday\"). \n\nThe president of the Chase National Bank said at the time \"We are reaping the natural fruit of the orgy of speculation in which millions of people have indulged. It was inevitable, because of the tremendous increase in the number of stockholders in recent years, that the number of sellers would be greater than ever when the boom ended and selling took the place of buying.\" \n\nSubsequent actions\n\nIn 1932, the Pecora Commission was established by the U.S. Senate to study the causes of the crash. The following year, the U.S. Congress passed the Glass–Steagall Act mandating a separation between commercial banks, which take deposits and extend loans, and investment banks, which underwrite, issue, and distribute stocks, bonds, and other securities.\n\nAfter the experience of the 1929 crash, stock markets around the world instituted measures to suspend trading in the event of rapid declines, claiming that the measures would prevent such panic sales. However, the one-day crash of Black Monday, October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6%, was worse in percentage terms than any single day of the 1929 crash (although the combined 25% decline of October 28–29, 1929 was larger than October 19, 1987, and remains the worst two-day decline ever).\n\nWorld War II\n\nThe American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the economy, and may have hastened the end of the Great Depression in the United States. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5 percent of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67 percent of U.S. capital investment.\n\nEffects\n\nTogether, the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression formed the largest financial crisis of the 20th century. The panic of October 1929 has come to serve as a symbol of the economic contraction that gripped the world during the next decade. The falls in share prices on October 24 and 29, 1929 were practically instantaneous in all financial markets, except Japan. \n\nThe Wall Street Crash had a major impact on the U.S. and world economy, and it has been the source of intense academic debate—historical, economic, and political—from its aftermath until the present day. Some people believed that abuses by utility holding companies contributed to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed. Many people blamed the crash on commercial banks that were too eager to put deposits at risk on the stock market. \n\nThe 1929 crash brought the Roaring Twenties to a shuddering halt. As tentatively expressed by economic historian Charles P. Kindleberger, in 1929, there was no lender of last resort effectively present, which, if it had existed and were properly exercised, would have been key in shortening the business slowdown[s] that normally follows financial crises. The crash marked the beginning of widespread and long-lasting consequences for the United States. Historians still debate the question: did the 1929 Crash spark The Depression, or did it merely coincide with the bursting of a loose credit-inspired economic bubble? Only 16% of American households were invested in the stock market within the United States during the period leading up to the depression, suggesting that the crash carried somewhat less of a weight in causing the depression.\n\nHowever, the psychological effects of the crash reverberated across the nation as businesses became aware of the difficulties in securing capital markets investments for new projects and expansions. Business uncertainty naturally affects job security for employees, and as the American worker (the consumer) faced uncertainty with regards to income, naturally the propensity to consume declined. The decline in stock prices caused bankruptcies and severe macroeconomic difficulties including contraction of credit, business closures, firing of workers, bank failures, decline of the money supply, and other economic depressing events.\n\nThe resultant rise of mass unemployment is seen as a result of the crash, although the crash is by no means the sole event that contributed to the depression. The Wall Street Crash is usually seen as having the greatest impact on the events that followed and therefore is widely regarded as signaling the downward economic slide that initiated the Great Depression.\nTrue or not, the consequences were dire for almost everybody. Most academic experts agree on one aspect of the crash: It wiped out billions of dollars of wealth in one day, and this immediately depressed consumer buying.\n\nThe failure set off a worldwide run on US gold deposits (i.e., the dollar), and forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates into the slump. Some 4,000 banks and other lenders ultimately failed. Also, the uptick rule, which allowed short selling only when the last tick in a stock's price was positive, was implemented after the 1929 market crash to prevent short sellers from driving the price of a stock down in a bear raid. \n\nAcademic debate\n\nEconomists and historians disagree as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. The Economist argued in a 1998 article that the Depression did not start with the stock market crash. Nor was it clear at the time of the crash that a depression was starting. They asked, \"Can a very serious Stock Exchange collapse produce a serious setback to industry when industrial production is for the most part in a healthy and balanced condition?\" They argued that there must be some setback, but there was not yet sufficient evidence to prove that it will be long or that it need go to the length of producing a general industrial depression. \n\nBut The Economist also cautioned that some bank failures are also to be expected and some banks may not have any reserves left for financing commercial and industrial enterprises. They concluded that the position of the banks is the key to the situation, but what was going to happen could not have been foreseen.\n\nAcademics see the Wall Street Crash of 1929 as part of a historical process that was a part of the new theories of boom and bust. According to economists such as Joseph Schumpeter, Nikolai Kondratiev and Charles E. Mitchell the crash was merely a historical event in the continuing process known as economic cycles. The impact of the crash was merely to increase the speed at which the cycle proceeded to its next level.\n\nMilton Friedman's A Monetary History of the United States, co-written with Anna Schwartz, advances the argument that what made the \"great contraction\" so severe was not the downturn in the business cycle, protectionism, or the 1929 stock market crash in themselves - but instead, according to Friedman, what plunged the country into a deep depression was the collapse of the banking system during three waves of panics over the 1930–33 period."
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The US signed a treaty with which country to allow the construction of the Panama Canal?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Panama ( ; ), officially called the Republic of Panama (), is a transcontinental country situated between North and South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's 3.9 million people.\n\nPanama was inhabited by several indigenous tribes prior to settlement by the Spanish in the 16th century. Panama broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela named the Republic of Gran Colombia. When Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined, eventually becoming the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the total transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on 31 December 1999. \n\nRevenue from canal tolls continues to represent a significant portion of Panama's GDP, although commerce, banking, and tourism are major and growing sectors. In 2015, Panama ranked 60th in the world in terms of the Human Development Index. Since 2010, Panama remains the second most competitive economy in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index. Covering around 40 percent of its land area, Panama's jungles are home to an abundance of tropical plants and animals – some of them to be found nowhere else on the planet. \n\nEtymology\n\nThere are several theories about the origin of the name \"Panama\". Some believe that the country was named after a commonly found species of tree (Sterculia apetala, the Panama tree). Others believe that the first settlers arrived in Panama in August, when butterflies abound, and that the name means \"many butterflies\" in an indigenous language.\n\nThe best-known version is that a fishing village and its nearby beach bore the name \"Panamá\", which meant \"an abundance of fish\". Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán, while exploring the Pacific side in 1515, stopped in the small indigenous fishing town. In 1517 Don Gaspar De Espinosa, a Spanish lieutenant, decided to settle a post there. In 1519, Pedrarias Dávila decided to establish the Empire's Pacific city in this site. The new settlement replaced Santa María La Antigua del Darién, which had lost its function within the Crown's global plan after the beginning of the Spanish exploitation of the riches in the Pacific.\n\nBlending all of the above together, Panamanians believe in general that the word Panama means \"abundance of fish, trees and butterflies\". This is the official definition given in social studies textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education in Panama. However, others believe the word Panama comes from the Kuna word \"bannaba\" which means \"distant\" or \"far away\".\n\nHistory\n\nAt the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the known inhabitants of Panama included the Cuevas and the Coclé tribes. These people have nearly disappeared, as they had no immunity from European infectious diseases. \n\nPre-Columbian period \n\nThe Isthmus of Panama was formed about 3 million years ago when the land bridge between North and South America finally closed and plants and animals gradually crossed it in both directions. The existence of the isthmus affected the dispersal of people, agriculture and technology throughout the American continent from the appearance of the first hunters and collectors to the era of villages and cities. \n\nThe earliest discovered artifacts of indigenous peoples in Panama include Paleo-Indians projectile points. Later central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making in the Americas, for example the cultures at Monagrillo, which date back to 2500–1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations best known through their spectacular burials (dating to c. 500–900 AD) at the Monagrillo archaeological site, and their beautiful Gran Coclé style polychrome pottery. The monumental monolithic sculptures at the Barriles (Chiriqui) site are also important traces of these ancient isthmian cultures.\n\nBefore Europeans arrived Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan, and Cueva peoples. The largest group were the Cueva (whose specific language affiliation is poorly documented). The size of the indigenous population of the isthmus at the time of European colonization is uncertain. Estimates range as high as two million people, but more recent studies place that number closer to 200,000. Archaeological finds and testimonials by early European explorers describe diverse native isthmian groups exhibiting cultural variety and suggesting people with developedned by regular regional routes of commerce.\n\nWhen Panama was colonized, the indigenous peoples fled into the forest and nearby islands. Scholars believe that infectious disease was the primary cause of the population decline of American natives. The indigenous peoples had no acquired immunity to diseases which had been chronic in Eurasian populations for centuries. \n\nConquest to 1799\n\nRodrigo de Bastidas, sailed westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, and became the first European to explore the isthmus of Panama. A year later, Christopher Columbus visited the isthmus and established a short-lived settlement in the Darien. Vasco Núñez de Balboa's tortuous trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513 demonstrated that the isthmus was, indeed, the path between the seas, and Panama quickly became the crossroads and marketplace of Spain's empire in the New World. Gold and silver were brought by ship from South America, hauled across the isthmus, and loaded aboard ships for Spain. The route became known as the Camino Real, or Royal Road, although it was more commonly known as Camino de Cruces (Road of Crosses) because of the number of gravesites along the way.\n\nPanama was under Spanish rule for almost 300 years (1538–1821) and became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, along with all other Spanish possessions in South America. From the outset, Panamanian identity was based on a sense of \"geographic destiny\", and Panamanian fortunes fluctuated with the geopolitical importance of the isthmus. The colonial experience also spawned Panamanian nationalism as well as a racially complex and highly stratified society, the source of internal conflicts that ran counter to the unifying force of nationalism.\n\nIn 1538, the Real Audiencia de Panama was established, initially with jurisdiction from Nicaragua to Cape Horn before the conquest of Peru. A Real Audiencia (royal audiency) was a judicial district that functioned as an appeals court. Each audiencia had an oidores (Spanish: hearer, a judge).\n\nSpanish authorities had little control over much of the territory of Panama. Large sections managed to resist conquest and missionization until very late in the colonial era. Because of this, indigenous people of the area were often referred to as \"indios de guerra\" (war Indians) and resisted Spanish attempts to conquer them or missionize them. However, Panama was enormously important to Spain strategically because it was the easiest way to transship silver mined in Peru to Europe. Silver cargos were landed at Panama and then taken overland to Portobello or Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean side of the isthmus for further shipment.\n\nBecause of the incomplete Spanish control, the Panama route was vulnerable to attack from pirates (mostly Dutch and English) and from 'new world' Africans called cimarrons who had freed themselves from enslavement and lived in communes or palenques around the Camino Real in Panama's Interior, and on some of the islands off Panama's Pacific coast. One such famous community amounted to a small kingdom under Bayano, which emerged in the 1552 to 1558. Sir Francis Drake's famous raids on Panama in 1572–73 were aided by Panama cimarrons, and Spanish authorities were only able to bring them under control by making an alliance with them that guaranteed their freedom in exchange for military support in 1582. \n\nThe prosperity enjoyed during the first two centuries (1540–1740) while contributing to colonial growth; the placing of extensive regional judicial authority (Real Audiencia) as part of its jurisdiction; and the pivotal role it played at the height of the Spanish Empire – the first modern global empire – helped define a distinctive sense of autonomy and of regional or national identity within Panama well before the rest of the colonies.\n\nThe end of the encomienda system in Azuero, however, sparked the conquest of Veraguas in that same year. Under the leadership of Francisco Vázquez, the region of Veraguas passed into Castillan rule in 1558. In the newly conquered region, the old system of encomienda was imposed. On the other hand, the Panamanian movement for independence can be indirectly attributed to the abolishment of the encomienda system in the Azuero Peninsula, set forth by the Spanish Crown, in 1558 because of repeated protests by locals against the mistreatment of the native population. In its stead, a system of medium and smaller-sized landownership was promoted, thus taking away the power from the large landowners and into the hands of medium and small sized proprietors.\n\nPanama was the site of the ill-fated Darien scheme, which set up a Scottish colony in the region in 1698. This failed for a number of reasons, and the ensuing debt contributed to the union of England and Scotland in 1707. \n\nIn 1671, the privateer Henry Morgan, licensed by the English government, sacked and burned the city of Panama – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time. In 1717, the viceroyalty of New Granada (northern South America) was created in response to other Europeans trying to take Spanish territory in the Caribbean region. The Isthmus of Panama was placed under its jurisdiction. However, the remoteness of New Granada's capital, Santa Fe de Bogotá (the modern capital of Colombia) proved a greater obstacle than the Spanish crown anticipated as the authority of New Granada was contested by the seniority, closer proximity, and previous ties to the viceroyalty of Lima and even by Panama's own initiative. This uneasy relationship between Panama and Bogotá would persist for centuries.\n\nIn 1744, Bishop Francisco Javier de Luna Victoria DeCastro established the College of San Ignacio de Loyola and on June 3, 1749, founded La Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Javier. By this time, however, Panama's importance and influence had become insignificant as Spain's power dwindled in Europe and advances in navigation technique increasingly permitted to round Cape Horn in order to reach the Pacific. While the Panama route was short it was also labor-intensive and expensive because of the loading and unloading and laden-down trek required to get from the one coast to the other.\n\nDuring the last half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, migrations to the countryside decreased Panama City's population and the isthmus' economy shifted from the tertiary to the primary sector.\n\n1800s\n\nAs the Spanish American wars of independence were heating up all across Latin America, Panama City was preparing for independence; however, their plans were accelerated by the unilateral Grito de La Villa de Los Santos (Cry From the Town of Saints), issued on November 10, 1821 by the residents of Azuero without backing from Panama City to declare their separation from the Spanish Empire. In both Veraguas and the capital this act was met with disdain, although on differing levels. To Veraguas, it was the ultimate act of treason, while to the capital, it was seen as inefficient and irregular, and furthermore forced them to accelerate their plans.\n\nNevertheless, the Grito was an event that shook the isthmus to its very core. It was a sign, on the part of the residents of Azuero, of their antagonism toward the independence movement in the capital.Those in the capital region in turn regarded the Azueran movement with contempt, since the separatists in Panama City believed that their counterparts in Azuero were fighting not only for independence from Spain, but also for their right to self-rule apart from Panama City once the Spaniards were gone.\n\nIt was an incredibly brave move on the part of Azuero, which lived in fear of Colonel José Pedro Antonio de Fábrega y de las Cuevas (1774–1841), and with good reason. The Colonel was a staunch loyalist and had all of the isthmus' military supplies in his hands.They feared quick retaliation and swift retribution against the separatists.\n\nWhat they had counted on, however, was the influence of the separatists in the capital. Ever since October 1821, when the former Governor General, Juan de la Cruz Murgeón, left the isthmus on a campaign in Quito and left the Veraguan colonel in charge, the separatists had been slowly converting Fábrega to the separatist side. So, by November 10, Fábrega was now a supporter of the independence movement. Soon after the separatist declaration of Los Santos, Fábrega convened every organization in the capital with separatist interests and formally declared the city's support for independence. No military repercussions occurred because of the skillful bribing of royalist troops.\n\nPost-colonial Panama\n\nIn the first eighty years following independence from Spain, Panama was a department of Colombia, after voluntarily joining it at the end of 1821. The people of the isthmus made several attempts to secede and came close to success in 1831, and again during the Thousand Days' War of 1899–1902. When the Senate of Colombia rejected the Hay–Herrán Treaty, the United States decided to support the Panamanian independence movement. \n\nIn November 1903 Panama proclaimed its independence and concluded the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United States. The treaty granted rights to the United States \"as if it were sovereign\" in a zone roughly 10 mi wide and 50 mi long. In that zone, the U.S. would build a canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it \"in perpetuity\". In 1914, the United States completed the existing 83 km (52 mi) canal. The early 1960s saw the beginning of sustained pressure in Panama for the renegotiation of this treaty.\n\nThe US intention to influence the area, especially the Panama Canal's construction and control, led to the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 and its establishment as a nation. The United States intensively encouraged the Panamanian separatist movement. From 1903 to 1968, Panama was a constitutional democracy dominated by a commercially oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony.\n\nAmid negotiations for the Robles–Johnson treaty, Panama held elections in 1968. The candidates were \n*Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid,Unión Nacional (\"National Union\")\n*Antonio González Revilla,Democracia Cristiana (\"Christian Democrats\")\n*engineer David Samudio, Alianza del Pueblo (\"People's Alliance\") who had the government's support.\n(see Pizzurno Gelós and Araúz, Estudios sobre el Panamá republicano 508). \n\nArias Madrid was declared the winner of elections that were marked by violence and accusations of fraud against Alianza del Pueblo. On October 1, 1968, Arias Madrid took office as president of Panama, promising to lead a government of \"national union\" that would end the reigning corruption and pave the way for a new Panama. A week and a half later, on October 11, 1968, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional) ousted Arias and initiated the downward spiral that would culminate with the United States' invasion in 1989. Arias, who had promised to respect the hierarchy of the National Guard, broke the pact and started a large restructuring of the Guard. To preserve the Guard's interests, Lieutenant Colonel Omar Torrijos Herrera and Major Boris Martínez commanded the first military coup against a civilian government in Panamanian republican history.\n\nThe military justified itself by declaring that Arias Madrid was trying to install a dictatorship, and promised a return to constitutional rule. In the meantime, the Guard began a series of populist measures that would gain support for the coup. Among them were:\n*Price freezing on food, medicine and other goods until January 31, 1969\n*rent level freeze\n*legalization of the permanence of squatting families in boroughs surrounding the historic site of Panama Viejo. \nParallel to this, the military began a policy of repression against the opposition, who were labeled communists. The military appointed a Provisional Government Junta that was to arrange new elections. However, the National Guard would prove to be very reluctant to abandon power and soon began calling itself El Gobierno Revolucionario (\"The Revolutionary Government\").\n\nPost-1970\n\nDuring Omar Torrijos's control, the military regime transformed the political and economic structure of the country by initiating massive coverage of social security services and expanding public education. The constitution was changed in 1972. For the reform to the constitution, the military created a new organization, the Assembly of Corregimiento Representatives, which replaced the National Assembly. The new assembly, also known as the Poder Popular (\"Power of the People\"), was composed of 505 members selected by the military with no participation from political parties, which the military had eliminated. The new constitution proclaimed Omar Torrijos the \"Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution\", and conceded him unlimited power for six years, although, to keep a façade of constitutionality, Demetrio B. Lakas was appointed president for the same period (Pizzurno Gelós and Araúz, Estudios sobre el Panamá republicano 541).\n\nIn 1981 Torrijos died in a plane crash. Torrijos' death altered the tone of Panama's political evolution. Despite the 1983 constitutional amendments, which proscribed a political role for the military, the Panama Defense Forces (PDF), as they were then known, continued to dominate Panamanian political life. By this time, General Manuel Noriega was firmly in control of both the PDF and the civilian government.\n\nIn the 1984 elections, the candidates were \n*Nicolás Ardito Barletta Vallarino, supported by the military in a union called UNADE\n*Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid, for the opposition union ADO\n*ex-General Rubén Darío Paredes, who had been forced to an early retirement by Noriega, running for Partido Nacionalista Popular PNP (\"Popular Nationalist Party\")\n*Carlos Iván Zúñiga, running for Partido Acción Popular (PAPO) meaning \"Popular Action Party\"\nBarletta was declared the winner of elections that had been clearly won by Madrid. Ardito Barletta inherited a country in economic ruin and hugely indebted to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Amid the economic crisis and Barletta's efforts to calm the country's creditors, street protests arose, and so did military repression.\n\nMeanwhile, Noriega's regime had fostered a well-hidden criminal economy that operated as a parallel source of income for the military and their allies, providing revenues from drugs and money laundering. Toward the end of the military dictatorship, a new wave of Chinese migrants arrived on the isthmus in the hope of migrating to the United States. The smuggling of Chinese became an enormous business, with revenues of up to 200 million dollars for Noriega's regime (see Mon 167). \n\nThe military dictatorship, at that time supported by the United States, perpetrated the assassination and torture of more than one hundred Panamanians and forced at least a hundred more dissidents into exile. (see Zárate 15). Noriega also began playing a double role in Central America under the supervision of the CIA. While the Contadora group conducted diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in the region, Noriega supplied Nicaraguan Contras and other guerrillas in the region with weapons and ammunition.\n\nOn June 6, 1987, the recently retired Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera, resentful that Noriega's broke the agreed \"Torrijos Plan\" of succession that would have made him the chief of the military after Noriega, decided to denounce the regime. He revealed details of the electoral fraud, accused Noriega of planning Torrijos's death and declared that Torrijos had received 12 million dollars from the Shah of Iran for giving the exiled Iranian leader asylum. Hd also accused Noriega of the assassination by decapitation of then opposition leader Dr. Hugo Spadafora.\n\nOn the night of June 9, 1987, the Cruzada Civilista (\"Civic Crusade\") was created and began organizing actions of civil disobedience. The Crusade called for a general strike. In response, the military suspended constitutional rights and declared a state of emergency in the country. On July 10, the Civic Crusade called for a massive demonstration that was violently repressed by the \"Dobermans\", the military's special riot control unit. That day, later known as El Viernes Negro (\"Black Friday\"), left six hundred people injured and another six hundred detained, many of whom were later tortured and raped.\n\nUnited States President Ronald Reagan began a series of sanctions against the military regime. The United States froze economic and military assistance to Panama in the summer of 1987 in response to the domestic political crisis in Panama and an attack on the U.S. Embassy. Yet these sanctions did little to overthrow Noriega but instead severely damaged Panama's economy. The sanctions hit the Panamanian population hard and caused the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to decline almost 25% between 1987–1989 (see Acosta n.p.). \n\nOn February 5, 1988, General Manuel Antonio Noriega was accused of drug trafficking by federal juries in Tampa and Miami.\n\nIn April 1988, the U.S. President Ronald Reagan invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, freezing Panamanian government assets in all U.S. organizations. In May 1989 Panamanians voted overwhelmingly for the anti-Noriega candidates. The Noriega regime promptly annulled the election and embarked on a new round of repression.\n\nU.S. invasion (1989)\n\nThe United States government said Operation Just Cause, which commenced on December 20, 1989, was necessary to safeguard the lives of U.S. citizens in Panama, defend democracy and human rights, combat drug trafficking, and secure the neutrality of the Panama Canal as required by the Torrijos–Carter Treaties (New York Times, A Transcript of President Bush's Address n.p.). Human Rights Watch wrote in the 1989 report: \"Washington turned a blind eye to abuses in Panama for many years until concern over drug trafficking prompted indictments of the general [Noriega] by two grand juries in Florida in February 1988\". The U.S. reported 23 servicemen killed and 324 wounded, with Panamanian casualties estimated around 450. Described as a surgical maneuver, the action led to civilian deaths whose estimated numbers range from 400 to 4,000 during the two weeks of armed activities. This surgical maneuver represented the largest United States military operation to that date since the end of the Vietnam War (Cajar Páez 22) The United Nations put the Panamanian civilian death toll at 500, while other sources had higher statistics. The number of U.S. civilians (and their dependents), who had worked for the Panama Canal Commission and the U.S. Military, and were killed by the Panamanian Defense Forces, has never been fully disclosed.\n\nOn December 29, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling the intervention in Panama a \"flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the States\". The resolution was vetoed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. \n\nThe urban population, with many living below the poverty level, was greatly affected by the 1989 intervention. As pointed out in 1995 by a UN Technical Assistance Mission to Panama, the bombardments during the invasion caused the displacement of 20,000 people. The most heavily affected district was impoverished El Chorrillo, where several blocks of apartments were completely destroyed. El Chorrillo had been built in days of Canal construction, a series of wooden barracks which easily caught fire under the United States attack. The economic damage caused by the intervention has been estimated to be between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars. n.p. Many Panamanians supported the intervention. \n\nPost-intervention era\n\nPanama's Electoral Tribunal moved quickly to restore the civilian constitutional government, reinstated the results of the May 1989 election on December 27, 1989, and confirmed the victory of President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents Guillermo Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderon.\n\nDuring its five-year term, the often-fractious government struggled to meet the public's high expectations. Its new police force was a major improvement over its predecessor but was not fully able to deter crime. Ernesto Pérez Balladares was sworn in as President on September 1, 1994, after an internationally monitored election campaign.\n\nPerez Balladares ran as the candidate for a three-party coalition dominated by the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the erstwhile political arm of military dictatorships. Perez Balladares worked skillfully during the campaign to rehabilitate the PRD's image, emphasizing the party's populist Torrijos roots rather than its association with Noriega. He won the election with only 33% of the vote when the major non-PRD forces splintered into competing factions. His administration carried out economic reforms and often worked closely with the U.S. on implementation of the Canal treaties.\n\nOn September 1, 1999, Mireya Moscoso, the widow of former President Arnulfo Arias Madrid, took office after defeating PRD candidate Martin Torrijos, son of Omar Torrijos, in a free and fair election. During her administration, Moscoso attempted to strengthen social programs, especially for child and youth development, protection, and general welfare. Moscoso's administration successfully handled the Panama Canal transfer and was effective in the administration of the Canal.\n \nThe PRD's Martin Torrijos won the presidency and a legislative majority in the National Assembly in 2004. Torrijos ran his campaign on a platform of, among other pledges, a \"zero tolerance\" for corruption, a problem endemic to the Moscoso and Perez Balladares administrations. After taking office, Torrijos passed a number of laws which made the government more transparent. He formed a National Anti-Corruption Council whose members represented the highest levels of government and civil society, labor organizations, and religious leadership. In addition, many of his closest Cabinet ministers were non-political technocrats known for their support for the Torrijos government's anti-corruption aims. Despite the Torrijos administration's public stance on corruption, many high-profile cases, particularly involving political or business elites, were never acted upon.\n\nConservative supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli was elected to succeed Martin Torrijos with a landslide victory in the May 2009 presidential election. Mr. Martinelli's business credentials drew voters worried by slowing growth due to the world financial crisis. Standing for the four-party opposition Alliance for Change, Mr. Martinelli gained 60% of the vote, against 37% for the candidate of the governing left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party.\n\nOn May 4, 2014, Juan Carlos Varela won the 2014 presidential election with over 39% of the votes, against the party of his former political partner Ricardo Martinelli, Cambio Democrático, and their candidate José Domingo Arias. He was sworn in on 1 July 2014.\n\nGeography\n\nPanama is located in Central America, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, between Colombia and Costa Rica. It mostly lies between latitudes 7° and 10°N, and longitudes 77° and 83°W (a small area lies west of 83°).\n\nIts location on the Isthmus of Panama is strategic. By 2000, Panama controlled the Panama Canal which connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea to the North of the Pacific Ocean. Panama's total area is 74,177.3 km2.\n\nThe dominant feature of Panama's geography is the central spine of mountains and hills that forms the continental divide. The divide does not form part of the great mountain chains of North America, and only near the Colombian border are there highlands related to the Andean system of South America. The spine that forms the divide is the highly eroded arch of an uplift from the sea bottom, in which peaks were formed by volcanic intrusions.\n\nThe mountain range of the divide is called the Cordillera de Talamanca near the Costa Rican border. Farther east it becomes the Serranía de Tabasará, and the portion of it closer to the lower saddle of the isthmus, where the Panama Canal is located, is often called the Sierra de Veraguas. As a whole, the range between Costa Rica and the canal is generally referred to by geographers as the Cordillera Central.\n\nThe highest point in the country is the Volcán Barú, which rises to 3,475 metres (11,401 ft). A nearly impenetrable jungle forms the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia where Colombian guerrilla and drug dealers are operating with hostage-taking. This and forest protection movements create a break in the Pan-American Highway, which otherwise forms a complete road from Alaska to Patagonia.\n\nPanama's wildlife holds the most diversity of all the countries in Central America. It is home to many South American species as well as North American wildlife.\n\nWaterways\n\nNearly 500 rivers lace Panama's rugged landscape. Mostly unnavigable, many originate as swift highland streams, meander in valleys, and form coastal deltas. However, the Río Chagres (Rio Chagres), located in central Panama, is one of the few wide rivers and a source of enormous hydroelectric power. The central part of the river is dammed by the Gatun Dam and forms Gatun Lake, an artificial lake that constitutes part of the Panama Canal. The lake was created between 1907 and 1913 by the building of the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River. When it was created, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake in the world, and the dam was the largest earth dam. The river drains northwest into the Caribbean. The Kampia and Madden Lakes (also filled from the Río Chagres) provide hydroelectricity for the area of the former Canal Zone.\n\nThe Río Chepo, another source of hydroelectric power, is one of the more than 300 rivers emptying into the Pacific. These Pacific-oriented rivers are longer and slower running than those of the Caribbean side. Their basins are also more extensive. One of the longest is the Río Tuira, which flows into the Golfo de San Miguel and is the nation's only river navigable by larger vessels.\n\nHarbors\n\nThe Caribbean coastline is marked by several good natural harbors. However, Cristóbal, at the Caribbean terminus of the canal, had the only important port facilities in the late 1980s. The numerous islands of the Archipiélago de Bocas del Toro, near the Beaches of Costa Rica, provide an extensive natural roadstead and shield the banana port of Almirante. The over 350 San Blas Islands, near Colombia, are strung out for more than 160 km along the sheltered Caribbean coastline.\n\nCurrently, the terminal ports located at each end of the Panama Canal, namely the Port of Cristobal and the Port of Balboa, are ranked second and third respectively in Latin America in terms of numbers of containers units (TEU) handled. The Port of Balboa covers 182 hectares and contains four berths for containers and two multi-purpose berths. In total, the berths are over 2,400 meters long with alongside depth of 15 meters. The Port of Balboa has 18 super post-Panamax and Panamax quay cranes and 44 gantry cranes. The Port of Balboa also contains 2,100 square meters of warehouse space. \n\nThe Ports of Cristobal (encompassing the container terminals of Panama Ports Cristobal, Manzanillo International Terminal and Colon Container Terminal) handled 2,210,720 TEU in 2009, second only to the Port of Santos, Brazil, in Latin America.\n\nExcellent deep water ports capable of accommodating large VLCC (Very Large Crude Oil Carriers) are located at Charco Azul, Chiriquí (Pacific) and Chiriquí Grande, Bocas del Toro (Atlantic) near Panama's western border with Costa Rica. The Trans-Panama pipeline, running across the isthmus with a length of 131 km, has been operating between Charco Azul and Chiriquí Grande since 1979. \n\nClimate\n\nPanama has a tropical climate. Temperatures are uniformly high—as is the relative humidity—and there is little seasonal variation. Diurnal ranges are low; on a typical dry-season day in the capital city, the early morning minimum may be 24 °C and the afternoon maximum 30 °C. The temperature seldom exceeds 32 °C for more than a short time. Temperatures on the Pacific side of the isthmus are somewhat lower than on the Caribbean, and breezes tend to rise after dusk in most parts of the country. Temperatures are markedly cooler in the higher parts of the mountain ranges, and frosts occur in the Cordillera de Talamanca in western Panama.\n\nClimatic regions are determined less on the basis of temperature than on rainfall, which varies regionally from less than 1300 mm to more than 3000 mm per year. Almost all of the rain falls during the rainy season, which is usually from April to December, but varies in length from seven to nine months. In general, rainfall is much heavier on the Caribbean than on the Pacific side of the continental divide. The annual average in Panama City is little more than half of that in Colón. Although rainy-season thunderstorms are common, the country is outside the hurricane belt.\n\nPanama's tropical environment supports an abundance of plants. Forests dominate, interrupted in places by grasslands, scrub, and crops. Although nearly 40% of Panama is still wooded, deforestation is a continuing threat to the rain-drenched woodlands. Tree cover has been reduced by more than 50% since the 1940s. Subsistence farming, widely practiced from the northeastern jungles to the southwestern grasslands, consists largely of corn, bean, and tuber plots. Mangrove swamps occur along parts of both coasts, with banana plantations occupying deltas near Costa Rica. In many places, a multi-canopied rain forest abuts the swamp on one side of the country and extends to the lower reaches of slopes in the other.\n\nPolitics\n\nPanama's politics take place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Panama is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.\n\nFor all people national elections are universal and mandatory for all citizens 18 years and older. National elections for the executive and legislative branches take place every five years. Members of the judicial branch (justices) are appointed by the head of state. Panama's National Assembly is elected by proportional representation in fixed electoral districts, so many smaller parties are represented. Presidential elections do not require a simple majority; out of the four last presidents only one, incumbent president Ricardo Martinelli, was elected with over 50% of the popular vote. \n\nPolitical culture\n\nIn December 1989 the United States invaded Panama to depose the dictator Manuel Noriega. Since the U.S. invasion, and resulting end to the 21-year military dictatorship, Panama has successfully completed four peaceful transfers of power to opposing political factions. The political landscape is dominated by two major parties and many smaller parties, many of which are driven by individual leaders more than ideologies. Former President Martin Torrijos is the son of dictator Omar Torrijos. He succeeded Mireya Moscoso, the widow of Arnulfo Arias. Panama's most recent national elections occurred on May 4, 2014 with Incumbent Vice-President Juan Carlos Varela declared the victor.\n\nForeign relations\n\nThe United States cooperates with the Panamanian government in promoting economic, political, security, and social development through U.S. and international agencies. Cultural ties between the two countries are strong, and many Panamanians come to the United States for higher education and advanced training.\n\nMilitary\n\nThe Panamanian Public Forces are the national security forces of Panama. Panama is the second country in Latin America (the other being Costa Rica) to permanently abolish standing armies. Panama maintains armed police and security forces, and small air and maritime forces. They are tasked with law enforcement and can perform limited military actions.\n\nAdministrative divisions\n\nPanama is divided into ten provinces with their respective local authorities (governors), which are divided into districts and corregimientos (townships) and has a total of ten cities. Also, there are five Comarcas (literally: \"Shires\") populated by a variety of indigenous groups.\n\n;Provinces\n* Bocas del Toro\n* Chiriquí\n* Coclé\n* Colón\n* Darién\n* Herrera\n* Los Santos\n* Panamá\n* West Panamá\n* Veraguas\n \n;Regions\n* Emberá\n* Guna Yala\n* Ngöbe-Buglé Comarca\n* Kuna de Madugandí\n* Kuna de Wargandí\n\nEconomy\n\nAccording to the CIA World Factbook, Panama had an unemployment rate of 2.7%. A food surplus was registered in August 2008. On the Human Development Index, Panama ranked 60th in 2015. In recent years, Panama's economy has experienced a boom, with growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) averaging over 10.4% in the 2006–2008 period. Panama's economy has been among the fastest growing and best managed in Latin America. The Latin Business Chronicle predicted that Panama would be the fastest growing economy in Latin America during the five years period 2010–14, matching Brazil's 10% rate. \n\nThe expansion project on the Panama Canal and the free trade agreement with the United States are expected to boost and extend economic expansion for some time.\n\nDespite Panama's upper-middle per capita GDP, it remains a country of stark contrasts. Perpetuated by dramatic educational disparities, over 25% of Panama's population lived in national poverty in 2013 and 3% of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to latest reports by the World Bank. \n\nEconomic sectors\n\nPanama's economy, because of its key geographic location, is mainly based on a well developed service sector especially commerce, tourism, and trading. The handover of the Canal and military installations by the United States has given rise to large construction projects.\n\nA project to build of a third set of locks for the Panama Canal A was overwhelmingly approved in referendum (with low voter turnout, however) on October 22, 2006. The official estimated cost of the project is US$5.25 billion. The canal is of major economic importance because it provides millions of dollars of toll revenue to the national economy and provides massive employment. Transfer of control of the Canal to the Panamanian government completed in 1999, after being controlled by the US for 85 years.\n\nCopper and gold deposits are being developed by foreign investors, to the dismay of some environmental groups, as all of the projects are located within protected areas. \n\nPanama as a tax haven \n\nSince the early 20th century, Panama has gained a reputation worldwide for being a tax haven. In 2016, the release of the Panama Papers caused a huge global financial scandal.\n\nTransportation\n\nPanama is home to Tocumen International Airport, Central America's largest airport. Additionally there are more than 20 smaller airfields in the country. See list of airports in Panama.\n\nPanama's roads, traffic and transportation systems are generally safe, though night driving is difficult and in many cases, restricted by local authorities. This usually occurs in informal settlements.[http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_994.html \"Panama: Country-specific information\"]. U.S. Department of State (March 18, 2009). Traffic in Panama moves on the right, and Panamanian law requires that drivers and passengers wear seat belts. Highways are generally well-developed for a Latin American country.\n\nCurrently, Panama has modern buses known as Metrobuses, along with a Metro line. Formerly, the system was dominated by colorfully painted diablos rojos, with some remaining. A ' is usually \"customized\" or painted with bright colors, usually depicting famous actors, politicians or singers. Panama City's streets experience frequent traffic jams due to poor planning for the now extensive private vehicle fleet.\n\nTourism\n\nTourism in Panama is rapidly growing. It has maintained its growth over the past five years due to government tax and price discounts to foreign guests and retirees. These economic incentives have caused Panama to be regarded as a relatively good place to retire in the world. Real estate developers in Panama have increased the number of tourism destinations in the past five years because of the interest for these visitor incentives. 2,200,000 tourists arrived in 2012.\n\nThe number of tourists from Europe grew by 23.1% during the first nine months of 2008. According to the Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP), from January to September, 71,154 tourists from Europe entered Panama, which is 13,373 more than figures for same period the previous year. Most of the European tourists were Spaniards (14,820), followed by Italians (13,216), French (10,174) and British (8,833). There were 6997 from Germany, the most populous country in the European Union. Europe has become one of the key markets to promote Panama as a tourist destination.\n\nIn 2012, 4.345.5 million entered into the Panamanian economy as a result of tourism. This accounted for 9.5% of gross domestic product in the country, surpassing other productive sectors.\n\nPanama enacted Law No. 80 in 2012 for the promotion of foreign investment in tourism. Law 80 replaced an older Law 8 of 1994. Law 80 provides 100% exemption from income tax and real estate taxes for 15 years, duty-free imports for construction materials and equipment for five years, and capital gains tax exemption for five years. \n\nCurrency\n\nThe Panamanian currency is officially the balboa, fixed at a rate of 1:1 with the United States dollar since Panamanian independence in 1903. In practice Panama is dollarized: US dollars are legal tender and used for all paper currency, while Panama has its own coinage. Because of the tie to US dollars, Panama has traditionally had low inflation. According to the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean, Panama's inflation in 2006 was 2.0% as measured by weight Consumer Price Index (CPI). \n\nThe balboa replaced the Colombian peso in 1904 after Panama's independence. Balboa banknotes were printed in 1941 by President Arnulfo Arias. They were recalled several days later, giving them the name \"The Seven Day Dollar\". The notes were burned after the seven days but occasionally balboa notes can be found in collections. These were the only banknotes ever issued by Panama and U.S. notes have circulated both before and since.\n\nInternational trade\n\nThe high levels of Panamanian trade are in large part from the Colón Free Trade Zone, the largest free trade zone in the Western Hemisphere. Last year the zone accounted for 92% of Panama's exports and 64% of its imports, according to an analysis of figures from the Colon zone management and estimates of Panama's trade by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Panama's economy is also very much supported by the trade and export of coffee and other agricultural products.\n\nThe Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between the governments of the United States and Panama was signed on October 27, 1982. The treaty protects US investment and assists Panama in its efforts to develop its economy by creating conditions more favorable for US private investment and thereby strengthening the development of its private sector. The BIT was the first such treaty signed by the US in the Western Hemisphere. A Panama - United States Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) was signed in 2007, approved by Panama on July 11, 2007 and by US President Obama on October 21, 2011, and the agreement entered into force on October 31, 2012. \n\nSociety\n\nDemographics\n\nPanama recorded a population of 3,405,813 in its 2010 census. The proportion of the population aged below 15 in 2010 was 29%. 64.5% of the population were aged between 15 and 65, with 6.6% of the population being 65 years or older. \n\nMore than half the population lives in the Panama City–Colón metropolitan corridor, which spans several cities. Panama's urban population exceeds 70%, making Panama's population the most urbanized in Central America. \n\nEthnic groups\n\nIn 2010 the population was 65% Mestizo (mixed white, Native American), 12.3% Native Americans, 9.2% Black/mulattoes and 6.7% White.\n\nEthnic groups in Panama include Mestizo people, who are a mix of European and native ancestry. Black, or Afro-Panamanians account for 15-20% of the population. Most Afro-Panamanians live on the Panama-Colón metropolitan area, the Darien Province, La Palma, and Bocas Del Toro. Neighborhoods in Panama City that have large black populations include; Curundu, El Chorrillo, Rio Abajo, San Joaquín, El Marañón, San Miguelito, Colón, and Santa Ana. Black Panamanians are descendents of African slaves brought to the Americas on the 1500 Atlantic Slave Trade. The second wave of black people brought to Panama came from the Caribbean during the construction of the Panama Canal. Panama also has a considerable Chinese and Indian (India) population. They were brought to work on the canal during its construction. Most Chinese-Panamanians reside in the province of Chiriquí. Europeans and white-Panamanians are a minority in Panama. They are descendents of the people who colonized Panama, worked on the canal, and who moved to the country. Panama is also home to a small Arab community that have Mosques to practice Islam.\n\nThe Amerindian population includes seven ethnic groups: the Ngäbe, Kuna (Guna), Emberá, Buglé, Wounaan, Naso Tjerdi (Teribe), and Bri Bri. \n\nLanguages\n\nSpanish is the official and dominant language. The Spanish spoken in Panama is known as Panamanian Spanish. About 93% of the population speak Spanish as their first language, though many citizens who hold jobs at international levels, or who are a part of business corporations speak both English and Spanish. Native languages, such as Ngäbere are spoken throughout the country, mostly in their native grounds. Over 400,000 Panamanians hold their native languages and customs. Some new statistics show that as second language, English is spoken by 8%, French by 4% and Arabic by 1%.\n\nLargest cities\n\nThese are the 10 largest Panamanian cities and towns. Most of Panama's largest cities are part of the Panama City Metropolitan Area.\n\nReligion\n\nThe government of Panama does not collect statistics on the religious affiliation of citizens, but various sources estimate that 75% to 85% of the population identifies itself as Roman Catholic and 15%–25% as Protestant. The Bahá'í Faith community of Panama is estimated at 2.00% of the national population, or about 60,000 including about 10% of the Guaymí population. \n\nThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) claim more than 40,000 members. Smaller religious groups include Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Episcopalians with between 7,000 and 10,000 members, Jewish and Muslim communities with approximately 10,000 members each, Hindus, Buddhists, and other Christians. Indigenous religions include Ibeorgun (among Kuna) and Mamatata (among Ngobe). There are also a small number of Rastafarians.\n\nEducation\n\nOriginally, during the 16th century, education in Panama was provided by Jesuit priests. Public education, as a national and governmental institution, began in 1903. The principles underlying this early education system were that children should receive different types of education in accordance with their social class and therefore the position they were expected to occupy in society.\n\nPublic education began in Panama soon after the separation from Colombia in 1903. The first efforts were guided by an extremely paternalistic view of the goals of education, as evidenced in comments made in a 1913 meeting of the First Panamanian Educational Assembly, \"The cultural heritage given to the child should be determined by the social position he will or should occupy. For this reason education should be different in accordance with the social class to which the student should be related.\" This elitist focus changed rapidly under United States influence.\n\nIn 2010, it was estimated that 94.1% of the population was literate (94.7% of males and 93.5% of females). Education in Panama is compulsory for the children of age group between 6 and 18. In recent decades, school enrollment at all levels, but especially at upper levels, has increased significantly. Panama used to participate in the PISA exams but due to debts and unsatisfactory exam results is postponing participation until 2018. \n\nCulture\n\nThe culture of Panama derived from European music, art and traditions brought over by the Spanish to Panama. Hegemonic forces have created hybrid forms of this by blending African and Native American culture with European culture. For example, the tamborito is a Spanish dance that was blended with African rhythms, themes and dance moves. \n\nDance is a symbol of the diverse cultures that have coupled in Panama. The local folklore can be experienced through a multitude of festivals, dances and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation. Local cities host live reggae en español, reggaeton, haitiano (compas), jazz, blues, salsa, reggae, and rock music performances.\n\nHandicraft\n\nOutside Panama City, regional festivals take place throughout the year featuring local musicians and dancers. Panama's blended culture is reflected in traditional products, such as woodcarvings, ceremonial masks and pottery, as well as in Panama's architecture, cuisine and festivals. In earlier times, baskets were woven for utilitarian uses, but now many villages rely almost exclusively on the baskets they produce for tourists.\n\nAn example of undisturbed, unique culture in Panama is that of the Guna who are known for molas. Mola is the Guna word for blouse, but the term mola has come to mean the elaborate embroidered panels made by Guna women, that make up the front and back of a Guna woman's blouse. They are several layers of cloth, varying in color, that are loosely stitched together, made using a reverse appliqué process.\n\nHolidays and festivities\n\nThe Christmas parade, known as El desfile de Navidad, is celebrated in the capital, Panama City. This holiday is celebrated on December 25. The floats in the parade are decorated with the Panamanian colors, and the women dress in dresses called Pollera while the men dress in the traditional Montuno. In addition, the marching band in the parade, consisting of drummers, keeps the crowds entertained. In the city, a big Christmas tree is lit with Christmas lights, and everybody surrounds the tree and sings Christmas carols. \n\nTraditional cuisine\n\nPanamanian Cuisine is a mix of African, Spanish, and Native American techniques, dishes, and ingredients, reflecting its diverse population. Since Panama is a land bridge between two continents, it has a large variety of tropical fruits, vegetables and herbs that are used in native cooking.\n\nTypical Panamanian foods are mild-flavored, without the pungency of some of Panama's Latin American and Caribbean neighbors. Common ingredients are maize, rice, wheat flour, plantains, yuca (cassava), beef, chicken, pork and seafood.\n\nTraditional clothing\n\nPanamanian men's traditional clothing consists of white cotton shirts, trousers and woven straw hat.\n\nThe traditional women's clothing is the pollera. It originated in Spain in the 16th century, and by the early 1800s it was a typical in Panama, worn by women servants, especially wet nurses (De Zarate 5). Later, it was adopted by upper-class women.\n\nA pollera is made of \"cambric\" or \"fine linen\" (Baker 177). It is white, and is usually about 13 yards of material.\n\nThe original pollera consists of a ruffled blouse worn off the shoulders and a skirt is on the waistline with gold buttons. The skirt is also ruffled, so that when it is lifted up, it looks like a peacock's tail or a mantilla fan. The designs on the skirt and blouse are usually flowers or birds. Two large matching pom poms (mota) are on the front and back, four ribbons hang from the front and back on the waist line, five gold chains (caberstrillos) hang from the neck to the waist, a gold cross or medallion on a black ribbon is worn as a choker, and a silk purse is worn on the waistline. Earrings (zaricillos) are usually gold or coral. Slippers usually match the color of the pollera. Hair is usually worn in a bun, held by three large gold combs that have pearls (tembleques) worn like a crown. Quality pollera can cost up to $10,000, and may take a year to complete.\n\nToday, there are different types of polleras; the pollera de gala consists of a short-sleeved ruffle skirt blouse, two full-length skirts and a petticoat. Girls wear tembleques in their hair. Gold coins and jewelry are added to the outfit. The pollera montuna is a daily dress, with a blouse, a skirt with a solid color, a single gold chain, and pendant earrings and a natural flower in the hair. Instead of an off-the-shoulder blouse is a fitted white jacket with, shoulder pleats, and a flared hem. \n\nTraditional clothing in Panama can be worn in parades, where the females and males do a traditional dance. Females do a gentle sway and twirl their skirts, while the men hold their hats in their hands and dance behind the females.\n\nLiterature\n\nAccording to Professor Rodrigo Miró, the first story about Panama was written by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and published as part of the Historia General y Natural de Las Indias in 1535. Some poets and novelists born in Panamá are:\n\nSports\n\nThe U.S. influence in Panama can be seen in the country's sports. Baseball is Panama's national sport and the country has regional teams and a national team that represents it in international events. At least 140 Panamanian players have played professional baseball in the United States, more than any other Central American country. Notable players include Bruce Chen, Rod Carew, Mariano Rivera, Carlos Lee, Manny Sanguillén, and Carlos Ruiz.\n\nIn boxing, four Panamanians are in the International Boxing Hall of Fame: Roberto Durán, Eusebio Pedroza, Ismael Laguna and Panama Al Brown. Panama presently has two reigning world boxing champions: Guillermo Jones and Anselmo Moreno.\n\nSince the finals of the 20th century, Soccer is becoming a popular sport for Panamanians, the progress of the national league and the national team are notorious, with legendary players as Luis Ernesto Tapia, Rommel Fernández, the Dely Valdes Brothers: Armando, Julio and Jorge; and recent players as Jaime Penedo, Felipe Baloy, Luis Tejada, Blas Perez, Roman Torres and Harold Cummings.\n\nBasketball is popular in Panama. There are regional teams as well as a squad that competes internationally. Two of Panama's prominent basketball players are Rolando Blackman, a four-time NBA All-Star, and Kevin Daley, a 10-year captain and showman of the Harlem Globetrotters.\n\nOther popular sports include volleyball, taekwondo, golf, and tennis. A long-distance hiking trail called the [http://www.transpanama.org/ TransPanama Trail] is being built from Colombia to Costa Rica.\n\nOther non-traditional sports in the country have had great importance such as the triathlon that has captured the attention of many athletes nationwide and the country has hosted international competitions. Flag football has also been growing in popularity in both men and women and with international participation in world of this discipline being among the best teams in the world, the sport was introduced by Americans residing in the Canal Zone for veterans and retirees who even had a festival called the Turkey Ball. Other popular sports are American football, rugby, hockey, softball and other amateur sports including skateboarding, BMX and surfing, because the many beaches of Panama such as Santa Catalina and Venao that have hosted events the likes of ISA World Surfing Games.\n\nLong jumper Irving Saladino became the first Panamanian Olympic gold medalist in 2008. In 2012 eight different athletes represented Panama in the London 2012 Olympics: Irving Saladino in the long jump, Alonso Edward and Andrea Ferris in track and field, Diego Castillo in swimming, and the youngest on the team, Carolena Carstens who was 16 competing in taekwondo. She was the first representative to compete for Panama in that sport.\n\nClimate change \n\nPanama was one of the few countries that didn't enter an INDC at COP21."
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What was Prince's last No 1 of the 80s?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. He was a musical innovator and known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, extravagant dress and makeup, and wide vocal range. His music integrates a wide variety of styles, including funk, rock, R&B, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award for the film Purple Rain. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year of his eligibility. Rolling Stone ranked Prince at number 27 on its list of 100 Greatest Artists—\"the most influential artists of the rock & roll era\". \n\nPrince was born in Minneapolis and developed an interest in music as a young child. He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. at the age of 18, and released his debut album For You in 1978. His 1979 album Prince went platinum, and his next three records—Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—continued his success, showcasing Prince's prominently sexual lyrics and blending of funk, dance, and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as the Revolution and released Purple Rain, which served as the soundtrack to his eponymous 1984 film debut and was met with widespread acclaim. After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded, and Prince released the double album Sign o' the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting the New Power Generation band in 1991.\n\nIn 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., he changed his stage name to , an unpronounceable symbol also known as the \"Love Symbol\", and began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as \"Prince\" again. He released 16 albums after that, including The Rainbow Children (2001). His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service on December 12, 2015. Prince died from a fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota, on April 21, 2016, at the age of 57.\n\nEarly life \n\nPrince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, the son of Mattie Della (née Shaw; 1933–2002) and John Lewis Nelson (1916–2001). His parents were both African-American and his family ancestry is centered in Louisiana; all four of his grandparents came from that state. Prince's father was a pianist and songwriter, and his mother was a jazz singer. Prince was named after his father, whose stage name was Prince Rogers, and who performed with a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In a 1991 interview with A Current Affair, Prince's father said, \"I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do\". Prince's childhood nickname was Skipper. Prince has said he was \"born epileptic\" and \"used to have seizures\" when he was young. He also said: \"My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so'.\" \n\nPrince's sister Tika Evene (usually called Tyka) was born in 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, and this was encouraged by their father. Prince wrote his first tune, \"Funk Machine\", on his father's piano when he was seven. When Prince was 10, his parents separated. Prince subsequently repeatedly switched homes, sometimes living with his father and sometimes with his mother and stepfather. He then moved into the home of neighbors named Anderson and befriended their son Andre Anderson, who later became known as André Cymone. \n\nPrince attended Minneapolis' Bryant Junior High and then Central High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He played on Central's junior varsity basketball team, and continued to play basketball recreationally as an adult. Prince met Jimmy Jam in 1973 in junior high, and impressed him during music class with his musical talent, his early mastery of a wide range of instruments, and his work ethic. \n\nCareer\n\n1975–84: Beginnings and breakthrough\n\nIn 1975, Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin, Shauntel, formed the band 94 East with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry, hiring André Cymone and Prince to record tracks. Willie wrote the songs, and Prince contributed guitar tracks, and Prince and Willie co-wrote the 94 East song, \"Just Another Sucker\". The band recorded tracks which later became the album Minneapolis Genius – The Historic 1977 Recordings.\n\nIn 1976, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon, in Moon's Minneapolis studio. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Owen Husney, a Minneapolis businessman, who signed Prince, age 17, to a management contract, and helped him create a demo at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis (with producer/engineer David Z). The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney's ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies including Warner Bros. Records, A&M Records, and Columbia Records. \n\nWith the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. The record company agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and ownership of the publishing rights. Husney and Prince then left Minneapolis and moved to Sausalito, California, where Prince's first album, For You, was recorded at Record Plant Studios. The album was mixed in Los Angeles and released on April 7, 1978. According to the For You album notes, Prince wrote, produced, arranged, composed, and played all 27 instruments on the recording, except for the song \"Soft and Wet\", whose lyrics were co-written by Moon. The cost of recording the album was twice Prince's initial advance. Prince used the Prince's Music Co. to publish his songs. \"Soft and Wet\" reached No. 12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song \"Just as Long as We're Together\" reached No. 91 on the Hot Soul Singles chart.\n\nIn 1979, Prince created a band with André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums. Their first show was at the Capri Theater on January 5, 1979. Warner Bros. executives attended the show but decided that Prince and the band needed more time to develop his music. In October 1979, Prince released the album, Prince, which was No. 4 on the Billboard Top R&B/Black Albums charts and No. 22 on the Billboard 200, and went platinum. It contained two R&B hits: \"Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?\" and \"I Wanna Be Your Lover\". \"I Wanna Be Your Lover\" sold over a million copies, and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 for two weeks on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince performed both these songs on January 26, 1980, on American Bandstand. On this album, Prince used Ecnirp Music – BMI. \n\nIn 1980, Prince released the album Dirty Mind, which contained sexually explicit material, including the title song, \"Head\", and the song \"Sister\", and was described by Stephen Thomas Erlewine as a \"stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock.\" Recorded in Prince's own studio, this album was certified gold, and the single \"Uptown\" reached No. 5 on the Billboard Dance chart and No. 5 on the Hot Soul Singles charts. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James' 1980 Fire It Up tour.\n\nIn February 1981, Prince made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing \"Partyup\". In October 1981, Prince released the album, Controversy. He played several dates in support of it, at first as one of the opening acts for the Rolling Stones, on their US tour. He began 1982 with a small tour of college towns where he was the headlining act. The songs on Controversy were published by Controversy Music – ASCAP, a practice he continued until the Emancipation album in 1996. By 2002, MTV News noted that \"[n]ow all of his titles, liner notes and Web postings are written in his own shorthand spelling, as seen on 1999's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, which featured 'Hot Wit U.'\" \n\nIn 1981, Prince formed a side project band called the Time. The band released four albums between 1981 and 1990, with Prince writing and performing most of the instrumentation and backing vocals (sometimes credited under the pseudonyms \"Jamie Starr\" or \"The Starr Company\"), with lead vocals by Morris Day. In late 1982, Prince released a double album, 1999, which sold over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became Prince's first top 10 hit in countries outside the US. Prince's \"Little Red Corvette\" was one of the first two videos by black artists (along with Michael Jackson's \"Billie Jean\") played in heavy rotation on MTV, which had been perceived as against \"black music\" until CBS President Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all CBS videos. The song \"Delirious\" also placed in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. \"International Lover\" earned Prince his first Grammy Award nomination at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\n1984–87: The Revolution, Purple Rain, and subsequent releases\n\nDuring this period Prince referred to his band as the Revolution. The band's name was also printed, in reverse, on the cover of 1999 inside the letter \"I\" of the word \"Prince\". The band consisted of Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and Dez Dickerson on guitar. Jill Jones, a backing singer, was also part of the lineup for the 1999 album and tour. Following the 1999 Tour, Dickerson left the group for religious reasons. In the book Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince (2003), author Alex Hahn says that Dickerson was reluctant to sign a three-year contract and wanted to pursue other musical ventures. Dickerson was replaced by Coleman's friend Wendy Melvoin. At first the band was used sparsely in the studio, but this gradually changed during the mid-1980s.\n\nAccording to his former manager Bob Cavallo, in the early 1980s Prince required his management to obtain a deal for him to star in a major motion picture, despite the fact that his exposure at that point was limited to several pop music hits and music videos. This resulted in the hit film Purple Rain (1984), which starred Prince and was loosely autobiographical, and the eponymous studio album, which was also the soundtrack to the film. The Purple Rain album sold more than 13 million copies in the US and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film won Prince an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and grossed over $68 million in the US. Songs from the film were hits on pop charts around the world; \"When Doves Cry\" and \"Let's Go Crazy\" reached No. 1, and the title track reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the No. 1 album, single, and film in the US; it was the first time a singer had achieved this feat. The Purple Rain album is ranked 72nd in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; it is also included on the list of Time magazine's All-Time 100 Albums. The album also produced two of Prince's first three Grammy Awards earned at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards—Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.\n\nAfter Tipper Gore heard her 11-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince's song \"Darling Nikki\" (which gained wide notoriety for its sexual lyrics and a reference to masturbation), she founded the Parents Music Resource Center. The center advocates the mandatory use of a warning label (\"Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics\") on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors. The recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request. \n\nIn 1985, Prince announced that he would discontinue live performances and music videos after the release of his next album. His subsequent recording, Around the World in a Day (1985), held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for three weeks. From that album, the single \"Raspberry Beret\" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and \"Pop Life\" reached No. 7.\n\nIn 1986, his album Parade reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The first single, \"Kiss\", with the video choreographed by Louis Falco, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (The song was originally written for a side project called Mazarati.) In the same year, the song \"Manic Monday\", written by Prince and recorded by The Bangles, reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart. The album Parade served as the soundtrack for Prince's second film, Under the Cherry Moon (1986). Prince directed and starred in the movie, which also featured Kristin Scott Thomas. Although the Parade album went platinum, Under the Cherry Moon received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (tied with Howard the Duck), and Prince received Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director, Worst Actor, and Worst Original Song (for the song \"Love or Money\"). \n\nIn 1986, Prince began a series of live performances called the Hit n Run – Parade Tour. After the tour Prince disbanded The Revolution and fired Wendy & Lisa. Brown Mark quit the band; keyboardist Doctor Fink remained. Prince recruited new band members Miko Weaver on guitar, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, and Eric Leeds on saxophone.\n\n1987–91: Solo again, Sign o' the Times\n\nPrior to the disbanding of The Revolution, Prince was working on two separate projects, The Revolution album Dream Factory and a solo effort, Camille. Unlike the three previous band albums, Dream Factory included input from the band members and featured songs with lead vocals by Wendy & Lisa. The Camille project saw Prince create a new persona primarily singing in a speeded-up, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of The Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled Crystal Ball. Warner Bros. forced Prince to trim the triple album to a double album, and Sign o' the Times was released on March 31, 1987. \n\nThe album peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The first single, \"Sign o' the Times\", charted at No. 3 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, \"If I Was Your Girlfriend\", charted at No. 67 on the Hot 100 but went to No. 12 on R&B chart. The third single, a duet with Sheena Easton, \"U Got the Look\", charted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 11 on the R&B chart, and the final single, \"I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man\", finished at No. 10 on Hot 100 and No. 14 on the R&B chart.\n\nIt was named the top album of the year by the Pazz & Jop critics' poll and sold 3.2 million copies. In Europe it performed well, and Prince promoted the album overseas with a lengthy tour. Putting together a new backing band from the remnants of The Revolution, Prince added bassist Levi Seacer, Jr., keyboardist Boni Boyer, and dancer/choreographer Cat Glover to go with new drummer Sheila E. and holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford, and Greg Brooks) for the Sign o' the Times Tour.\n\nThe Sign o' the Times tour was a success overseas, and Warner Bros. and Prince's managers wanted to bring it to the US to promote sales of the album; Prince balked at a full US tour, as he was ready to produce a new album. As a compromise, the last two nights of the tour were filmed for release in movie theaters. The film quality was deemed subpar, and reshoots were performed at Prince's Paisley Park studios. The film Sign o' the Times was released on November 20, 1987. The film got better reviews than Under the Cherry Moon, but its box-office receipts were minimal, and it quickly left theaters.\n\nThe next album intended for release was The Black Album. More instrumental and funk and R&B themed than recent releases, The Black Album also saw Prince experiment with hip hop music on the songs \"Bob George\" and \"Dead on It\". Prince was set to release the album with a monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but after 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled. It was later released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994.\n\nPrince went back in the studio for eight weeks and recorded Lovesexy. Released on May 10, 1988, Lovesexy serves as a spiritual opposite to the dark The Black Album. Every song is a solo effort by Prince, except \"Eye No\", which was recorded with his backing band at the time. Lovesexy reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single, \"Alphabet St.\", peaked at No. 8 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B chart; it sold 750,000 copies.\n\nPrince again took his post-Revolution backing band (minus the Bodyguards) on a three leg, 84-show Lovesexy World Tour; although the shows were well received by huge crowds, they lost money due to the expensive sets and props.\n\nIn 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna's studio album Like a Prayer, co-writing and singing the duet \"Love Song\" and playing electric guitar (uncredited) on the songs \"Like a Prayer\", \"Keep It Together\", and \"Act of Contrition\". He also began work on several musical projects, including Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic and early drafts of his Graffiti Bridge film, but both were put on hold when he was asked by Batman (1989) director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989. Batman peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 4.3 million copies. The single \"Batdance\" topped the Billboard and R&B charts.\n\nThe single, \"The Arms of Orion\" with Sheena Easton, charted at No. 36, and \"Partyman\" (also featuring the vocals of Prince's then-girlfriend, nicknamed Anna Fantastic) charted at No. 18 on the Hot 100 and at No. 5 on the R&B chart, and the love ballad \"Scandalous!\" went to No. 5 on the R&B chart. Prince had to sign away all publishing rights to the songs on the album to Warner Bros. as part of the deal to do the soundtrack.\n\nIn 1990, Prince went back on tour with a revamped band for his back-to-basics Nude Tour. With the departures of Boni Boyer, Sheila E., the horns, and Cat, Prince brought in keyboardist Rosie Gaines, drummer Michael Bland, and dancing trio The Game Boyz (Tony M., Kirky J., and Damon Dickson). The European and Japanese tour was a financial success with a short, greatest hits setlist. As the year progressed, Prince finished production on his fourth film, Graffiti Bridge (1990), and the 1990 album of the same name. Initially, Warner Bros. was reluctant to fund the film, but with Prince's assurances it would be a sequel to Purple Rain as well as the involvement of the original members of The Time, the studio greenlit the project. Released on August 20, 1990, the album reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and R&B albums chart. The single \"Thieves in the Temple\" reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B chart; \"Round and Round\" placed at No. 12 on the US charts and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The song featured the teenage Tevin Campbell (who also had a role in the film) on lead vocals. The film, released on November 20, 1990, was a box-office flop, grossing $4.2 million. After the release of the film and album, the last remaining members of The Revolution, Miko Weaver and Doctor Fink, left Prince's band.\n\n1991–94: The New Power Generation, Diamonds and Pearls, and name change\n\n1991 marked the debut of Prince's new band, the New Power Generation. With guitarist Miko Weaver and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink gone, Prince added bass player Sonny T., Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, and a brass section known as the Hornheads to go along with Levi Seacer (taking over on guitar), Rosie Gaines, Michael Bland, and the Game Boyz. With significant input from his band members, Diamonds and Pearls was released on October 1, 1991. Reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart, Diamonds and Pearls saw four hit singles released in the United States. \"Gett Off\" peaked at No. 21 on the Hot 100 and No. 6 on the R&B charts, followed by \"Cream\", which gave Prince his fifth US No. 1 single. The title track \"Diamonds and Pearls\" became the album's third single, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 and the top spot on the R&B charts. \"Money Don't Matter 2 Night\" peaked at No. 23 and No. 14 on the Hot 100 and R&B charts respectively. \n\nIn 1992, Prince and The New Power Generation released his 12th album, Love Symbol Album, bearing only an unpronounceable symbol on the cover (later copyrighted as Love Symbol #2). The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The label wanted \"7\" to be the first single, but Prince fought to place \"My Name Is Prince\" in that slot, as he \"felt that the song's more hip-hoppery would appeal to the same audience\" that had purchased the previous album. Prince got his way, but \"My Name Is Prince\" reached No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 23 on the R&B chart. The follow-up single \"Sexy MF\" charted at No. 66 on the Hot 100 and No. 76 on the R&B chart. The label's preferred lead single choice \"7\" reached No. 7. 'Love Symbol Album' went on to sell 2.8 million copies worldwide.\n\nAfter two failed attempts in 1990 and 1991, Warner Bros. released a greatest hits compilation with the three-disc The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993. The first two discs were also sold separately as The Hits 1 and The Hits 2. The collection features the majority of Prince's hit singles (with the exception of \"Batdance\" and other songs that appeared on the Batman soundtrack), and several previously hard-to-find recordings, including B-sides spanning the majority of Prince's career, as well as some previously unreleased tracks such as the Revolution-recorded \"Power Fantastic\" and a live recording of \"Nothing Compares 2 U\" with Rosie Gaines. Two new songs, \"Pink Cashmere\" and \"Peach\", were chosen as promotional singles to accompany the compilation album.\n\nIn 1993, in rebellion against Warner Bros., which refused to release Prince's enormous backlog of music at a steady pace, he changed his name to , which was explained as a combination of the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀). In order to use the symbol in print media, Warner Bros. had to organize a mass mailing of floppy disks with a custom font. The symbol was soon dubbed \"The Love Symbol\", and until 2000, Prince was referred to as \"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince\" or simply \"The Artist\".\n\n1994–2000: Increased output and The Gold Experience\n\nIn 1994, Prince began to release albums in quick succession as a means of releasing himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of the Love Symbol Album, claiming they had marketed it insufficiently. It was out of these developments that the aborted The Black Album was officially released, seven years after its initial recording. The \"new\" release was already in wide circulation as a bootleg. Warner Bros. then succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come.\n\nPrince pushed to have his next album The Gold Experience released simultaneously with Love Symbol-era material. Warner Bros. allowed the single \"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World\" to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in many other countries, but it did not prove to be a model for subsequent releases. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing The Gold Experience, fearing poor sales and citing \"market saturation\" as a defense. When released in September 1995, The Gold Experience reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 initially. The album is now out of print.\n\nChaos and Disorder, released in 1996, was Prince's final album of new material for Warner Bros., as well as one of his least commercially successful releases. Prince attempted a major comeback later that year when, free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., he released Emancipation, a 36-song, 3-CD set (each disc was exactly 60 minutes long). The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs on Emancipation, Prince did not use Controversy Music – ASCAP, which he had used for all his records since 1981, but rather used Emancipated Music Inc. – ASCAP.\n\nCertified Platinum by the RIAA, Emancipation is the first record featuring covers by Prince of songs of other artists: Joan Osborne's top ten hit song of 1995 \"One of Us\"; \"Betcha by Golly Wow!\" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and Linda Creed); \"I Can't Make You Love Me\" (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid); and \"La-La (Means I Love You)\" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and William Hart). \n\nPrince released Crystal Ball, a five-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was disorderly, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was shipped; these pre-orders were delivered months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The retail edition has only four discs, as it is missing the Kamasutra disc. There are also two different packaging editions for retail; one is a four-disc sized jewel case with a white cover and the Love Symbol in a colored circle while the other contains all four discs in a round translucent snap jewel case. The discs are the same, as is the CD jacket. The Newpower Soul album was released three months later. His collaborations on Chaka Khan's Come 2 My House and Larry Graham's GCS2000, both released on the NPG Records label around the same time as Newpower Soul, were promoted by live appearances on Vibe with Sinbad and the NBC Today show's Summer Concert Series.\n\nIn 1999, Prince once again signed with a major label, Arista Records, to release a new record, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. In an attempt to make his new album a success, Prince gave more interviews than at any other point in his career, appearing on MTV's Total Request Live (with his album cover on the front of the Virgin Megastore, in the background on TRL throughout the whole show), Larry King Live (with Larry Graham) and other media outlets. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career.\n\nThe pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000, was broadcast on December 31, 1999 and consisted of footage from the December 17 and 18 concerts of his 1999 tour. The concert featured appearances by guest musicians including Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton, Jimmy Russell, and The Time. It was released to home video the following year.\n\n2000–07: Turnaround, Musicology, label change, and 3121\n\nOn May 16, 2000, Prince stopped using the Love Symbol moniker and returned to using \"Prince\", after his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell expired. In a press conference, he stated that, after being freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name \"Prince\", he would revert to using his real name. Prince continued to use the symbol as a logo and on album artwork and to play a Love Symbol-shaped guitar. For several years following the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Prince primarily released new music through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com (later NPGMusicClub.com). \n\nIn 2002, Prince released his first live album, One Nite Alone... Live!, which features performances from the One Nite Alone...Tour. The 3-CD box set also includes a disc of \"aftershow\" music entitled It Ain't Over!. During this time, Prince sought to engage more effectively with his fan base via the NPG Music Club, pre-concert sound checks, and at yearly \"celebrations\" at Paisley Park, his music studios. Fans were invited into the studio for tours, interviews, discussions and music-listening sessions. Some of these fan discussions were filmed for an unreleased documentary, directed by Kevin Smith.\n\nOn February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards with Beyoncé. In a performance that opened the show, they performed a medley of \"Purple Rain\", \"Let's Go Crazy\", \"Baby I'm a Star\", and Beyoncé's \"Crazy in Love\". The following month, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The award was presented to him by Alicia Keys along with Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast. As well as performing a trio of his own hits during the ceremony, Prince also participated in a tribute to fellow inductee George Harrison in a rendering of Harrison's \"While My Guitar Gently Weeps\", playing a two-minute guitar solo that ended the song. He also performed the song \"Red House\" as \"Purple House\" on the album Power of Soul: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. \n\nIn April 2004, Prince released Musicology through a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose as high as the top five on some international charts (including the US, UK, Germany, and Australia). The US chart success was assisted by the CDs being included as part of the concert ticket purchase, thereby qualifying each CD (as chart rules then stood) to count toward US chart placement. Three months later, Spin named him the greatest frontman of all time. \nThat same year, Rolling Stone magazine named Prince as the highest-earning musician in the world, with an annual income of $56.5 million, largely due to his Musicology Tour, which Pollstar named as the top concert draw among musicians in US. He played 96 concerts; the average ticket price for a show was US$61. Musicology went on to receive two Grammy wins, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for \"Call My Name\" and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the title track. Musicology was also nominated for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Album, and \"Cinnamon Girl\" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Rolling Stone magazine has ranked Prince No. 27 on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.\n\nIn April 2005, Prince played guitar (along with En Vogue singing backing vocals) on Stevie Wonder's single \"So What the Fuss\", Wonder's first since 1999. \n\nIn late 2005, Prince signed with Universal Records to release his album, 3121, on March 21, 2006. The first single was \"Te Amo Corazón\", the video for which was directed by actress Salma Hayek and filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, featuring Argentine actress and singer Mía Maestro. The video for the second single, \"Black Sweat\", was nominated at the MTV VMAs for Best Cinematography. The immediate success of 3121 gave Prince his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with the album.\nTo promote the new album, Prince was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2006, 17 years after his last SNL appearance on the 15th anniversary special, and nearly 25 years since his first appearance on a regular episode in 1981. \n\nAt the 2006 Webby Awards on June 12, Prince received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his \"visionary use of the Internet to distribute music and connect with audiences\", exemplified by his decision to release his album Crystal Ball (1997) exclusively online. \n\nIn July 2006, weeks after winning a Webby Award, Prince shut down his NPG Music Club website, after more than five years of operation. On the day of the music club's shutdown, a lawsuit was filed against Prince by the British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group, also NPG). Despite these events' occurring on the same day, Prince's attorney stated that the site did not close due to the trademark dispute.\n\nPrince appeared at multiple award ceremonies in 2006: on February 15, he performed at the 2006 Brit Awards, along with Wendy & Lisa and Sheila E., and on June 27, Prince appeared at the 2006 BET Awards, where he was awarded Best Male R&B Artist. Prince performed a medley of Chaka Khan songs for Khan's BET Lifetime Achievement Award. \n\nIn November 2006, Prince was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame; he appeared to collect his award but did not perform. Also in November 2006, Prince opened a nightclub called 3121, in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. He performed weekly on Friday and Saturday nights until April 2007, when his contract with the Rio ended. On August 22, 2006, Prince released Ultimate Prince. The double disc set contains one CD of previous hits, and another of extended versions and mixes of material that had largely only previously been available on vinyl record B-sides. That same year, Prince wrote and performed a song for the hit animated film Happy Feet (2006). The song, \"The Song of the Heart\", appears on the film's soundtrack, which also features a cover of Prince's earlier hit \"Kiss\", sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In January 2007, \"The Song of the Heart\" won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. \n\n2007–10: Super Bowl XLI, Planet Earth, and Lotusflower\n\nOn February 2, 2007, Prince played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference. Prince performed at the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show in Miami, Florida on February 4, 2007, on a large stage shaped like his symbol. The event was carried to 140 million television viewers, his biggest ever audience. In 2015, Billboard.com ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever. \n\nPrince played 21 concerts in London during mid-2007. The Earth Tour included 21 nights at the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena, with Maceo Parker in his band. Tickets for the O2 Arena were capped by Prince at £31.21 ($48.66). The residency at the O2 Arena was increased to 15 nights after all 140,000 tickets for the original seven sold out in 20 minutes. It was then further extended to 21 nights. \n\nPrince performed with Sheila E. at the 2007 ALMA Awards. On June 28, 2007, the Mail on Sunday stated that it had made a deal to give Prince's new album, Planet Earth, away for free with the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. This move sparked controversy among music distributors and also led the UK arm of Prince's distributor, Sony BMG, to withdraw from distributing the album in UK stores. The UK's largest high street music retailer, HMV, stocked the paper on release day due to the giveaway. On July 7, 2007, Prince returned to Minneapolis to perform three shows. He performed concerts at the Macy's Auditorium (to promote his new perfume \"3121\") on Nicollet Mall, the Target Center arena, and First Avenue. It was the first time he had played at First Avenue (the club appeared in the film Purple Rain) since 1987. \n\nFrom 2008, Prince was managed by UK-based Kiran Sharma. On April 25, 2008, Prince performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he debuted a new song, \"Turn Me Loose\". Days after, he headlined the 2008 Coachella Festival. Prince was paid more than $5 million for his performance at Coachella, according to Reuters. \nPrince cancelled a concert, planned at Dublin's Croke Park on June 16, 2008, at 10 days' notice. In October 2009 promoters MCD Productions went to court to sue him for €1.6 million to refund 55,126 tickets. Prince settled the case out of court in February 2010 for $2.95 million. During the trial, it was said that Prince had been offered $22 million for seven concerts as part of a proposed 2008 European tour. In October 2008, Prince released a live album entitled Indigo Nights, a collection of songs performed live at aftershows in the IndigO2.\n\nOn December 18, 2008, Prince premiered four songs from his new album on LA's Indie rock radio station Indie 103.1. The radio station's programmers Max Tolkoff and Mark Sovel had been invited to Prince's home to hear the new rock-oriented music. Prince gave them a CD with four songs to premiere on their radio station. The music debuted the next day on Jonesy's Jukebox, hosted by former Sex Pistol Steve Jones. \n\nOn January 3, 2009, the new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming and selling some of the recently aired material and concert tickets. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: \"Disco Jellyfish\", and \"Another Boy\". \"Chocolate Box\", \"Colonized Mind\", and \"All This Love\" were later released on the website. Prince released a triple album set containing Lotusflower, MPLSoUND, and an album credited to Bria Valente, called Elixer, on March 24, 2009, followed by a physical release on March 29.\n\nOn July 18, 2009, Prince performed two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, backed by The New Power Generation including Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto and John Blackwell. On October 11, 2009, he gave two surprise concerts at the Grand Palais. On October 12, he gave another surprise performance at La Cigale. On October 24, Prince played a concert at Paisley Park. \n\n2010–12: 20Ten and Welcome 2 Tours\n\nIn January 2010, Prince wrote a new song, \"Purple and Gold\", inspired by his visit to a Minnesota Vikings football game against the Dallas Cowboys. The following month, Prince let Minneapolis-area public radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song \"Cause and Effect\" as a gesture in support of independent radio. \n\nIn 2010, Prince was listed in Time magazine's annual ranking of the \"100 Most Influential People in the World\". \n\nPrince released a new single on Minneapolis radio station 89.3 The Current called \"Hot Summer\" on June 7, his 52nd birthday. Also in June, Prince appeared on the cover of the July 2010 issue of Ebony, and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 BET Awards. \n\nPrince released his album 20Ten in July 2010 as a free covermount with publications in the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France. He refused album access to digital download services and closed LotusFlow3r.com.\n\nOn July 4, 2010, Prince began his 20Ten Tour, a concert tour in two legs with shows in Europe. The second leg began on October 15 and ended with a concert following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 14. The second half of the tour had a new band, John Blackwell, Ida Kristine Nielsen, and Sheila E. Prince let Europe 1 debut the snippet of his new song \"Rich Friends\" from the new album 20Ten Deluxe on October 8, 2010. Prince started the Welcome 2 Tour on December 15, 2010. \n\nPrince was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame on December 7, 2010. \n\nOn February 12, 2011, Prince presented Barbra Streisand with an award and donated $1.5 million to charities. On the same day, it was reported that he had not authorized the television show Glee to cover his hit \"Kiss\", in an episode that had already been filmed. \n\nPrince headlined the Hop Farm Festival on July 3, 2011, marking his first UK show since 2007 and his first ever UK festival appearance. \n\nDespite having previously rejected the Internet for music distribution, on November 24, 2011, Prince released a reworked version of the previously unreleased song \"Extraloveable\" through both iTunes and Spotify. Purple Music, a Switzerland-based record label, released a CD single \"Dance 4 Me\" on December 12, 2011, as part of a club remixes package including Bria Valente CD single \"2 Nite\" released on February 23, 2012. The CD features club remixes by Jamie Lewis and David Alexander, produced by Prince. \n\n2013–16: 3rdeyegirl and return to Warner Bros.\n\nIn January 2013, Prince released a lyric video for a new song called \"Screwdriver\". In April 2013, Prince announced a West Coast tour titled Live Out Loud Tour with 3rdeyegirl as his backing band. The final two dates of the first leg of the tour were in Minneapolis where former Revolution drummer Bobby Z. sat in as guest drummer on both shows. In May, Prince announced a deal with Kobalt Music to market and distribute his music. \n\nOn August 14, 2013, Prince released a new solo single for download through the 3rdeyegirl.com website. The single \"Breakfast Can Wait\" had cover art featuring comedian Dave Chappelle's impersonation of the singer in a sketch on the 2000s Comedy Central series Chappelle's Show. \n\nIn February 2014, Prince performed concerts with 3rdeyegirl in London titled the Hit and Run Tour. Beginning with intimate shows, the first was held at the London home of singer Lianne La Havas, followed by two performances of what Prince described as a \"sound check\" at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, and another at Shepherds Bush Empire. \nOn April 18, 2014, Prince released a new single entitled \"The Breakdown\". He re-signed with his former label, Warner Bros. Records after an 18-year split. Warner announced that Prince would release a remastered deluxe edition of his 1984 album Purple Rain in 2014 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album. In return, Warner gave Prince ownership of the master recordings of his Warner recordings. \n\nIn May 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent riots, Prince released a song entitled \"Baltimore\" in tribute to Gray and in support of the protesters in Baltimore. He also held a tribute concert for Gray at his Paisley Park estate called \"Dance Rally 4 Peace\" in which he encouraged fans to wear the color gray in honor of Freddie Gray. \n\nPrince's penultimate album, Hit n Run Phase One, was first made available on September 7, 2015, on the music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and download on September 14. His last album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was meant as a continuation of this one, and was released on Tidal for streaming and download on December 12, 2015. \n\nArtistry\n\nMusic and image\n\nThe Los Angeles Times called Prince \"our first post-everything pop star, defying easy categories of race, genre and commercial appeal.\" Jon Pareles of The New York Times described him as \"a master architect of funk, rock, R&B and pop\", and highlighted his ability to defy labels. Los Angeles Times writer Randall Roberts called Prince \"among the most versatile and restlessly experimental pop artists of our time,\" writing that his \"early work connected disco and synthetic funk [while his] fruitful mid-period merged rock, soul, R&B and synth-pop.\" Simon Reynolds called him a \"pop polymath, flitting between funkadelia, acid rock, deep soul, schmaltz—often within the same song\". AllMusic wrote that, \"With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres [...] no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.\" \n\nAs a performer, he was known for his flamboyant style and showmanship. He came to be regarded as a sex symbol for his androgynous, amorphous sexuality, play with signifiers of gender, and defiance of racial stereotypes. His \"audacious, idiosyncratic\" fashion sense made use of \"ubiquitous purple, alluring makeup and frilled garments.\" His androgynous look has been compared to that of Little Richard and David Bowie.\n\nPrince was known for the strong female presence in his bands and his support for women in the music industry throughout his career. Slate said he worked with an \"astounding range of female stars\" and \"promised a world where men and women looked and acted like each other.\" \n\nInfluences and musicianship\n\nPrince's music synthesized a wide variety of influences, and drew inspiration from a range of musicians, including James Brown, George Clinton, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Mick Jagger, Rick James, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Curtis Mayfield, Elvis Presley, Todd Rundgren, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, Jackie Wilson, and Stevie Wonder. Prince has been compared with jazz great Miles Davis in regard to the artistic changes throughout his career; Davis himself regarded Prince as an uncanny blend of Brown, Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Stone, Little Richard, Ellington, and Charlie Chaplin. \n\nJournalist Nik Cohn described him as \"rock's greatest ever natural talent\". His singing abilities encompassed a wide range from falsetto to baritone and rapid, seemingly effortless shifts of register. Prince was also renowned as a multi-instrumentalist. He was considered a guitar virtuoso and a master of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer. On his first five albums, he played nearly all the instruments, including 27 instruments on his debut album, among them various types of bass, keyboards and synthesizers. Prince was also quick to embrace technology in his music, making pioneering use of drum machines like the Linn LM-1 on his early '80s albums and employing a wide range of studio effects. The LA Times also noted his \"harnessing [of] new-generation synthesizer sounds in service of the groove,\" laying the foundations for post-'70s funk music. Prince was also known for his prolific and perfectionist tendencies, which resulted in him recording large amounts of unreleased material. \n\nLegal issues\n\nPseudonyms\n\nIn 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of The Gold Experience, a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of his musical output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word \"slave\" written on his cheek. He explained that he had changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol to emancipate himself from his contract with Warner Bros., and that he had done it out of frustration because he felt his own name now belonged to the company. \n\nPrince sometimes used pseudonyms to separate himself from the music he had written, produced, or recorded, and at one point stated that his ownership and achievement were strengthened by the act of giving away ideas. Pseudonyms he adopted, at various times, include: Jamie Starr and The Starr Company (for the songs he wrote for The Time and many other artists from 1981 to 1984), Joey Coco (for many unreleased Prince songs in the late 1980s, as well as songs written for Sheena Easton and Kenny Rogers), Alexander Nevermind (for writing the song \"Sugar Walls\" (1984) by Sheena Easton), and Christopher (used for his song writing credit of \"Manic Monday\" (1986) for the Bangles). \n\nCopyright issues\n\nOn September 14, 2007, Prince announced that he was going to sue YouTube and eBay, because they hosted his copyrighted material, and he hired the international Internet policing company Web Sheriff. In October, Stephanie Lenz filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Publishing Group claiming that they were abusing copyright law after the music publisher had YouTube take down Lenz's home movie in which the Prince song \"Let's Go Crazy\" played faintly in the background. On November 5, several Prince fan sites formed \"Prince Fans United\" to fight back against legal requests which, they claim, Prince made to prevent all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to his likeness. Prince's lawyers claimed that this constituted copyright infringement; the Prince Fans United said that the legal actions were \"attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince\". Prince's promoter AEG stated that the only offending items on the three fansites were live shots from Prince's 21 nights in London at the O2 Arena earlier in the year. \n\nOn November 8, Prince Fans United received a song named \"PFUnk\", providing a kind of \"unofficial answer\" to their movement. The song originally debuted on the PFU main site, was retitled \"F.U.N.K.\", and is available on iTunes. On November 14, the satirical website b3ta.com pulled their \"image challenge of the week\" devoted to Prince after legal threats from the star under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). \n\nAt the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (\"Coachella Festival\"), Prince performed a cover of Radiohead's \"Creep\", but immediately afterward he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead's request to leave it on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, as Radiohead claimed: \"it's our song, let people hear it.\" In 2009, Prince put the video of the Coachella performance on his official website (LotusFlow3r.com).\n\nIn 2010 he declared \"the internet is completely over\", elaborating five years later that \"the internet was over for anyone who wants to get paid, tell me a musician who's got rich off digital sales\".\n\nIn 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation granted to Prince the inaugural \"Raspberry Beret Lifetime Aggrievement Award\" for what they said was abuse of the DMCA takedown process. \n\nIn January 2014, Prince filed a lawsuit titled Prince v. Chodera against 22 online users for direct copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation, contributory copyright infringement, and bootlegging. Several of the users were fans who had shared links to bootlegged versions of Prince concerts through social media websites like Facebook. In the same month, he dismissed the entire action without prejudice. \n\nPrince was one of a handful of musicians to consistently deny \"Weird Al\" Yankovic permission to parody his music. \n\nPersonal life\n\nOver the years Prince was romantically linked with many celebrities, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn, and Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. Prince was engaged to Susannah Melvoin in 1985. When he was 37, he married his 22-year-old backup singer and dancer Mayte Garcia, on Valentine's Day 1996. They had a son named Ahmir Gregory on October 16, 1996; he was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died a week later. Prince and Mayte divorced in 1999. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony; she filed for divorce in May 2006. \n\nPrince was an animal rights activist who followed a vegan diet for part of his life, but later described himself as vegetarian. The liner notes for his album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999) featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production. \n\nPrince joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001, following a two-year debate with friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness musician Larry Graham. Prince said that he did not consider it a conversion, but a \"realization\". \"It's like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix\", he explained. Prince attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocked on people's doors to discuss his faith. Prince had needed double hip-replacement surgery since 2005. A false rumor was spread by the tabloids that he would not undergo the operation because of his refusal to have blood transfusions. However, the Star Tribune reported that Larry Graham, Prince's mentor and Bible teacher, \"denied claims that Prince couldn't have hip surgery because his faith prohibited blood transfusions,\" putting the false rumor to rest, as hip surgery does not require blood transfusions. According to Morris Day, Prince in fact had the hip surgery in 2008. The condition was reportedly caused by repeated onstage dancing in high-heeled boots. Prince had been using canes as part of his outfit from the early 1990s onwards; towards the end of his life he regularly walked with a cane in public engagements, which led to speculation that it resulted from his not having undergone the surgery. \n\nAs a Jehovah's Witness, Prince did not speak publicly about his charitable endeavors; the extent of his activism, philanthropy, and charity was publicized posthumously. In 2001, Prince donated $12,000 anonymously to the Louisville Free Public Library system to keep the historic Western Branch Library, the first full service library for African Americans in the country, from closure. Also in 2001, he anonymously paid off the medical bills of drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who was undergoing cancer treatment. In 2015, he conceived and launched YesWeCode, paying for many hackathons outright and performing at some of them. He also helped fund Green for All.\n\nIn late March 2016, Prince told an audience he was writing a memoir, tentatively titled The Beautiful Ones. \n\nIllness and death\n\nPrince saw Dr. Michael T. Schulenberg, a Twin Cities specialist in family medicine, on April 7, 2016, and again on April 20. On April 7, Prince postponed two performances at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta from his Piano & A Microphone Tour; the venue released a statement saying he had influenza. Prince rescheduled and performed the show on April 14, even though he still was not feeling well. While flying back to Minneapolis early the next morning, he became unresponsive, and his private jet made an emergency landing at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, where he was hospitalized and received Narcan, but he left against medical advice. Representatives said he suffered from \"bad dehydration\" and had had influenza for several weeks. Prince was seen bicycling the next day in his hometown of Chanhassen, Minnesota. He shopped that evening at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis for Record Store Day and made a brief appearance at an impromptu dance party at his Paisley Park recording studio complex, stating that he was feeling fine. On April 19, he attended a performance by singer Lizz Wright at the Dakota Jazz Club. \n\nOn April 20, Prince's representatives called Dr. Howard Kornfeld, a California specialist in addiction medicine and pain management, seeking medical help for Prince. Kornfeld scheduled to meet with Prince on April 22, and he contacted a local physician who cleared his schedule for April 21, for an exam and to check on Prince's condition. and \n\nOn April 21, at 9:43 a.m., the Carver County Sheriff's Office received a 9-1-1 call requesting that an ambulance be sent to Prince's home at Paisley Park. The caller initially told the dispatcher that an unidentified person at the home was unconscious, then moments later said he was dead, and finally identified the person as Prince. The caller was Dr. Kornfeld's son, who had flown in with buprenorphine that morning to devise a treatment plan for opioid addiction. Emergency responders found Prince unresponsive in an elevator and performed CPR, but a paramedic said he had been dead for about six hours, and they were unable to revive him. They pronounced him dead at 10:07 a.m., 19 minutes after their arrival. There were no sign of suicide or foul play; Prince had died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. He was 57 years old.\n\nFollowing an autopsy, his remains were cremated, and their final disposition remains private. On April 26, 2016, Prince's sister and only full sibling Tyka Nelson filed court documents in Carver County, Minnesota, to open a probate case, stating that no will had been found. Prince's five half-siblings also have a claim to his estate. As of three weeks after his death, 700 people claimed to be half-siblings or descendants. Bremer Trust was given temporary control of his estate, had his vault drilled, and was authorized to obtain a blood sample for genetic testing. A sealed search warrant was issued for his estate, and another, unsealed, warrant was issued for the local Walgreens. \n\nRemembrances\n\nNumerous musicians and cultural figures reacted to Prince's death. President Barack Obama mourned him, and the United States Senate passed a resolution praising his achievements \"as a musician, composer, innovator, and cultural icon\". Cities across the US held tributes and vigils, and lit buildings, bridges, and other venues in purple. In the first five hours after the media reported his death, \"Prince\" was the top trending term on Twitter, and Facebook had 61 million Prince-related interactions. MTV interrupted its programming to air a marathon of Prince music videos and Purple Rain. AMC Theatres and Carmike Cinemas screened Purple Rain in select theaters over the following week. Saturday Night Live aired an episode in his honor titled \"Goodnight, Sweet Prince,\" featuring his performances from the show. \n\nNielsen Music reported an initial sales spike of 42,000 percent. Prince's catalog sold 4.41 million albums and songs from April 21 to 28, with five albums simultaneously in the top ten of the Billboard 200, a first in the chart's history. \n\nDiscography\n\n* For You (1978)\n* Prince (1979)\n* Dirty Mind (1980)\n* Controversy (1981)\n* 1999 (1982)\n* Purple Rain (1984)\n* Around the World in a Day (1985)\n* Parade (1986)\n* Sign o' the Times (1987)\n* Lovesexy (1988)\n* Batman (1989)\n* Graffiti Bridge (1990)\n* Diamonds and Pearls (1991)\n* (Love Symbol Album) (1992)\n* Come (1994)\n* The Black Album (1994)\n* The Gold Experience (1995)\n* Chaos and Disorder (1996)\n* Emancipation (1996)\n* Crystal Ball (1998)\n* The Truth (1998)\n* The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale (1999)\n* Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999)\n* The Rainbow Children (2001)\n* One Nite Alone... (2002)\n* Xpectation (2003)\n* N·E·W·S (2003)\n* Musicology (2004)\n* The Chocolate Invasion (2004)\n* The Slaughterhouse (2004)\n* 3121 (2006)\n* Planet Earth (2007)\n* Lotusflower (2009)\n* MPLSound (2009)\n* 20Ten (2010)\n* Plectrumelectrum (2014)\n* Art Official Age (2014)\n* HITnRUN Phase One (2015)\n* HITnRUN Phase Two (2015)\n\nFilmography\n\nTours\n\n* Prince Tour (1979–80)\n* Dirty Mind Tour (1980–81)\n* Controversy Tour (1981–82)\n* 1999 Tour (1982–83)\n* Purple Rain Tour (1984–85)\n* Parade Tour (1986)\n* Sign o' the Times Tour (1987)\n* Lovesexy Tour (1988–89)\n* Nude Tour (1990)\n* Diamonds and Pearls Tour (1992)\n* Act I and II (1993)\n* Interactive Tour (1994)\n* The Ultimate Live Experience (1995)\n* Gold Tour (1996)\n* Love 4 One Another Charities Tour (1997)\n* Jam of the Year Tour (1997–98)\n* New Power Soul Tour/Festival (1998)\n* Hit n Run Tour (2000–01)\n* A Celebration (2001)\n* One Nite Alone... Tour (2002)\n* 2003–2004 World Tour (2003–04)\n* Musicology Live 2004ever (2004)\n* Per4ming Live 3121 (2006–07)\n* 21 Nights in London: The Earth Tour (2007)\n* 20Ten Tour (2010)\n* Welcome 2 (2010–12)\n* Live Out Loud Tour (2013)\n* Hit and Run Tour (2014–15)\n* Piano & A Microphone Tour (2016)\n\nAwards and nominations"
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Man In The Mirror first featured on which Michel Jackson album?
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tc_81
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"\"Man in the Mirror\" is a song made popular by Michael Jackson and written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. Jackson's recording was produced by Quincy Jones and co-produced by Jackson. It peaked at number 1 in the United States when released in January 1988 as the fourth single from his seventh solo album, Bad. It is one of Jackson's most critically acclaimed songs and it was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 2 weeks. The song peaked at number 21 in the UK Singles Charts in 1988, but in 2009, following the news of Jackson's death, the song peaked at number 2, having re-entered the chart at 11 the previous week as his top song on the singles chart. It also became the number 1 single in iTunes downloads in the US and the UK, having sold over 1.3 million digital copies in the former alone. \n\nThe song was remixed for the soundtrack of Jackson's tribute tour Immortal.\n\nComposition\n\n\"Man in the Mirror\" was composed by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. Jackson added background vocals from Garrett, The Winans and the Andrae Crouch Choir, which gave the song its distinctive sound. The song is said to have been one of his favorite songs. Arranged with a gospel choir, Jackson would use a gospel choir again several years later on his hit \"Will You Be There\". Siedah Garrett also sang Jackson's duet \"I Just Can't Stop Loving You\" in summer 1987. The song is played in the key of G Major at a tempo of 100bpm. The vocal range is Ab3-C6. \n\nThe single sleeve for \"Man in the Mirror\" contained a dedication to Yoshiaki Ogiwara, a five-year-old boy from Takasaki, Gunma, Japan who was kidnapped for ransom and subsequently murdered in September 1987. The killing was highly traumatic to the Japanese public and to Jackson himself, who was touring Japan at the time and subsequently dedicated concerts in Osaka and Yokohama to the boy's memory. \n\nCritical response\n\n\"Man in the Mirror\" is one of Michael Jackson's most critically acclaimed songs. When Ed Hogan reviewed the song, he called it \"gentle.\" Robert Christgau wrote: \"He's against burglary, speeding, and sex in favor of harmonic convergence and changing the world by changing the man in the mirror.\" Jon Pareles of The New York Times noted that this song has \"gospelly lift.\" Rolling Stone's Davitt Sigerson thought that \"Man in the Mirror\" stands among the half dozen best things Jackson has done, and he continued: \"On \"Man in the Mirror,\" a song he did not write, Jackson goes a step further and offers a straightforward homily of personal commitment: \"I'm starting with the man in the mirror/I'm asking him to change his ways/And no message could have been any clearer/If you wanna make the world a better place/Take a look at yourself and then make a change.\" \n\nMusic video\n\nOne of the videos is a notable departure from Jackson's other videos mainly because Jackson himself does not appear in the video (aside from a brief clip toward the end of the video in which he can be seen donning a red jacket and standing in a large crowd). Instead, it featured a montage of footage from various major news events such as the nuclear explosion of Operation Crossroads, the Civil Rights March on Washington, John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy's assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Kent State shootings, the Iranian hostage crisis, Cesar Chavez, Solidarity's birth and growth, The Troubles, Ethiopian famine, increases in U.S. homelessness, Live Aid, the first Farm Aid with Willie Nelson, Jessica McClure's rescue, Salvadoran Civil War, Camp David Accords (with Anwar El Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter), INF Treaty signing (with Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan), and other notable people including Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Lech Wałęsa, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Pieter Willem Botha, Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Ku Klux Klan, and Adolf Hitler. \n\nThe PCM Stereo music video version of this song was included on Number Ones, Michael Jackson's Vision, the Target version DVD of Bad 25, and the song's video that released on VHS in 1989.\n\nAn alternate live video was used as the opening song in Jackson's film Moonwalker with live audio and footage from several live performances of the song during the Bad World Tour.\n\nChart performance\n\n\"Man In The Mirror\" was the 4th consecutive number-one single for Jackson's Bad in the United States. The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 48 on February 6, 1988, and reached number 1 by its 8th week on the chart, on March 26, 1988, where it remained for 2 weeks.\n\nThe song originally peaked at number 21 in the United Kingdom in 1988. However, following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, \"Man in the Mirror\" re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number 11, and the following week the song peaked at number 2, held off by Cascada's \"Evacuate the Dancefloor\". The chart had also contained over 12 Michael Jackson songs in the Top 40. This song had been at top 100 for 15 consecutive weeks in this chart. In Australia the song originally charted at number 39. After the singer's death, the song re-entered the chart and peaked at number 8, much higher than its original release. It was also the top single in iTunes downloads in the US and the UK. It has sold 567,280 copies in the UK as of January 2016. \n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nLive performances\n\nJackson performed a live, extended version of the song at the 1988 Grammy Awards. He also performed the song as the ending of the concert during the Bad World Tour's second leg, and regularly during the Dangerous World Tour. Live versions of the song are available on the DVDs Live at Wembley July 16, 1988 and Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour. On July 16, 1996, Jackson also performed \"Man in the Mirror\" at the Royal Concert Brunei for the last time prior to the United We Stand benefit concert.\n\nThe instrumental introduction to the song was played at the end of Jackson's memorial service, while his casket was being carried out; followed by the appearance of a spotlight shining on a microphone on an empty stage. After a closing prayer that incorporated themes from the song, the spotlight remained shining on the lone microphone. The song is also featured as the final number in Michael Jackson's This Is It."
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Where was the first battle with US involvement in the Korean War?
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tc_82
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Korean War (in South Korean , \"Korean War\"; in North Korean , \"Fatherland Liberation War\"; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China, with assistance from the Soviet Union, came to the aid of North Korea. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards.\n\nKorea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the closing days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, and liberated Korea north of the 38th parallel. U.S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The civil war escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—moved to the south to unite the country on 25 June 1950. On that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83: Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation and dispatch of the UN Forces in Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the defense of South Korea, with the United States providing 88% of the UN's military personnel.\n\nAfter the first two months of the conflict, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter. In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many of the North Korean troops. Those that escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, or into the mountainous interior. At this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951. After these dramatic reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of conflict became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies.\n\nThe fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which were deadly, have continued to the present.\n\nNames\n\nIn the U.S., the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a \"police action\" as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. It has been referred to in the Anglosphere as \"The Forgotten War\" or \"The Unknown War\" because of the lack of public attention it received both during and after the war, and in relation to the global scale of World War II, which preceded it, and the subsequent angst of the Vietnam War, which succeeded it.\n\nIn South Korea, the war is usually referred to as \"625\" or the \"6–2–5 Upheaval\" ( (), yook-i-o dongnan), reflecting the date of its commencement on 25 June.\n\nIn North Korea, the war is officially referred to as the \"Fatherland Liberation War\" (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng) or alternatively the \"Chosǒn [Korean] War\" (, Chosǒn chǒnjaeng).\n\nIn China, the war is officially called the \"War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea\" (), although the term \"Chaoxian (Korean) War\" () is also used in unofficial contexts, along with the term \"Korean Conflict\" () more commonly used in regions such as Hong Kong and Macau.\n\nBackground\n\nImperial Japanese rule (1910–45)\n\nJapan destroyed the influence of China over Korea in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), ushering in the short-lived Korean Empire. A decade later, after defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan made Korea its protectorate with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910.\n\nMany Korean nationalists fled the country. A Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was founded in 1919 in Nationalist China. It failed to achieve international recognition, failed to unite nationalist groups, and had a fractious relationship with its American-based founding President, Syngman Rhee. From 1919 to 1925 and beyond, Korean communists led internal and external warfare against the Japanese.\n\nKorea was considered to be part of the Empire of Japan as an industrialized colony along with Taiwan, and both were part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In 1937, the colonial Governor-General, General Jirō Minami, commanded the attempted cultural assimilation of Korea's 23.5 million people by banning the use and study of Korean language, literature, and culture, to be replaced with that of mandatory use and study of their Japanese counterparts. Starting in 1939, the populace was required to use Japanese names under the Sōshi-kaimei policy. Conscription of Koreans for labor in war industries began in 1939, with as many as 2 million Koreans conscripted into either the Japanese Army or into the Japanese labor force. \n\nIn China, the Nationalist National Revolutionary Army and the communist People's Liberation Army helped organize Korean refugees against the Japanese military, which had also occupied parts of China. The Nationalist-backed Koreans, led by Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the Burma Campaign (December 1941 – August 1945). The communists, led by Kim Il-sung among others, fought the Japanese in Korea and Manchuria.\n\nDuring World War II, Japan used Korea's food, livestock, and metals for their war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased from 46,000 soldiers in 1941 to 300,000 in 1945. Japanese Korea conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people were sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan. By 1942, Korean men were being conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. By January 1945, Koreans made up 32% of Japan's labor force. At the end of the war, other world powers did not recognize Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan.\n\nAt the Cairo Conference in November 1943, China, the United Kingdom, and United States all decided \"in due course Korea shall become free and independent\".\n\nSoviet-Japanese War (1945)\n\nAt the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of the victory in Europe. Accordingly, it declared war on Japan on 9 August 1945. By 10 August, the Red Army had begun to occupy the northern part of the Korean peninsula.\n\nOn the night of 10 August in Washington, American Colonels Dean Rusk and Charles H. Bonesteel III were tasked with dividing the Korean Peninsula into Soviet and U.S. occupation zones and proposed the 38th parallel. This was incorporated into America's General Order No. 1 which responded to the Japanese surrender on 15 August. Explaining the choice of the 38th parallel, Rusk observed, \"even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by U.S. forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement...we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops\". He noted that he was \"faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area\". As Rusk's comments indicate, the Americans doubted whether the Soviet government would agree to this. Stalin, however, maintained his wartime policy of co-operation, and on 16 August the Red Army halted at the 38th parallel for three weeks to await the arrival of U.S. forces in the south.\n\nKorea divided (1945–49)\n\nOn 8 September 1945, U.S. Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel. Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea as head of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48). He attempted to establish control by restoring Japanese colonial administrators to power, but in the face of Korean protests he quickly reversed this decision. The USAMGIK refused to recognize the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) due to its suspected Communist sympathies.\n\nIn December 1945, Korea was administered by a U.S.-Soviet Union Joint Commission, as agreed at the Moscow Conference, with the aim of granting independence after a five-year trusteeship. The idea was not popular among Koreans and riots broke out. To contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes on 8 December 1945 and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12 December 1945.\n\nThe right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by Syngman Rhee, who had arrived with the U.S. military, opposed the trusteeship, arguing that Korea had already suffered from foreign occupation far too long. General Hodge began to distance himself from the proposal, even though it had originated with his government.\n\nOn 23 September 1946, an 8,000-strong railroad worker strike began in Pusan. Civil disorder spread throughout the country in what became known as the Autumn uprising. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students in the Daegu Uprising; protesters counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. On 3 October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials were killed. The USAMGIK declared martial law.\n\nCiting the inability of the Joint Commission to make progress, the U.S. government decided to hold an election under United Nations auspices with the aim of creating an independent Korea. The Soviet authorities and the Korean Communists refused to co-operate on the grounds it would not be fair, and many South Korean politicians boycotted it. A general election was held in the South on 10 May 1948. It was marred by political violence and sabotage resulting in 600 deaths. North Korea held parliamentary elections three months later on 25 August.\n\nThe resultant South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on 17 July 1948, and elected Syngman Rhee as President on 20 July 1948. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on 15 August 1948. In the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the Soviet Union established a communist government led by Kim Il-sung. President Rhee's régime excluded communists and leftists from southern politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare for guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK government.\n\nMeanwhile, on 3 April 1948, what began as a demonstration commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese rule ended with the Jeju uprising where between 14,000 and 60,000 people died. South Korean Army soldiers carried out large-scale atrocities during its suppression of the uprising. In October 1948, some South Korean soldiers mutinied against the clampdown in the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion.\n\nThe Soviet Union withdrew as agreed from Korea in 1948, and U.S. troops withdrew in 1949. On 24 December 1949, South Korean forces killed 86 to 88 people in the Mungyeong massacre and blamed the crime on marauding communist bands. By early 1950, Syngman Rhee had about 30,000 alleged communists in jails and about 300,000 suspected sympathizers enrolled in the Bodo League re-education movement. \n\nChinese Civil War (1945–1949)\n\nWith the end of the war with Japan, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists. While the Communists were struggling for supremacy in Manchuria, they were supported by the North Korean government with matériel and manpower. According to Chinese sources, the North Koreans donated 2,000 railway cars worth of matériel while thousands of Koreans served in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the war. North Korea also provided the Chinese Communists in Manchuria with a safe refuge for non-combatants and communications with the rest of China.\n\nThe North Korean contributions to the Chinese Communist victory were not forgotten after the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. As a token of gratitude, between 50,000 and 70,000 Korean veterans that served in the PLA were sent back along with their weapons, and they later played a significant role in the initial invasion of South Korea. China promised to support the North Koreans in the event of a war against South Korea. The Chinese support created a deep division between the Korean Communists, and Kim Il-sung's authority within the Communist party was challenged by the Chinese faction led by Pak Il-yu, who was later purged by Kim.\n\nAfter the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government named the Western nations, led by the United States, as the biggest threat to its national security. Basing this judgment on China's century of humiliation beginning in the early 19th century, American support for the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War, and the ideological struggles between revolutionaries and reactionaries, the Chinese leadership believed that China would become a critical battleground in the United States' crusade against Communism. As a countermeasure and to elevate China's standing among the worldwide Communist movements, the Chinese leadership adopted a foreign policy that actively promoted Communist revolutions throughout territories on China's periphery.\n\nCourse of the war\n\nOutbreak of war (1950)\n\nBy 1949, South Korean forces had reduced the active number of communist guerrillas in the South from 5,000 to 1,000. However, Kim Il-sung believed that the guerrillas had weakened the South Korean military and that a North Korean invasion would be welcomed by much of the South Korean population. Kim began seeking Stalin's support for an invasion in March 1949, travelling to Moscow to attempt to persuade Stalin.\n\nInitially, Stalin did not think the time was right for a war in Korea. Chinese Communist forces were still fighting in China. American forces were still stationed in South Korea (they would complete their withdrawal in June 1949) and Stalin did not want the Soviet Union to become embroiled in a war with the United States.\n\nBy spring 1950, Stalin believed the strategic situation had changed. The Soviets had detonated their first nuclear bomb in September 1949; American soldiers had fully withdrawn from Korea; the Americans had not intervened to stop the communist victory in China, and Stalin calculated that the Americans would be even less willing to fight in Korea—which had seemingly much less strategic significance. The Soviets had also cracked the codes used by the US to communicate with the US embassy in Moscow, and reading these dispatches convinced Stalin that Korea did not have the importance to the US that would warrant a nuclear confrontation. Stalin began a more aggressive strategy in Asia based on these developments, including promising economic and military aid to China through the Sino–Soviet Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance Treaty.\n\nThroughout 1949 and 1950 the Soviets continued to arm North Korea. After the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, ethnic Korean units in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) were released to North Korea. The combat veterans from China, the tanks, artillery and aircraft supplied by the Soviets, and rigorous training increased North Korea's military superiority over the South, which had been armed by the American military with mostly small arms and given no heavy weaponry such as tanks.\n\nIn April 1950, Stalin gave Kim permission to invade the South under the condition that Mao would agree to send reinforcements if they became needed. Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat, to avoid a direct war with the Americans. Kim met with Mao in May 1950. Mao was concerned that the Americans would intervene but agreed to support the North Korean invasion. China desperately needed the economic and military aid promised by the Soviets. At that time, the Chinese were in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers. However, Mao sent more ethnic Korean PLA veterans to Korea and promised to move an army closer to the Korean border. Once Mao's commitment was secured, preparations for war accelerated. \n\nSoviet generals with extensive combat experience from the Second World War were sent to North Korea as the Soviet Advisory Group. These generals completed the plans for the attack by May. The original plans called for a skirmish to be initiated in the Ongjin Peninsula on the west coast of Korea. The North Koreans would then launch a \"counterattack\" that would capture Seoul and encircle and destroy the South Korean army. The final stage would involve destroying South Korean government remnants, capturing the rest of South Korea, including the ports.\n\nOn 7 June 1950, Kim Il-sung called for a Korea-wide election on 5–8 August 1950 and a consultative conference in Haeju on 15–17 June 1950. On 11 June, the North sent three diplomats to the South, as a peace overture that Rhee rejected. On 21 June, Kim Il-Sung revised his war plan to involve general attack across the 38th parallel, rather than a limited operation in the Ongjin peninsula. Kim was concerned that South Korean agents had learned about the plans and South Korean forces were strengthening their defenses. Stalin agreed to this change of plan.\n\nWhile these preparations were underway in the North, there were frequent clashes along the 38th parallel, especially at Kaesong and Ongjin, many initiated by the South. The Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) was being trained by the U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG). On the eve of war, KMAG's commander General William Lynn Roberts voiced utmost confidence in the ROK Army and boasted that any North Korean invasion would merely provide \"target practice\". For his part, Syngman Rhee repeatedly expressed his desire to conquer the North, including when American diplomat John Foster Dulles visited Korea on 18 June.\n\nAlthough some South Korean and American intelligence officers were predicting an attack from the North, similar predictions had been made before and nothing had eventuated. The Central Intelligence Agency did note the southward movement by the Korean People's Army (KPA), but assessed this as a \"defensive measure\" and concluded an invasion was \"unlikely\". On 23 June, UN observers inspected the border and did not detect that war was imminent. \n\nAt dawn on Sunday, 25 June 1950, the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire. The KPA justified its assault with the claim that ROK troops had attacked first, and that they were aiming to arrest and execute the \"bandit traitor Syngman Rhee\". Fighting began on the strategic Ongjin peninsula in the west. There were initial South Korean claims that they had captured the city of Haeju, and this sequence of events has led some scholars to argue that the South Koreans actually fired first. \n\nWhoever fired the first shots in Ongjin, within an hour, North Korean forces attacked all along the 38th parallel. The North Koreans had a combined arms force including tanks supported by heavy artillery. The South Koreans did not have any tanks, anti-tank weapons, nor heavy artillery, that could stop such an attack. In addition, South Koreans committed their forces in a piecemeal fashion and these were routed within a few days.\n\nOn 27 June, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with some of the government. On 28 June, at 2 am, the South Korean Army blew up the highway bridge across the Han River in an attempt to stop the North Korean army. The bridge was detonated while 4,000 refugees were crossing the bridge, and hundreds were killed. Destroying the bridge also trapped many South Korean military units north of the Han River. In spite of such desperate measures, Seoul fell that same day. A number of South Korean National Assemblymen remained in Seoul when it fell, and forty-eight subsequently pledged allegiance to the North.\n\nOn 28 June, Rhee ordered the massacre of suspected political opponents in his own country. \n\nIn five days, the South Korean forces, which had 95,000 men on 25 June, was down to less than 22,000 men. In early July, when U.S. forces arrived, what was left of the South Korean forces were placed under U.S. operational command of the United Nations Command.\n\nFactors in US intervention\n\nThe Truman administration was unprepared for the invasion. Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Military strategists were more concerned with the security of Europe against the Soviet Union than East Asia. At the same time, the Administration was worried that a war in Korea could quickly widen into another world war should the Chinese or Soviets decide to get involved as well.\n\nOne facet of the changing attitude toward Korea and whether to get involved was Japan. Especially after the fall of China to the Communists, U.S. East Asian experts saw Japan as the critical counterweight to the Soviet Union and China in the region. While there was no United States policy that dealt with South Korea directly as a national interest, its proximity to Japan increased the importance of South Korea. Said Kim: \"The recognition that the security of Japan required a non-hostile Korea led directly to President Truman's decision to intervene... The essential point... is that the American response to the North Korean attack stemmed from considerations of US policy toward Japan.\"\n\nA major consideration was the possible Soviet reaction in the event that the US intervened. The Truman administration was fretful that a war in Korea was a diversionary assault that would escalate to a general war in Europe once the United States committed in Korea. At the same time, \"[t]here was no suggestion from anyone that the United Nations or the United States could back away from [the conflict]\". Yugoslavia–a possible Soviet target because of the Tito-Stalin Split—was vital to the defense of Italy and Greece, and the country was first on the list of the National Security Council's post-North Korea invasion list of \"chief danger spots\". Truman believed if aggression went unchecked a chain reaction would be initiated that would marginalize the United Nations and encourage Communist aggression elsewhere. The UN Security Council approved the use of force to help the South Koreans and the US immediately began using what air and naval forces that were in the area to that end. The Administration still refrained from committing on the ground because some advisers believed the North Koreans could be stopped by air and naval power alone.\n\nThe Truman administration was still uncertain if the attack was a ploy by the Soviet Union or just a test of U.S. resolve. The decision to commit ground troops became viable when a communiqué was received on 27 June indicating the Soviet Union would not move against U.S. forces in Korea. The Truman administration now believed it could intervene in Korea without undermining its commitments elsewhere.\n\nUnited Nations Security Council Resolutions\n\nOn 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea, with UN Security Council Resolution 82. The Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 27 June President Truman ordered U.S. air and sea forces to help the South Korean regime. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the United States of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.\n\nThe Soviet Union challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 was based came from U.S. Intelligence; North Korea was not invited as a sitting temporary member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and the Korean conflict was beyond the UN Charter's scope, because the initial north–south border fighting was classed as a civil war. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the time, legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.\n\nComparison of military forces\n\nBy mid-1950, North Korean forces numbered between 150,000 and 200,000 troops, organized into 10 infantry divisions, one tank division, and one air force division, with 210 fighter planes and 280 tanks, who captured scheduled objectives and territory, among them Kaesong, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin. Their forces included 274 T-34-85 tanks, 200 artillery pieces, 110 attack bombers, some 150 Yak fighter planes, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft. In addition to the invasion force, the North KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in reserve in North Korea. Although each navy consisted of only several small warships, the North and South Korean navies fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.\n\nIn contrast, the ROK Army defenders were relatively unprepared and ill-equipped. In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1961), R.E. Appleman reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness as of 25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no tanks (they had been requested from the U.S. military, but requests were denied), and a 22-piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at the time of the invasion, but there were large U.S. garrisons and air forces in Japan.\n\nWithin days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee regime—were either retreating southwards or were defecting en masse to the northern side, the KPA.\n\nUnited Nations response (July – August 1950)\n\nOn Saturday, 24 June 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President Truman that the North Koreans had invaded South Korea. Truman and Acheson discussed a U.S. invasion response and agreed that the United States was obligated to act, paralleling the North Korean invasion with Adolf Hitler's aggressions in the 1930s, with the conclusion being that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated. Several U.S. industries were mobilized to supply materials, labor, capital, production facilities, and other services necessary to support the military objectives of the Korean War. However, President Truman later acknowledged that he believed fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) (declassified in 1975):\n\nIn August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State obtained the consent of Congress to appropriate $12 billion for military action in Korea.\n\nAs an initial response, Truman called for a naval blockade of North Korea, and was shocked to learn that such a blockade could be imposed only 'on paper', since the U.S. Navy no longer had the warships with which to carry out his request. In fact, because of the extensive defense cuts and the emphasis placed on building a nuclear bomber force, none of the services were in a position to make a robust response with conventional military strength. General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was faced with re-organizing and deploying an American military force that was a shadow of its World War II counterpart. The impact of the Truman administration's defense budget cutbacks were now keenly felt, as American troops fought a series of costly rearguard actions. Lacking sufficient anti-tank weapons, artillery or armor, they were driven back down the Korean peninsula to Pusan. In a postwar analysis of the unpreparedness of U.S. Army forces deployed to Korea during the summer and fall of 1950, Army Major General Floyd L. Parks stated that \"Many who never lived to tell the tale had to fight the full range of ground warfare from offensive to delaying action, unit by unit, man by man ... [T]hat we were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat ... does not relieve us from the blame of having placed our own flesh and blood in such a predicament.\" \n\nActing on State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman ordered General MacArthur to transfer matériel to the Army of the Republic of Korea while giving air cover to the evacuation of U.S. nationals. The President disagreed with advisers who recommended unilateral U.S. bombing of the North Korean forces, and ordered the US Seventh Fleet to protect the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose government asked to fight in Korea. The United States denied ROC's request for combat, lest it provoke a communist Chinese retaliation. Because the United States had sent the Seventh Fleet to \"neutralize\" the Taiwan Strait, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai criticized both the UN and U.S. initiatives as \"armed aggression on Chinese territory.\"\n\nThe Battle of Osan, the first significant American engagement of the Korean War, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division which had been flown in from Japan. On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the North Koreans' tanks. They were unsuccessful; the result was 180 dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back the US force at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon; the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including the Division's Commander, Major General William F. Dean.\n\nBy August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the Eighth United States Army to the vicinity of Pusan in southeast Korea. In their southward advance, the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals. On 20 August, General MacArthur warned North Korean leader Kim Il-sung that he was responsible for the KPA's atrocities. By September, the UN Command controlled the Pusan perimeter, enclosing about 10% of Korea, in a line partially defined by the Nakdong River.\n\nAlthough Kim's early successes had led him to predict that he would end the war by the end of August, Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. To counter a possible U.S. deployment, Zhou Enlai secured a Soviet commitment to have the Soviet Union support Chinese forces with air cover, and deployed 260,000 soldiers along the Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang. Zhou commanded Chai Chengwen to conduct a topographical survey of Korea, and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military advisor in Korea, to analyze the military situation in Korea. Lei concluded that MacArthur would most likely attempt a landing at Incheon. After conferring with Mao that this would be MacArthur's most likely strategy, Zhou briefed Soviet and North Korean advisers of Lei's findings, and issued orders to Chinese army commanders deployed on the Korean border to prepare for American naval activity in the Korea Strait.\n\nEscalation (August – September 1950)\n\nIn the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the U.S. Army withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city at the Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong, and Taegu. The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night. To deny matériel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the U.S. Navy air forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south. On 27 August, 67th Fighter Squadron aircraft mistakenly attacked facilities in Chinese territory and the Soviet Union called the UN Security Council's attention to China's complaint about the incident. The US proposed that a commission of India and Sweden determine what the US should pay in compensation but the Soviets vetoed the US proposal. \n\nMeanwhile, U.S. garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and matériel to reinforce defenders in the Pusan Perimeter. Tank battalions deployed to Korea directly from the U.S. mainland from the port of San Francisco to the port of Pusan, the largest Korean port. By late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks battle-ready. In early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers. The UN forces, once prepared, counterattacked and broke out of the Pusan Perimeter.\n\nBattle of Inchon (September 1950)\n\nAgainst the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air support. To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur recommended an amphibious landing at Inchon (now known as Incheon), near Seoul and well over 100 mi behind the KPA lines. On 6 July, he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama, Japan to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division inside the Pusan Perimeter.\n\nSoon after the war began, General MacArthur had begun planning a landing at Incheon, but the Pentagon opposed him. When authorized, he activated a combined U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and ROK Army force. The X Corps, led by General Edward Almond, Commander, consisted of 40,000 men of the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division and around 8,600 ROK Army soldiers. By 15 September, the amphibious assault force faced few KPA defenders at Incheon: military intelligence, psychological warfare, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle. However, the bombardment destroyed most of the city of Incheon.\n\nAfter the Incheon landing, the 1st Cavalry Division began its northward advance from the Pusan Perimeter. \"Task Force Lynch\" (after Lieutenant Colonel James H. Lynch), 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and two 70th Tank Battalion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon) effected the \"Pusan Perimeter Breakout\" through of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan. The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in Southern Korea.\n\nOn 18 September, Stalin dispatched General H. M. Zakharov to Korea to advise Kim Il-sung to halt his offensive around the Pusan perimeter and to redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. As the overall commander of Chinese forces, Zhou Enlai suggested that the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the enemy forces at Inchon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north.\n\nOn 25 September, Seoul was recaptured by South Korean forces. American air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and much of its artillery. North Korean troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable. During the general retreat only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers managed to rejoin the Northern KPA lines. On 27 September, Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, in which he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.\n\nUN forces cross partition line (September – October 1950)\n\nOn 27 September, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if \"at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily...\" On 29 September MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee. On 30 September, Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: \"We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel.\" During October, the ROK police executed people who were suspected to be sympathetic to North Korea, and similar massacres were carried out until early 1951.\n\nOn 30 September, Zhou Enlai warned the United States that China was prepared to intervene in Korea if the United States crossed the 38th parallel. Zhou attempted to advise North Korean commanders on how to conduct a general withdrawal by using the same tactics which had allowed Chinese communist forces to successfully escape Chiang Kai-shek's Encirclement Campaigns in the 1930s, but by some accounts North Korean commanders did not utilize these tactics effectively. Historian Bruce Cumings argues, however, the KPA's rapid withdrawal was strategic, with troops melting into the mountains from where they could launch guerrilla raids on the UN forces spread out on the coasts.\n\nBy 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea. MacArthur made a statement demanding the KPA's unconditional surrender. Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and Riwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces. The Eighth U.S. Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team (\"Rakkasans\") made their first of two combat jumps during the Korean War on 20 October 1950 at Sunchon and Sukchon. The missions of the 187th were to cut the road north going to China, preventing North Korean leaders from escaping from Pyongyang; and to rescue American prisoners of war. At month's end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war. As they neared the Sino-Korean border, the UN forces in the west were divided from those in the east by 50–100 miles of mountainous terrain.\n\nTaking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.\n\nChina intervenes (October – December 1950)\n\nOn 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the Chinese entered the war, President Truman dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, to prevent hostilities between the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). On 4 August 1950, with the PRC invasion of Taiwan aborted, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo that he would intervene in Korea when the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Taiwan invasion force was reorganized into the PLA North East Frontier Force. China justified its entry into the war as a response to \"American aggression in the guise of the UN\".\n\nOn 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the UN that \"Korea is China's neighbor... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question\". Thus, through neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea. President Truman interpreted the communication as \"a bald attempt to blackmail the UN\", and dismissed it.\n\n1 October 1950, the day that UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, was also the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On that day the Soviet ambassador forwarded a telegram from Stalin to Mao and Zhou requesting that China send five to six divisions into Korea, and Kim Il-sung sent frantic appeals to Mao for Chinese military intervention. At the same time, Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces themselves would not directly intervene.\n\nIn a series of emergency meetings that lasted from 2–5 October, Chinese leaders debated whether to send Chinese troops into Korea. There was considerable resistance among many leaders, including senior military leaders, to confronting the U.S. in Korea. Mao strongly supported intervention, and Zhou was one of the few Chinese leaders who firmly supported him. After Lin Biao politely refused Mao's offer to command Chinese forces in Korea (citing his upcoming medical treatment), Mao decided that Peng Dehuai would be the commander of the Chinese forces in Korea after Peng agreed to support Mao's position. Mao then asked Peng to speak in favor of intervention to the rest of the Chinese leaders. After Peng made the case that if U.S. troops conquered Korea and reached the Yalu they might cross it and invade China the Politburo agreed to intervene in Korea. Later, the Chinese claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace on three separate occasions and attacked Chinese targets before China intervened. On 8 October 1950, Mao Zedong redesignated the PLA North East Frontier Force as the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).\n\nIn order to enlist Stalin's support, Zhou and a Chinese delegation left for Moscow on 8 October, arriving there on 10 October at which point they flew to Stalin's home at the Black Sea. There they conferred with the top Soviet leadership which included Joseph Stalin as well as Vyacheslav Molotov, Lavrentiy Beria and Georgi Malenkov. Stalin initially agreed to send military equipment and ammunition, but warned Zhou that the Soviet Union's air force would need two or three months to prepare any operations. In a subsequent meeting, Stalin told Zhou that he would only provide China with equipment on a credit basis, and that the Soviet air force would only operate over Chinese airspace, and only after an undisclosed period of time. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951. Mao did not find Soviet air support especially useful, as the fighting was going to take place on the south side of the Yalu. Soviet shipments of matériel, when they did arrive, were limited to small quantities of trucks, grenades, machine guns, and the like.\n\nImmediately on his return to Beijing on 18 October 1950, Zhou met with Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, and Gao Gang, and the group ordered two hundred thousand Chinese troops to enter North Korea, which they did on 25 October. After consulting with Stalin, on 13 November, Mao appointed Zhou the overall commander and coordinator of the war effort, with Peng as field commander. Orders given by Zhou were delivered in the name of the Central Military Commission.\n\nUN aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection. The PVA marched \"dark-to-dark\" (19:00–03:00), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and equipment) was deployed by 05:30. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away; PVA officers were under order to shoot security violators. Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-division army to march the 286 mi from An-tung, Manchuria, to the combat zone in some 19 days. Another division night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging 18 mi daily for 18 days.\n\nMeanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the North's capital city, on 19 October 1950. Kim Il Sung and his government temporarily moved its capital to Sinuiju – although as UNC forces approached, the government again moved – this time to Kanggye.\n\nOn 15 October 1950, President Truman and General MacArthur met at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean. This meeting was much publicized because of the General's discourteous refusal to meet the President on the continental United States. To President Truman, MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention in Korea, and that the PRC's opportunity for aiding the KPA had lapsed. He believed the PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River. He further concluded that, although half of those forces might cross south, \"if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter\" without air force protection.\n\nAfter secretly crossing the Yalu River on 19 October, the PVA 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on 25 October, attacking the advancing UN forces near the Sino-Korean border. This military decision made solely by China changed the attitude of the Soviet Union. Twelve days after Chinese troops entered the war, Stalin allowed the Soviet Air Force to provide air cover, and supported more aid to China. After decimating the ROK II Corps at the Battle of Onjong, the first confrontation between Chinese and U.S. military occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of soldiers from the PVA 39th Army encircled and attacked the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment with three-prong assaults—from the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle of Unsan. The surprise assault resulted in the UN forces retreating back to the Ch'ongch'on River, while the Chinese unexpectedly disappeared into mountain hideouts following victory. It is unclear why the Chinese did not press the attack and follow up their victory.\n\nThe UN Command, however, were unconvinced that the Chinese had openly intervened because of the sudden Chinese withdrawal. On 24 November, the Home-by-Christmas Offensive was launched with the U.S. Eighth Army advancing in northwest Korea, while the US X Corps were attacking along the Korean east coast. But the Chinese were waiting in ambush with their Second Phase Offensive.\n\nOn 25 November at the Korean western front, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and overran the ROK II Corps at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, and then decimated the US 2nd Infantry Division on the UN forces' right flank. The UN Command retreated; the U.S. Eighth Army's retreat (the longest in US Army history) was made possible because of the Turkish Brigade's successful, but very costly, rear-guard delaying action near Kunuri that slowed the PVA attack for two days (27–29 November). On 27 November at the Korean eastern front, a U.S. 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3,000 soldiers) and the U.S. 1st Marine Division (12,000–15,000 marines) were unprepared for the PVA 9th Army Group's three-pronged encirclement tactics at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but they managed to escape under Air Force and X Corps support fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.\n\nBy 30 November, the PVA 13th Army Group managed to expel the U.S. Eighth Army from northwest Korea. Retreating from the north faster than they had counter-invaded, the Eighth Army crossed the 38th parallel border in mid December. UN morale hit rock bottom when commanding General Walton Walker of the U.S. Eighth Army was killed on 23 December 1950 in an automobile accident. In northeast Korea by 11 December, the U.S. X Corps managed to cripple the PVA 9th Army Group while establishing a defensive perimeter at the port city of Hungnam. The X Corps were forced to evacuate by 24 December in order to reinforce the badly depleted U.S. Eighth Army to the south.\n\nDuring the Hungnam evacuation, about 193 shiploads of UN Command forces and matériel (approximately 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies) were evacuated to Pusan. The SS Meredith Victory was noted for evacuating 14,000 refugees, the largest rescue operation by a single ship, even though it was designed to hold 12 passengers. Before escaping, the UN Command forces razed most of Hungnam city, especially the port facilities; and on 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), which remained in force until 14 September 1978. The next day (17 December 1950) Kim Il-sung was deprived of the right of command of KPA by China. After that, the leading part of the war became the Chinese army.\n\nFighting around the 38th parallel (January – June 1951)\n\nWith Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway assuming the command of the U.S. Eighth Army on 26 December, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (also known as the \"Chinese New Year's Offensive\") on New Year's Eve of 1950. Utilizing night attacks in which UN Command fighting positions were encircled and then assaulted by numerically superior troops who had the element of surprise, the attacks were accompanied by loud trumpets and gongs, which fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical communication and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers panicked, abandoning their weapons and retreating to the south. The Chinese New Year's Offensive overwhelmed UN forces, allowing the PVA and KPA to conquer Seoul for the second time on 4 January 1951.\n\nThese setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using nuclear weapons against the Chinese or North Korean interiors, with the intention that radioactive fallout zones would interrupt the Chinese supply chains. However, upon the arrival of the charismatic General Ridgway, the esprit de corps of the bloodied Eighth Army immediately began to revive.\n\nUN forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and the territory north of Samcheok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held. The PVA had outrun its logistics capability and thus were unable to press on beyond Seoul as food, ammunition, and matériel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the border at the Yalu River to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the PVA had abandoned their battle lines, General Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became Operation Roundup (5 February 1951). A full-scale X Corps advance proceeded, which fully exploited the UN Command's air superiority, concluding with the UN reaching the Han River and recapturing Wonju.\n\nAfter cease-fire negotiations failed in January, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 498 on 1 February, condemning PRC as an aggressor, and called upon its forces to withdraw from Korea. \n\nIn early February, the South Korean 11th Division ran the operation to destroy the guerrillas and their sympathizer citizens in Southern Korea. During the operation, the division and police conducted the Geochang massacre and Sancheong-Hamyang massacre. In mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the Fourth Phase Offensive and achieved initial victory at Hoengseong. But the offensive was soon blunted by the IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni in the center. Units of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a short but desperate battle that broke the attack's momentum. The battle is sometimes known as the Gettysburg of the Korean War. The battle saw 5,600 Korean, American and French troops defeat a numerically superior Chinese force. Surrounded on all sides, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division Warrior Division's 23rd Regimental Combat Team with an attached French Battalion was hemmed in by more than 25,000 Chinese Communist forces. United Nations forces had previously retreated in the face of large Communist forces instead of getting cut off, but this time they stood and fought at odds of roughly 15 to 1.\n\nIn the last two weeks of February 1951, Operation Roundup was followed by Operation Killer, carried out by the revitalized Eighth Army. It was a full-scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximum exploitation of firepower to kill as many KPA and PVA troops as possible. Operation Killer concluded with I Corps re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengseong. On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with Operation Ripper, expelling the PVA and the KPA from Seoul on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth conquest in a years' time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000, and people were suffering from severe food shortages.\n\nOn 1 March 1951 Mao sent a cable to Stalin, in which he emphasized the difficulties faced by Chinese forces and the urgent need for air cover, especially over supply lines. Apparently impressed by the Chinese war effort, Stalin finally agreed to supply two air force divisions, three anti-aircraft divisions, and six thousand trucks. PVA troops in Korea continued to suffer severe logistical problems throughout the war. In late April Peng Dehuai sent his deputy, Hong Xuezhi, to brief Zhou Enlai in Beijing. What Chinese soldiers feared, Hong said, was not the enemy, but that they had nothing to eat, no bullets to shoot, and no trucks to transport them to the rear when they were wounded. Zhou attempted to respond to the PVA's logistical concerns by increasing Chinese production and improving methods of supply, but these efforts were never completely sufficient. At the same time, large-scale air defense training programs were carried out, and the Chinese Air Force began to participate in the war from September 1951 onward.\n\nOn 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved the controversial General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea. There were several reasons for the dismissal. MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in the mistaken belief that the Chinese would not enter the war, leading to major allied losses. He believed that whether or not to use nuclear weapons should be his own decision, not the President's. MacArthur threatened to destroy China unless it surrendered. While MacArthur felt total victory was the only honorable outcome, Truman was more pessimistic about his chances once involved in a land war in Asia, and felt a truce and orderly withdrawal from Korea could be a valid solution. MacArthur was the subject of congressional hearings in May and June 1951, which determined that he had defied the orders of the President and thus had violated the U.S. Constitution. A popular criticism of MacArthur was that he never spent a night in Korea, and directed the war from the safety of Tokyo.\n\nGeneral Ridgway was appointed Supreme Commander, Korea; he regrouped the UN forces for successful counterattacks, while General James Van Fleet assumed command of the U.S. Eighth Army. Further attacks slowly depleted the PVA and KPA forces; Operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951) and Tomahawk (23 March 1951) were a joint ground and airborne infilltration meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN forces advanced to \"Line Kansas\", north of the 38th parallel. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team's (\"Rakkasans\") second of two combat jumps was on Easter Sunday, 1951, at Munsan-ni, South Korea, codenamed Operation Tomahawk. The mission was to get behind Chinese forces and block their movement north. The 60th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations, dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their objective as the unit was on a humanitarian mission.\n\nThe Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive, also known as the Chinese Spring Offensive, with three field armies (approximately 700,000 men). The offensive's first thrust fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951), blunting the impetus of the offensive, which was halted at the \"No-name Line\" north of Seoul. On 15 May 1951, the Chinese commenced the second impulse of the Spring Offensive and attacked the ROK Army and the U.S. X Corps in the east at the Soyang River. After initial success, they were halted by 20 May. At month's end, the U.S. Eighth Army counterattacked and regained \"Line Kansas\", just north of the 38th parallel. The UN's \"Line Kansas\" halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the stalemate that lasted until the armistice of 1953.\n\nStalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)\n\nFor the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong. On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, and Li Kenong and Qiao Guanghua headed the negotiation team. Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the UN Command forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea and to avoid losing territory. The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later effected military and psychological operations in order to test the UN Command's resolve to continue the war.\n\nThe principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August–15 September 1951), the Battle of the Punchbowl (31 August-21 September 1951), the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September–15 October 1951), the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June–4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October–25 November 1952), the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March–21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–29 May 1953), the Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March–16 July 1953), and the Battle of Kumsong (13–27 July 1953).\n\nChinese troops suffered from deficient military equipment, serious logistical problems, overextended communication and supply lines, and the constant threat of UN bombers. All of these factors generally led to a rate of Chinese casualties that was far greater than the casualties suffered by UN troops. The situation became so serious that, on November 1951, Zhou Enlai called a conference in Shenyang to discuss the PVA's logistical problems. At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available to the army, and to improve air defense by any means possible. These commitments did little to directly address the problems confronting PVA troops.\n\nIn the months after the Shenyang conference Peng Dehuai went to Beijing several times to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. Peng was convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the near future. On 24 February 1952, the Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: \"You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?\" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.\n\nArmistice (July 1953 – November 1954)\n\nThe on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years, first at Kaesong, on the border between North and South Korea, and then at the neighbouring village of Panmunjom. A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation. The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north, which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans. In the final armistice agreement, signed on 27 July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, under the chairman Indian General K. S. Thimayya, was set up to handle the matter.\n\nIn 1952, the United States elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War. With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands.\n\nThe Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally was in pre-war South Korea, but now is part of North Korea. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953 to end the fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point, even though there was no peace treaty. North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.\n\nAfter the war, Operation Glory was conducted from July to November 1954, to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the South Korean government. After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl), on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American, and all but 416 were identified by name. From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.\n\nDivision of Korea (1954–present)\n\nThe Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ.\n\nIn April 1975, South Vietnam's capital was captured by the North Vietnamese army. Encouraged by the success of Communist revolution in Indochina, Kim Il-sung saw it as an opportunity to invade the South. Kim visited China in April of that year, and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to ask for military aid. Despite Pyongyang's expectations, however, Beijing refused to help North Korea for another war in Korea. \n\nSince the armistice, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression by North Korea. In 1976, the axe murder incident was widely publicized. Since 1974, four incursion tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. Again in 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians.\n\nAfter a new wave of UN sanctions, on 11 March 2013, North Korea claimed that it had invalidated the 1953 armistice. On 13 March 2013, North Korea confirmed it ended the 1953 Armistice and declared North Korea \"is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression\". On 30 March 2013, North Korea stated that it had entered a \"state of war\" with South Korea and declared that \"The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over\". Speaking on 4 April 2013, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, informed the press that Pyongyang had \"formally informed\" the Pentagon that it had \"ratified\" the potential usage of a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan and the United States of America, including Guam and Hawaii. Hagel also stated that the United States would deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system to Guam, because of a credible and realistic nuclear threat from North Korea. \n\nIn 2016, it was revealed that North Korea approached the United States about conducting formal peace talks to formally end the war. While the White House agreed to secret peace talks, the plan was rejected due to the country's refusal to discuss nuclear disarmament as part of the terms of the treaty. Any possibility of talks ended on 6 January when they conducted their fourth nuclear test. \n\nCharacteristics\n\nCasualties\n\nAccording to the data from the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths, during the Korean War. U.S. battle deaths were 8,516 up to their first engagement with the Chinese on 1 November 1950. South Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths. Western sources estimate the PVA suffered about 400,000 killed and 486,000 wounded, while the KPA suffered 215,000 killed and 303,000 wounded.\n\nData from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan, while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China. Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a \"large\" number of civilian deaths.\n\nIn return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from the United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were \"eliminated\" from the battlefield.\n\nRecent scholarship has put the full battle death toll on all sides at just over 1.2 million. \n\nArmored warfare\n\nThe initial assault by North Korean KPA forces was aided by the use of Soviet T-34-85 tanks. A North Korean tank corps equipped with about 120 T-34s spearheaded the invasion. These drove against a ROK Army with few anti-tank weapons adequate to deal with the Soviet T-34s. Additional Soviet armor was added as the offensive progressed. The North Korean tanks had a good deal of early successes against South Korean infantry, elements of the 24th Infantry Division, and the United States built M24 Chaffee light tanks that they encountered. Interdiction by ground attack aircraft was the only means of slowing the advancing Korean armor. The tide turned in favour of the United Nations forces in August 1950 when the North Koreans suffered major tank losses during a series of battles in which the UN forces brought heavier equipment to bear, including M4A3 Sherman medium tanks backed by U.S. M26 heavy tanks, along with British Centurion, Churchill, and Cromwell tanks.\n\nThe U.S. landings at Inchon on 15 September cut off the North Korean supply lines, causing their armored forces and infantry to run out of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies. As a result, the North Koreans had to retreat, and many of the T-34s and heavy weapons had to be abandoned. By the time the North Koreans withdrew from the South, a total of 239 T-34s and 74 SU-76s had been lost. After November 1950, North Korean armor was rarely encountered. \n\nFollowing the initial assault by the north, the Korean War saw limited use of the tank and featured no large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, forested terrain, especially in the Eastern Central Zone, was poor tank country, limiting their mobility. Through the last two years of the war in Korea, UN tanks served largely as infantry support and mobile artillery pieces.\n\nNaval warfare\n\nFurther information: List of U.S. Navy ships sunk or damaged in action during the Korean conflict\n\nBecause neither Korea had a significant navy, the Korean War featured few naval battles. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the U.S. Navy cruiser , the Royal Navy cruiser , and the frigate fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.\nUSS Juneau later sank several ammunition ships that had been present. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship PC-703 sank a North Korean mine layer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by PC-703 two days later in the Yellow Sea. Thereafter, vessels from the UN nations held undisputed control of the sea about Korea. The gun ships were used in shore bombardment, while the aircraft carriers provided air support to the ground forces.\n\nDuring most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea, sinking supply and ammunition ships and denying the North Koreans the ability to resupply from the sea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the main threat to United States and UN navy ships was from magnetic mines. During the war, five U.S. Navy ships were lost to mines: two minesweepers, two minesweeper escorts, and one ocean tug. Mines and gunfire from North Korean coastal artillery damaged another 87 U.S. warships, resulting in slight to moderate damage. \n\nAerial warfare\n\nThe Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played the central role in air combat. Once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—relinquished their air-superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, Gloster Meteor and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s.\n\nThe Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters. The heavily armed MiGs were faster than first-generation UN jets and so could reach and destroy U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber flights despite their fighter escorts. With increasing B-29 losses, the Air Force was forced to switch from a daylight bombing campaign to a safer but less accurate nighttime bombing of targets. \n\nThe USAF countered the MiG-15 by sending over three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre. These arrived in December 1950. The MiG was designed as a bomber interceptor. It had a very high service ceiling—50000 ft and carried very heavy weaponry: one 37 mm cannon and two 23 mm cannons. They had a ceiling of 42000 ft and were armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were range adjusted by radar gunsights. If coming in at higher altitude the advantage of engaging or not went to the MiG. Once in a level flight dogfight, both swept-wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around 660 mi/h. The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better.\n\nIn summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.\n\nUnlike the Vietnam War, in which the Soviet Union only officially sent \"advisers\", in the Korean aerial war Soviet forces participated via the 64th Airborne Corps. Fearful of confronting the United States directly, the Soviet Union denied involvement of their personnel in anything other than an advisory role, but air combat quickly resulted in Soviet pilots dropping their code signals and speaking over the wireless in Russian. This known direct Soviet participation was a casus belli that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand to include the Soviet Union, and potentially escalate into atomic warfare. 1,106 enemy airplanes were officially downed by the Soviet pilots, 52 of whom got ace status. The Soviet system of confirming air kills erred on the conservative side; the pilot's words had to be corroborated and enemy aircraft falling into the sea were not counted, the number might exceed 1,106. \n\nAfter the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire. The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed F-86s, respectively. However, one unconfirmed source claims that the U.S. Air Force has more recently cited 230 losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea.\n\nThe Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac). In 1944–1945, during the Second World War, the YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a speedy medevac vehicle, helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War (1965–75).\n\nBombing North Korea\n\nThe first major U.S. strategic bombing campaign against North Korea, begun in late July 1950, was conceived much along the lines of the major offensives of World War II. On 12 August 1950, the U.S. Air Force dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons. After the Chinese intervention in November, General MacArthur ordered the increased bombing campaign on North Korea, including incendiary attacks against their arsenals and communications centers and especially against the \"Korean end\" of all the bridges across the Yalu River. As with the aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II, the nominal objective of the U.S. Air Force was to destroy North Korea's war infrastructure and shatter their morale. After MacArthur was removed as Supreme Commander in Korea in April 1951, his successors continued this policy and eventually extended it to all of North Korea. Overall, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs—including 32,557 tons of napalm—on Korea, more than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. \n\nAs a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. The war's highest-ranking American POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean, reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wastelands. North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground, and air defenses were \"virtually non-existent.\" In November 1950, the North Korean leadership instructed their population to build dugouts and mud huts, as well as dig underground tunnels, in order to solve the acute housing problem. U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay commented, \"we went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too.\" Pyongyang, which saw 75 percent of its area destroyed, was so devastated that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets. On 28 November, Bomber Command reported on the campaign's progress: 95 percent of Manpojin was destroyed, along with 90 percent of Hoeryong, Namsi and Koindong, 85 percent of Chosan, 75 percent of both Sakchu and Huichon, and 20 percent of Uiju. According to USAF damage assessments, \"eighteen of twenty-two major cities in North Korea had been at least half obliterated.\" By the end of the campaign, US bombers had difficulty in finding targets and were reduced to bombing footbridges or jettisoning their bombs into the sea. \n\nAs well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the U.S. had used biological weapons. These claims have been disputed; Conrad Crane asserts that while the U.S. worked towards developing chemical and biological weapons, the American military \"possessed neither the ability, nor the will\", to use them in combat. \n\nU.S. threat of atomic warfare\n\nOn 5 November 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs \"to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets\", which he never transmitted.\n\nMany American officials viewed the deployment of nuclear-capable (but not nuclear-armed) B-29 bombers to Britain as helping to resolve the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. Truman and Eisenhower both had military experience and viewed nuclear weapons as potentially usable components of their military. During Truman's first meeting to discuss the war on 25 June 1950, he ordered plans be prepared for attacking Soviet forces if they entered the war. By July, Truman approved another B-29 deployment to Britain, this time with bombs (but without their cores), to remind the Soviets of American offensive ability. Deployment of a similar fleet to Guam was leaked to The New York Times. As United Nations forces retreated to Pusan, and the CIA reported that mainland China was building up forces for a possible invasion of Taiwan, the Pentagon believed that Congress and the public would demand using nuclear weapons if the situation in Korea required them. \n\nAs Chinese forces pushed back the United States forces from the Yalu River, Truman stated during a 30 November 1950 press conference that using nuclear weapons had \"always been [under] active consideration\", with control under the local military commander. The Indian ambassador, K. Madhava Panikkar, reports \"that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities.\"\n\nAfter his statement caused concern in Europe, Truman met on 4 December 1950 with UK prime minister and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The United States' forgoing atomic warfare was not because of \"a disinclination by the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China to escalate\" the Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless while the United States fought China, who then might persuade the Soviet Union to conquer Western Europe. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised Truman to tell Attlee that the United States would use nuclear weapons only if necessary to protect an evacuation of UN troops, or to prevent a \"major military disaster\".\n\nOn 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major General Edwin K. Wright met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassing the next weeks and months of warfare.\n\n* In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN Command was forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without ROC reinforcements, and without an increase in U.S. forces until April 1951 (four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.\n* In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command had blockaded China and had effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the ROC soldiers were maximally exploited, and tactical atomic bombing was to hand, then the UN forces could hold positions deep in North Korea.\n* In the third scenario: if China agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border, General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The U.S. Eighth Army would remain to protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of the armistice.\n\nBoth the Pentagon and the State Department were nonetheless cautious about using nuclear weapons because of the risk of general war with China and the diplomatic ramifications. Truman and his senior advisors agreed, and never seriously considered using them in early December 1950 despite the poor military situation in Korea.\n\nIn 1951, the U.S. escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because China had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, \"lacking only the essential pit nuclear cores\". In October 1951, the United States effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish a nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practised individual bombing runs from Okinawa to North Korea (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs), coordinated from Yokota Air Base in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested \"actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming\". The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the \"timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare.\"\n\nRidgway was authorized to use nuclear weapons if a major air attack originated from outside Korea. An envoy was sent to Hong Kong to deliver a warning to China. The message likely caused Chinese leaders to be more cautious about potential American use of nuclear weapons, but whether they learned about the B-29 deployment is unclear and the failure of the two major Chinese offensives that month likely was what caused them to shift to a defensive strategy in Korea. The B-29s returned to the United States in June.\n\nDespite the greater destructive power deploying atomic weapons would bring to the war, their effects on determining the war's outcome would have likely been minimal. Tactically, given the dispersed nature of Chinese and North Korean forces, the relatively primitive infrastructure for staging and logistics centers, and the small number of bombs available (most would have been conserved for use against the Soviets), atomic attacks would have limited effects against the ability of China to mobilize and move forces. Strategically, attacking Chinese cities to destroy civilian industry and infrastructure would cause the immediate dispersion of the leadership away from such areas and give propaganda value for the communists to galvanize the support of Chinese civilians. Since the Soviets were not expected to intervene with their few primitive atomic weapons on China or North Korea's behalf if the U.S. used theirs first, factors such as little operational value and the lowering of the \"threshold\" for using atomic weapons against non-nuclear states in future conflicts played more of a role in not employing them than the threat of a possible nuclear exchange. \n\nWhen Eisenhower succeeded Truman in early 1953 he was similarly cautious about using nuclear weapons in Korea, including for diplomatic purposes to encourage progress in the ongoing truce discussions. The administration prepared contingency plans for using them against China, but like Truman, the new president feared that doing so would result in Soviet attacks on Japan. The war ended as it had begun, without American nuclear weapons deployed near battle.\n\nWar crimes\n\nCivilian deaths and massacres\n\nThere were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean war committed by both the North and South Koreans. Many of them started on the first days of the war. South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered the Bodo League massacre on 28 June, beginning numerous killings of more than 100,000 suspected leftist sympathizers and their families by South Korean officials and right-wing groups. During the massacre, the British protested to their allies and saved some citizens.\n\nIn occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the NPA retreat.\n\nR. J. Rummel estimated that the North Korean Army executed at least 500,000 civilians during the Korean War, with many dying in North Korea's drive to conscript South Koreans to contribute to their war effort. When the North Koreans retreated north in September 1950, they abducted tens of thousands of South Korean men. The reasons are not clear, but the intention might have been to acquire skilled professionals to the North.\n\nIn addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the UN forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees. These soldiers disguised as refugees would approach UN forces asking for food and help, then open fire and attack. U.S. troops acted under a \"shoot-first-ask-questions-later\" policy against any civilian refugee approaching U.S. battlefield positions, a policy that led U.S. soldiers to kill an estimated 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950) in central Korea because they believed some of the refugees to be North Korean soldiers in disguise. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission defended this policy as a \"military necessity\". \n\nBeginning in 2005, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has investigated numerous atrocities committed by the Japanese colonial government, North Korean military, U.S. military, and the authoritarian South Korean government. It has investigated atrocities before, during and after the Korean War. \n\nThe Commission has verified over 14,000 civilians were killed in the Jeju uprising (1948–49) that involved South Korean military and paramilitary units against pro-North Korean guerrillas. Although most of the fighting had subsided by 1949, fighting continued until 1950. The Commission estimates 86% of the civilians were killed by South Korean forces. The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.\n\nPrisoners of war\n\nDuring the first days of the war North Korean soldiers committed the Seoul National University Hospital massacre.\n\nThe United States reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.\n\nThe KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon; these massacres were discovered afterwards by the UN forces. Later, a U.S. Congress war crimes investigation, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, reported that \"two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes\".\n\nAlthough the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their North Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese-run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of all U.S. POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to logistical difficulties. The UN POWs pointed out that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border, and that the Chinese withheld food to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrination programs. According to the reports of China, over a thousand U.S. POWs died by the end of June 1951, while only a dozen British POWs died, and all Turkish POW survived. The reason was, according to Hastings, that while the British POWs could help each other, the Americans thought sorghum, corn, and pickle, which were also the main food for Chinese soldiers, were livestock feed, and many refused to eat, partially because of their depression, called as \"give-upitise\" by British POWs. U.S. POWs also threw sick comrades out of their room to freezing outside. Turkish POWs felt most comfortable, as some of them even thought the food was better than what they ate at home. \n\nChinese claimed that UN soldiers helped anti-Communism POWs to torture Chinese POWs, such as to put anti-Communism tattoos on their body by force, so that they would have to refuse to be repatriated back to the north. They even killed Communist POWs in public, to frighten the others. \n\nThe unpreparedness of U.S. POWs to resist heavy communist indoctrination during the Korean War led to the Code of the United States Fighting Force which governs how U.S. military personnel in combat should act when they must \"evade capture, resist while a prisoner or escape from the enemy\". \n\nNorth Korea may have detained up to 50,000 South Korean POWs after the ceasefire. Over 88,000 South Korean soldiers were missing and the Communists' themselves had claimed that they had captured 70,000 South Koreans. However, when ceasefire negotiations began in 1951, the Communists reported that they held only 8,000 South Koreans. The UN Command protested the discrepancies and alleged that the Communists were forcing South Korean POWs to join the KPA.\n\nThe Communist side denied such allegations. They claimed that their POW rosters were small because many POWs were killed in UN air raids and that they had released ROK soldiers at the front. They insisted that only volunteers were allowed to serve in the KPA. By early 1952, UN negotiators gave up trying to get back the missing South Koreans. The POW exchange proceeded without access to South Korean POWs not on the Communist rosters.\n\nNorth Korea continued to claim that any South Korean POW who stayed in the North did so voluntarily. However, since 1994, South Korean POWs have been escaping North Korea on their own after decades of captivity. As of 2010, the South Korean Ministry of Unification reported that 79 ROK POWs had escaped the North. The South Korean government estimates 500 South Korean POWs continue to be detained in North Korea. \n\nThe escaped POWs have testified about their treatment and written memoirs about their lives in North Korea. They report that they were not told about the POW exchange procedures, and were assigned to work in mines in the remote northeastern regions near the Chinese and Russian border. Declassified Soviet Foreign Ministry documents corroborate such testimony. \n\nIn 1997, the Geoje POW Camp in South Korea was turned into a memorial.\n\nStarvation\n\nIn December 1950, National Defense Corps was founded; the soldiers were 406,000 drafted citizens.\nIn the winter of 1951, 50,000 to 90,000 South Korean National Defense Corps soldiers starved to death while marching southward under the Chinese offensive when their commanding officers embezzled funds earmarked for their food. This event is called the National Defense Corps Incident. There is no evidence that Syngman Rhee was personally involved in or benefited from the corruption.\n\nRecreation\n\nIn 1950, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall and Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews called on the USO which was disbanded by 1947 to provide support for U.S. servicemen. By the end of the war, more than 113,000 American USO volunteers were working at home front and abroad. Many stars came to Korea to give their performances. Throughout the Korean War, UN Comfort Stations were operated by South Korean officials for UN soldiers. \n\nAftermath\n\nPostwar recovery was different in the two Koreas. South Korea stagnated in the first postwar decade. In 1953, South Korea and the United States concluded a Mutual Defense Treaty. In 1960, the April Revolution occurred and students joined an anti-Syngman Rhee demonstration; 142 were killed by police; in consequence Syngman Rhee resigned and left for exile in the United States. Park Chung-hee's May 16 coup enabled social stability. In the 1960s, prostitution and related services earned 25 percent of South Korean GNP. From 1965 to 1973, South Korea dispatched troops to Vietnam and received $235,560,000 allowance and military procurement from the United States. GNP increased fivefold during the Vietnam War. South Korea industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea remains underdeveloped. South Korea had one of the world's fastest-growing economies from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana, and by 2010 it was ranked thirteenth in the world (Ghana was 86th).\n\nFollowing extensive USAF bombing, North Korea \"had been virtually destroyed as an industrial society.\" After the armistice, Kim Il-Sung requested Soviet economic and industrial assistance. In September 1953, the Soviet government agreed to \"cancel or postpone repayment for all ... outstanding debts\", and promised to grant North Korea one billion rubles in monetary aid, industrial equipment and consumer goods. Eastern European members of the Soviet Bloc also contributed with \"logistical support, technical aid, [and] medical supplies.\" China cancelled North Korea's war debts, provided 800 million yuan, promised trade cooperation, and sent in thousands of troops to rebuild damaged infrastructure.\n\nPostwar, about 100,000 North Koreans were executed in purges. According to Rummel, forced labor and concentration camps were responsible for over one million deaths in North Korea from 1945 to 1987; others have estimated 400,000 deaths in concentration camps alone. Estimates based on the most recent North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s North Korean famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths in North Korea from 1993 to 2008. The North Korean government has been accused of \"crimes against humanity\" for its alleged culpability in creating and prolonging the 1990s famine. A study by South Korean anthropologists of North Korean children who had defected to China found that 18-year-old males were 5 inches shorter than South Koreans their age because of malnutrition. \n\nRacial integration efforts in the U.S. military began during the Korean War, where African Americans fought in integrated units for the first time. Among the 1.8 million American soldiers who fought in the Korean War there were more than 100,000 African Americans.\n\nSouth Korean anti-Americanism after the war was fueled by the presence and behavior of American military personnel (USFK) and U.S. support for the authoritarian regime, a fact still evident during the country's democratic transition in the 1980s. However, anti-Americanism has declined significantly in South Korea in recent years, from 46% favorable in 2003 to 74% favorable in 2011, making South Korea one of the most pro-American countries in the world. \n\nIn addition, a large number of mixed-race \"G.I. babies\" (offspring of American and other UN soldiers and Korean women) were filling up the country's orphanages. Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of race. Children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in South Korean society. International adoption of Korean children began in 1954. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1952 legalized the naturalization of non-whites as American citizens, and made possible the entry of military spouses and children from South Korea after the Korean War. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans, Koreans became one of the fastest-growing Asian groups in the United States.\n\nMao Zedong's decision to take on the United States in the Korean War was a direct attempt to confront what the Communist bloc viewed as the strongest anti-Communist power in the world, undertaken at a time when the Chinese Communist regime was still consolidating its own power after winning the Chinese Civil War. Mao supported intervention not to save North Korea, but because he believed that a military conflict with the United States was inevitable after the United States entered the Korean War, and also to appease the Soviet Union in order to secure military dispensation and achieve Mao's goal of making China a major world military power. Mao was equally ambitious in improving his own prestige inside the communist international community by demonstrating that his Marxist concerns were international. In his later years Mao believed that Stalin only gained a positive opinion of him after China's entrance into the Korean War. Inside Mainland China, the war improved the long-term prestige of Mao, Zhou, and Peng, allowing the Chinese Communist Party to increase its legitimacy while weakening anti-Communist dissent.\n\nThe Chinese government have encouraged the point of view that the war was initiated by the United States and South Korea, though ComIntern documents have shown that Mao sought approval from Joseph Stalin to enter the war. In Chinese media, the Chinese war effort is considered as an example of China's engaging the strongest power in the world with an under-equipped army, forcing it to retreat, and fighting it to a military stalemate. These successes were contrasted with China's historical humiliations by Japan and by Western powers over the previous hundred years, highlighting the abilities of the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party. The most significant negative long-term consequence of the war (for China) was that it led the United States to guarantee the safety of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Taiwan, effectively ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control until the present day. Mao had also discovered the usefulness of large-scale mass movements in the war while implementing them among most of his ruling measures over PRC. Finally, anti-American sentiments, which were already a significant factor during the Chinese Civil War, was ingrained into Chinese culture during the Communist propaganda campaigns of the Korean War. \n\nThe Korean War affected other participant combatants. Turkey, for example, entered NATO in 1952 and the foundation was laid for bilateral diplomatic and trade relations with South Korea."
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On which Caribbean island did Princess Diana spend he first Christmas after her divorce was announced?
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tc_84
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"title": [
"Caribbean"
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"The Caribbean ( or; ; ; Caribbean Hindustani: कैरिबियन (Kairibiyana); or more commonly Antilles) is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean), and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.\n\nSituated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 700 islands, islets, reefs, and cays. (See the list.) These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean islands, consisting of the Greater Antilles on the north and the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (including the Leeward Antilles), are part of the somewhat larger West Indies grouping, which also includes the Lucayan Archipelago (comprising The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands) north of the Greater Antilles and Caribbean Sea. In a wider sense, the mainland countries of Belize, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana are also included.\n\nGeopolitically, the Caribbean islands are usually regarded as a subregion of North America and are organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15, 1954, to October 10, 2010 there was a country known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states, all of which were Dutch dependencies. While from January 3, 1958, to May 31, 1962, there was also a short-lived country called the Federation of the West Indies composed of ten English-speaking Caribbean territories, all of which were then British dependencies. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations.\n\nEtymology and pronunciation\n\nThe region takes its name from that of the Caribs, an ethnic group present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America at the time of the Spanish conquest. \n\nThe two most prevalent pronunciations of \"Caribbean\" are , with the primary accent on the third syllable, and , with the accent on the second. The former pronunciation is the older of the two, although the stressed-second-syllable variant has been established for over 75 years. It has been suggested that speakers of British English prefer while North American speakers more typically use , although not all sources agree. Usage is split within Caribbean English itself. \n\nDefinition\n\nThe word \"Caribbean\" has multiple uses. Its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to slavery, European colonisation, and the plantation system.\n* The United Nations geoscheme for the Americas accords the Caribbean as a distinct region within The Americas.\n* Physiographically, the Caribbean region is mainly a chain of islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea. To the north, the region is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida, and the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east and northeast. To the south lies the coastline of the continent of South America.\n* Politically, the \"Caribbean\" may be centred on socio-economic groupings found in the region. For example, the bloc known as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) contains the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, the Republic of Suriname in South America, and Belize in Central America as full members. Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the Atlantic Ocean, are associate members of the Caribbean Community. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is also in the Atlantic and is a full member of the Caribbean Community.\n* Alternatively, the organisation called the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) consists of almost every nation in the surrounding regions that lie on the Caribbean, plus El Salvador, which lies solely on the Pacific Ocean. According to the ACS, the total population of its member states is 227 million people. \n\nGeography and geology\n\nThe geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies: Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin. These islands include Aruba (possessing only minor volcanic features), Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Saint Croix, the Bahamas, and Antigua. Others possess rugged towering mountain-ranges like the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominica, Montserrat, Saba, Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Saint Thomas, Saint John, Tortola, Grenada, Saint Vincent, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Trinidad & Tobago.\n\nDefinitions of the terms Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles often vary. The Virgin Islands as part of the Puerto Rican bank are sometimes included with the Greater Antilles. The term Lesser Antilles is often used to define an island arc that includes Grenada but excludes Trinidad and Tobago and the Leeward Antilles.\n\nThe waters of the Caribbean Sea host large, migratory schools of fish, turtles, and coral reef formations. The Puerto Rico trench, located on the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea just to the north of the island of Puerto Rico, is the deepest point in all of the Atlantic Ocean. \n\nThe region sits in the line of several major shipping routes with the Panama Canal connecting the western Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean.\n\nClimate\n\nThe climate of the area is tropical to subtropical in Cuba, The Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Rainfall varies with elevation, size, and water currents (cool upwellings keep the ABC islands arid). Warm, moist tradewinds blow consistently from the east creating rainforest/semidesert divisions on mountainous islands. Occasional northwesterlies affect the northern islands in the winter. The region enjoys year-round sunshine, divided into 'dry' and 'wet' seasons, with the last six months of the year being wetter than the first half.\n\nHurricane Season is from June to November, but they occur more frequently in August and September and more common in the northern islands of the Caribbean.Hurricanes that sometimes batter the region usually strike northwards of Grenada and to the west of Barbados. The principal hurricane belt arcs to northwest of the island of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean.\n\nWater temperatures vary from 31 °C (88 °F) to 22 °C (72 °F) all around the year. The air temperature is warm, in the 20s and 30s °C (70s, 80s, and 90s °F) during the year, only varies from winter to summer about 2–5 degrees on the southern islands and about 10–20 degrees difference can occur in the northern islands of the Caribbean. The northern islands, like the Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and The Dominican Republic, may be influenced by continental masses during winter months, such as cold fronts.\n\nAruba: Latitude 12°N\n\nPuerto Rico: Latitude 18°N\n\nCuba: at Latitude 22°N\n\nIsland groups\n\nLucayan Archipelago\n* \n* (United Kingdom)\nGreater Antilles\n* (United Kingdom)\n* \n* Hispaniola\n** \n** \n* \n* (U.S. Commonwealth)\n\nLesser Antilles\n* Leeward Islands\n** (United States)\n*** Saint Croix\n*** Saint Thomas\n*** Saint John\n*** Water Island\n** (United Kingdom)\n*** Tortola\n*** Virgin Gorda\n*** Anegada\n*** Jost Van Dyke\n** (United Kingdom)\n** \n*** Antigua\n*** Barbuda\n*** Redonda\n** Saint Martin, politically divided between\n*** (France)\n*** (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n** (BES islands, Netherlands)\n** (BES islands, Netherlands)\n** (French Antilles, France)\n** \n*** Saint Kitts\n*** Nevis\n** (United Kingdom)\n** (French Antilles, France) including\n*** Les Saintes\n*** Marie-Galante\n*** La Désirade\n* Windward Islands\n** \n** (French Antilles, France)\n** \n** \n*** Saint Vincent\n*** The Grenadines\n** \n*** Grenada\n*** Carriacou and Petite Martinique\n* \n* \n** Tobago\n** Trinidad\n* Leeward Antilles\n** (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n** (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n** (BES islands, Netherlands)\n\nHistorical groupings\n\nAll islands at some point were, and a few still are, colonies of European nations; a few are overseas or dependent territories:\n* British West Indies/Anglophone Caribbean – Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bay Islands, Guyana, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Croix (briefly), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago (from 1797) and the Turks and Caicos Islands\n* Danish West Indies – Possession of Denmark-Norway before 1814, then Denmark, present-day United States Virgin Islands\n* Dutch West Indies – Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Bay Islands (briefly), Saint Croix (briefly), Tobago, Surinam and Virgin Islands\n* French West Indies – Anguilla (briefly), Antigua and Barbuda (briefly), Dominica, Dominican Republic (briefly), Grenada, Haiti, Montserrat (briefly), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Eustatius (briefly), Sint Maarten, St. Kitts (briefly), Tobago (briefly), Saint Croix, the current French overseas départements of Martinique and Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante, La Désirade and Les Saintes), the current French overseas collectivities of Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin\n* Portuguese West Indies – present-day Barbados, known as ' in the 16th century when the Portuguese claimed the island en route to Brazil. The Portuguese left Barbados abandoned in 1533, nearly a century before the British arrived.\n* Spanish West Indies – Cuba, Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic, Haiti (until 1609 to France)), Puerto Rico, Jamaica (until 1655 to Great Britain), the Cayman Islands (until 1670 to Great Britain) Trinidad (until 1797 to Great Britain) and Bay Islands (until 1643 to Great Britain), coastal islands of Central America (minus Belize), and some Caribbean coastal islands of Panama, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.\n* Swedish West Indies – present-day French Saint-Barthélemy, Guadeloupe (briefly) and Tobago (briefly).\n* Courlander West Indies – Tobago (until 1691)\n\nThe British West Indies were united by the United Kingdom into a West Indies Federation between 1958 and 1962. The independent countries formerly part of the B.W.I. still have a joint cricket team that competes in Test matches, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals. The West Indian cricket team includes the South American nation of Guyana, the only former British colony on the mainland of that continent.\n\nIn addition, these countries share the University of the West Indies as a regional entity. The university consists of three main campuses in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, a smaller campus in the Bahamas and Resident Tutors in other contributing territories such as Trinidad.\n\nModern-day island territories\n\n* (British overseas territory)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (special municipality of the Netherlands)\n* (British overseas territory)\n* (British overseas territory)\n* (Republic)\n* (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n* (Republic)\n* \n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (overseas department of France) including\n** les Saintes\n** Marie-Galante\n** la Désirade\n* (Republic)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (overseas department of France)\n* (British overseas territory)\n* (commonwealth of the United States)\n* (special municipality of the Netherlands)\n* (overseas collectivity of France)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (overseas collectivity of France)\n* (Constitutional monarchy)\n* (special municipality of the Netherlands)\n* (Kingdom of the Netherlands)\n* (Republic)\n* (territory of the United States)\n\nContinental countries with Caribbean coastlines and islands\n\n* \n** Ambergris Caye\n** Belize City\n** Big Creek\n** Caye Caulker\n** Glover's Reef\n** Dangriga\n** Hick's Cayes\n** Hopkins\n** Lighthouse Reef\n** Placencia\n** Punta Gorda\n** St. George's Caye\n** South Water Caye\n** Turneffe Atoll\n* \n** Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina\n** Rosario Islands\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n** Islas de la Bahía\n*** Cayos Cochinos\n*** Guanaja\n*** Roatán\n*** Swan Islands\n*** Útila\n* \n** Quintana Roo\n*** Cozumel\n*** Isla Contoy\n*** Isla Mujeres\n\n* \n** Corn Islands\n** Miskito Cays\n** Pearl Cays\n* \n** Panama City\n** Archipelago off Guna Yala coast (including the San Blas Islands)\n** Bocas del Toro Archipelago (approximately 300 islands)\n* \n* \n** Florida Keys\n** Puerto Rico (U.S. commonwealth)\n** U.S. Virgin Islands (U.S. territory)\n* \n** Blanquilla Island\n** Coche Island\n** Cubagua Island\n** Isla Aves\n** Islas Los Frailes\n** Isla Margarita\n** La Orchila\n** La Sola Island\n** La Tortuga Island\n** Las Aves archipelago\n** Los Hermanos Archipelago\n** Los Monjes Archipelago\n** Los Roques archipelago\n** Los Testigos Islands\n** Patos Island\n\nBiodiversity\n\nThe Caribbean islands are remarkable for the diversity of their animals, fungi and plants, and have been classified as one of Conservation International's biodiversity hotspots because of their exceptionally diverse terrestrial and marine ecosystems, ranging from montane cloud forests to cactus scrublands. The region also contains about 8% (by surface area) of the world's coral reefs along with extensive seagrass meadows, both of which are frequently found in the shallow marine waters bordering island and continental coasts off the region.\n\nFor the fungi, there is a modern checklist based on nearly 90,000 records derived from specimens in reference collections, published accounts and field observations. That checklist includes more than 11250 species of fungi recorded from the region. As its authors note, the work is far from exhaustive, and it is likely that the true total number of fungal species already known from the Caribbean is higher. The true total number of fungal species occurring in the Caribbean, including species not yet recorded, is likely far higher given the generally accepted estimate that only about 7% of all fungi worldwide have been discovered. Though the amount of available information is still small, a first effort has been made to estimate the number of fungal species endemic to some Caribbean islands. For Cuba, 2200 species of fungi have been tentatively identified as possible endemics of the island; for Puerto Rico, the number is 789 species; for the Dominican Republic, the number is 699 species; for Trinidad and Tobago, the number is 407 species. \n\nMany of the ecosystems of the Caribbean islands have been devastated by deforestation, pollution, and human encroachment. The arrival of the first humans is correlated with extinction of giant owls and dwarf ground sloths. The hotspot contains dozens of highly threatened animals (ranging from birds, to mammals and reptiles), fungi and plants. Examples of threatened animals include the Puerto Rican amazon, two species of solenodon (giant shrews) in Cuba and the Hispaniola island, and the Cuban crocodile.\n\nThe region's coral reefs, which contain about 70 species of hard corals and between 500–700 species of reef-associated fishes have undergone rapid decline in ecosystem integrity in recent years, and are considered particularly vulnerable to global warming and ocean acidification. According to a UNEP report, the caribbean coral reefs might get extinct in next 20 years due to population explosion along the coast lines, overfishing, the pollution of coastal areas and global warming. \n\nSome Caribbean islands have terrain that Europeans found suitable for cultivation for agriculture. Tobacco was an important early crop during the colonial era, but was eventually overtaken by sugarcane production as the region's staple crop. Sugar was produced from sugarcane for export to Europe. Cuba and Barbados were historically the largest producers of sugar. The tropical plantation system thus came to dominate Caribbean settlement. Other islands were found to have terrain unsuited for agriculture, for example Dominica, which remains heavily forested. The islands in the southern Lesser Antilles, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, are extremely arid, making them unsuitable for agriculture. However, they have salt pans that were exploited by the Dutch. Sea water was pumped into shallow ponds, producing coarse salt when the water evaporated. \n\nThe natural environmental diversity of the Caribbean islands has led to recent growth in eco-tourism. This type of tourism is growing on islands lacking sandy beaches and dense human populations. \n\nPlants and animals of the Caribbean\n\nFile:Epiphytes (Dominica).jpg|Epiphytes (bromeliads, climbing palms) in the rainforest of Dominica.\nFile:Jumping frog.jpg|A green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus\nFile:Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Guadeloupe.jpg|Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Guadeloupe.\nFile:Costus speciosus Guadeloupe.JPG|Costus speciosus, a marsh plant, Guadeloupe.\nFile:Ocypode quadrata (Martinique).jpg|An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) in Martinique.\nFile:Calebassier.jpg|Crescentia cujete, or calabash fruit, Martinique.\nFile:Thalassoma bifasciatum (Bluehead Wrasse) juvenile yellow stage over Bispira brunnea (Social Feather Duster Worms).jpg|Thalassoma bifasciatum (bluehead wrasse fish), over Bispira brunnea (social feather duster worms).\nFile:Stenopus hispidus (Banded cleaner shrimp).jpg|Two Stenopus hispidus (banded cleaner shrimp) on a Xestospongia muta (giant barrel sponge).\nFile:Cyphoma signata (Fingerprint Cowry) pair.jpg|A pair of Cyphoma signatum (fingerprint cowry), off coastal Haiti.\nFile:Extinctbirds1907 P18 Amazona martinicana0317.png|The Martinique amazon, Amazona martinicana, is an extinct species of parrot in the Psittacidae family.\nFile:Anastrepha suspensa 5193019.jpg|Anastrepha suspensa, a Caribbean fruit fly.\nFile:Hemidactylus mabouia (Dominica).jpg|Hemidactylus mabouia, a tropical gecko, in Dominica.\n\nDemographics\n\nAt the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic groups in the Caribbean included the Taíno of the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles, the Island Caribs of the southern Lesser Antilles, and smaller distinct groups such as the Guanajatabey of western Cuba and the Ciguayo of western Hispaniola. The population of the Caribbean is estimated to have been around 750,000 immediately before European contact, although lower and higher figures are given. After contact, social disruption and epidemic diseases such as smallpox and measles (to which they had no natural immunity) led to a decline in the Amerindian population. From 1500 to 1800 the population rose as slaves arrived from West Africa such as the Kongo, Igbo, Akan, Fon and Yoruba as well as military prisoners from Ireland, who were deported during the Cromwellian reign in England. Immigrants from Britain, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark also arrived, although the mortality rate was high for both groups. \n\nThe population is estimated to have reached 2.2 million by 1800. Immigrants from India, China, and other countries arrived in the 19th century. After the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, the population increased naturally. The total regional population was estimated at 37.5 million by 2000.Table A.2, [http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/population/download/report.pdf Database documentation], Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Population Database, version 3, International Center for Tropical Agriculture, 2005. Accessed on line February 20, 2008.\n\nThe majority of the Caribbean has populations of mainly Africans in the French Caribbean, Anglophone Caribbean and Dutch Caribbean, there are minorities of mixed-race and European people of Dutch, English, French, Italian and Portuguese ancestry. Asians, especially those of Chinese and Indian descent, form a significant minority in the region and also contribute to multiracial communities. All of their ancestors arrived in the 19th century as indentured laborers.\n\nThe Spanish-speaking Caribbean have primarily mixed race, African, or European majorities. Puerto Rico has a European majority with a mixture of European-African (mulatto), and a large West African minority. One third of Cuba's (largest Caribbean island) population is of African descent, with a sizable Mulatto (mixed African–European) population, and European majority. The Dominican Republic has the largest mixed race population, primarily descended from Europeans, West Africans, and Amerindians.\n\nLarger islands such as Jamaica, have a very large African majority, in addition to a significant mixed race, Chinese, Europeans, Indian, Lebanese, Latin American, and Syrian populations. This is a result of years of importation of slaves and indentured labourers, and migration. Most multi-racial Jamaicans refer to themselves as either mixed race or Brown. The situation is similar for the Caricom states of Belize, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago has a multi-racial cosmopolitan society due to the arrival of the Africans, Indians, Chinese, Syrians, Lebanese, Native Amerindians and Europeans. This multi-racial mix has created sub-ethnicities that often straddle the boundaries of major ethnicities and include Chindian, Mulatto and Dougla.\n\nIndigenous groups\n\n* Arawak peoples\n** Igneri\n** Taíno\n* Caquetio people\n* Ciboney\n* Ciguayo\n* Garifuna\n* Kalina\n* Kalinago\n* Lucayan\n* Macorix\n* Raizal\n\nLanguage\n\nSpanish, English, French, Dutch, Haitian Creole, and Papiamento are the predominant official languages of various countries in the region, though a handful of unique creole languages or dialects can also be found from one country to another.\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity is the predominant religion in the Caribbean (84.7%). Other religious groups in the region are Hinduism, Islam, Buddhist, Rastafari, and Afro-American religions such as Santería and Vodou.\n\nPolitics\n\nRegionalism\n\nCaribbean societies are very different from other Western societies in terms of size, culture, and degree of mobility of their citizens. The current economic and political problems the states face individually are common to all Caribbean states. Regional development has contributed to attempts to subdue current problems and avoid projected problems. From a political and economic perspective, regionalism serves to make Caribbean states active participants in current international affairs through collective coalitions. In 1973, the first political regionalism in the Caribbean Basin was created by advances of the English-speaking Caribbean nations through the institution known as the Caribbean Common Market and Community (CARICOM) which is located in Guyana.\n\nCertain scholars have argued both for and against generalizing the political structures of the Caribbean. On the one hand the Caribbean states are politically diverse, ranging from communist systems such as Cuba toward more capitalist Westminster-style parliamentary systems as in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Other scholars argue that these differences are superficial, and that they tend to undermine commonalities in the various Caribbean states. Contemporary Caribbean systems seem to reflect a \"blending of traditional and modern patterns, yielding hybrid systems that exhibit significant structural variations and divergent constitutional traditions yet ultimately appear to function in similar ways.\" The political systems of the Caribbean states share similar practices.\n\nThe influence of regionalism in the Caribbean is often marginalized. Some scholars believe that regionalism cannot exist in the Caribbean because each small state is unique. On the other hand, scholars also suggest that there are commonalities amongst the Caribbean nations that suggest regionalism exists. \"Proximity as well as historical ties among the Caribbean nations has led to cooperation as well as a desire for collective action.\" These attempts at regionalization reflect the nations' desires to compete in the international economic system.\n\nFurthermore, a lack of interest from other major states promoted regionalism in the region. In recent years the Caribbean has suffered from a lack of U.S. interest. \"With the end of the Cold War, U.S. security and economic interests have been focused on other areas. As a result there has been a significant reduction in U.S. aid and investment to the Caribbean.\" The lack of international support for these small, relatively poor states, helped regionalism prosper.\n\nFollowing the Cold War another issue of importance in the Caribbean has been the reduced economic growth of some Caribbean States due to the United States and European Union's allegations of special treatment toward the region by each other. \n\nUnited States effects on regionalism\n\nThe United States under President Bill Clinton launched a challenge in the World Trade Organization against the EU over Europe's preferential program, known as the Lomé Convention, which allowed banana exports from the former colonies of the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP) to enter Europe cheaply. The World Trade Organization sided in the United States' favour and the beneficial elements of the convention to African, Caribbean and Pacific states has been partially dismantled and replaced by the Cotonou Agreement. \n\nDuring the US/EU dispute, the United States imposed large tariffs on European Union goods (up to 100%) to pressure Europe to change the agreement with the Caribbean nations in favour of the Cotonou Agreement. \n\nFarmers in the Caribbean have complained of falling profits and rising costs as the Lomé Convention weakens. Some farmers have faced increased pressure to turn towards the cultivation of illegal drugs, which has a higher profit margin and fills the sizable demand for these illegal drugs in North America and Europe. \n\nEuropean Union effects on regionalism\n\nCaribbean nations have also started to more closely cooperate in the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and other instruments to add oversight of the offshore industry. One of the most important associations that deal with regionalism amongst the nations of the Caribbean Basin has been the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). Proposed by CARICOM in 1992, the ACS soon won the support of the other countries of the region. It was founded in July 1994. The ACS maintains regionalism within the Caribbean on issues unique to the Caribbean Basin. Through coalition building, like the ACS and CARICOM, regionalism has become an undeniable part of the politics and economics of the Caribbean. The successes of region-building initiatives are still debated by scholars, yet regionalism remains prevalent throughout the Caribbean.\n\nVenezuela's effects on regionalism\n\nThe President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez launched an economic group called the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), which several eastern Caribbean islands joined. In 2012, the nation of Haiti, with 9 million people, became the largest CARICOM nation that sought to join the union. \n\nRegional institutions\n\nHere are some of the bodies that several islands share in collaboration:\n* Association of Caribbean States (ACS), Trinidad and Tobago\n* Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC), Trinidad and Tobago\n* Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO), Trinidad and Tobago \n* Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Guyana\n* Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Barbados\n* Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDERA), Barbados\n* Caribbean Educators Network \n* Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC), Saint Lucia \n* Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Barbados and Jamaica\n* Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), Trinidad and Tobago\n* Caribbean Food Crops Society, Puerto Rico\n* Caribbean Football Union (CFU), Jamaica\n* Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA), Florida and Puerto Rico \n* Caribbean Initiative (Initiative of the IUCN)\n* Caribbean Programme for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC), Saint Lucia\n* Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (CREP), Barbados \n* Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), Belize \n* Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Barbados and Dominican Republic \n* Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Trinidad and Tobago\n* Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), Barbados\n* Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)\n* Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children, Barbados\n* Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC), Brazil and Uruguay\n* Latin American and the Caribbean Economic System, Venezuela\n* Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Saint Lucia\n* United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile and Trinidad and Tobago\n* University of the West Indies, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, the fourth campus, the Open Campus was formed in June 2008 as a result of an amalgamation of the Board for Non-Campus Countries and Distance Education, Schools of Continuing Studies, the UWI Distance Education Centres and Tertiary Level Units. The Open Campus has 42 physical sites in 16 Anglophone caribbean countries.\n* West Indies Cricket Board, Antigua and Barbuda \n\nCuisine\n\nFavorite or national dishes\n\n* Anguilla – rice and peas and fish\n* Antigua and Barbuda – fungee and pepperpot\n* Barbados – cou-cou and flying fish\n* Belize - stew chicken, rice and beans, fry jacks, johnny cake, hudut, lobster, crab soup, chicken escabeche, conch fritters, gibnut, chimole \"black dinner soup\", ceviche, cow foot soup, oxtails with rice, curry chicken, roti, ducunu, garnaches, salbutes, panades, tamales, callaloo and saltfish, pigtail and split peas soup, meats pies and sere.\n* British Virgin Islands – fish and fungee\n*Panamanians are known for their exquisite cuisine, characterized by strong flavors and bold dishes. Their food is based on the diversity of its people and the fusion of flavors, culinary techniques and presentations from across the world. Panamanian cuisine is without a doubt the most diverse and multicultural food in the world, including Caribbean nations, which is why Panamanian takes on classic Caribbean dishes feel at the same time unique and familiar. From ropa vieja, maduros, tamales and empanadas to ceviche.\n* Cayman Islands – turtle stew, turtle steak, grouper\n* Colombian Caribbean – rice with coconut milk, arroz con pollo, sancocho, Arab cuisine (due to the large Arab population)\n* Cuba – platillo Moros y Cristianos, ropa vieja, lechon, maduros, ajiaco\n* Dominica – mountain chicken, rice and peas, dumplings, saltfish (dried cod), dashin, plantain, bakes (fried dumplings), coconut confiture, breadfruit, curry goat, cassava farine, oxtail and various beef broths\n* Dominican Republic – arroz con pollo topped with stewed red kidney beans, pan fried or braised beef, and side dish of green salad or ensalada de coditos, shrimp, empanadas and/or tostones, or the ever popular Dominican dish known as mangú, which is mashed plantains. The ensemble is usually called bandera nacional, which means \"national flag,\" a term equivalent to the Venezuelan pabellón criollo.\n* Grenada – oil down\n* Guyana – pepperpot, cookup rice, roti and curry, methem\n* Haiti – griot (fried pork) served with du riz a pois or diri ak pwa (rice and beans)\n* Jamaica – ackee and saltfish, callaloo, jerk chicken, curry chicken\n* Montserrat – Goat water\n* Puerto Rico – yellow rice with green pigeon peas, saltfish stew, roasted pork shoulder, chicken fricassée, mofongo, tripe soup, alcapurria, coconut custard, rice pudding, guava turnovers, Mallorca bread\n* Saint Kitts and Nevis – coconut dumplings, spicy plantain, saltfish, breadfruit\n* Saint Lucia – callaloo, dal roti, dried and salted cod, green bananas, rice and beans\n* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – roasted breadfruit and fried jackfish\n* Trinidad and Tobago – callaloo, doubles, roti, crab and dumpling, pelau \n* United States Virgin Islands – stewed goat, oxtail or beef, seafood, callaloo, fungee\n\nNotes"
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In which decade was Arnold Schwarzenegger born?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (;; born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American actor, filmmaker, businessman, investor, author, philanthropist, activist, and former professional bodybuilder and politician. He served two terms as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011.\n\nSchwarzenegger began weight training at the age of 15. He won the Mr. Universe title at age 20 and went on to win the Mr. Olympia contest seven times. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent presence in bodybuilding and has written many books and articles on the sport. He is widely considered to be among the greatest bodybuilders of all times as well as its biggest icon. Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon. His breakthrough film was the sword-and-sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian in 1982, which was a box-office hit and resulted in a sequel.\n\nIn 1984, Schwarzenegger appeared in James Cameron's science-fiction thriller film The Terminator, which was a massive critical and box-office success. Schwarzenegger subsequently reprised the Terminator character in the franchise's later installments in 1991, 2003, and 2015. He appeared in a number of successful films, such as Commando (1985), The Running Man (1987), Predator (1987), Twins (1988), Total Recall (1990), Kindergarten Cop (1990) and True Lies (1994). He was nicknamed the \"Austrian Oak\" in his bodybuilding days, \"Arnie\" during his acting career, and \"The Governator\" (a combination of \"Governor\" and \"The Terminator\", one of his best-known movie roles) during his political career.\n\nAs a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, to serve the remainder of Davis's term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in the 2006 California gubernatorial election, to serve a full term as governor, defeating Democrat Phil Angelides, who was California State Treasurer at the time. Schwarzenegger was sworn in for his second term on January 5, 2007. In 2011, Schwarzenegger completed his second term as governor.\n\nEarly life \n\nSchwarzenegger was born in Thal, Styria, and christened Arnold Alois. His parents were Gustav Schwarzenegger (August 17, 1907 – December 13, 1972) and Aurelia Schwarzenegger (née Jadrny; July 29, 1922 – August 2, 1998). Gustav was the local chief of police, and had served in World War II as a Hauptfeldwebel after voluntarily joining the Nazi Party in 1938, though he was discharged in 1943 following a bout of malaria. He married Schwarzenegger's mother on October 20, 1945; he was 38, and she was 23. According to Schwarzenegger, both of his parents were very strict: \"Back then in Austria it was a very different world, if we did something bad or we disobeyed our parents, the rod was not spared.\" Schwarzenegger grew up in a Roman Catholic family who attended Mass every Sunday. \n\nGustav had a preference for his elder son, Meinhard (July 17, 1946 – May 20, 1971), over Arnold. His favoritism was \"strong and blatant\", which stemmed from unfounded suspicion that Arnold was not his biological child. Schwarzenegger has said his father had \"no patience for listening or understanding your problems\". He had a good relationship with his mother and kept in touch with her until her death. In later life, Schwarzenegger commissioned the Simon Wiesenthal Center to research his father's wartime record, which came up with no evidence of Gustav's being involved in atrocities, despite his membership in the Nazi Party and SA. Gustav's background received wide press attention during the 2003 California recall campaign. At school, Schwarzenegger was apparently in the middle but stood out for his \"cheerful, good-humored, and exuberant\" character. Money was a problem in their household; Schwarzenegger recalled that one of the highlights of his youth was when the family bought a refrigerator.\n\nAs a boy, Schwarzenegger played several sports, heavily influenced by his father. He picked up his first barbell in 1960, when his soccer coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 14, he chose bodybuilding over soccer as a career. Schwarzenegger has responded to a question asking if he was 13 when he started weightlifting: \"I actually started weight training when I was 15, but I'd been participating in sports, like soccer, for years, so I felt that although I was slim, I was well-developed, at least enough so that I could start going to the gym and start Olympic lifting.\" However, his official website biography claims: \"At 14, he started an intensive training program with Dan Farmer, studied psychology at 15 (to learn more about the power of mind over body) and at 17, officially started his competitive career.\" During a speech in 2001, he said, \"My own plan formed when I was 14 years old. My father had wanted me to be a police officer like he was. My mother wanted me to go to trade school.\" \n\nSchwarzenegger took to visiting a gym in Graz, where he also frequented the local movie theaters to see bodybuilding idols such as Reg Park, Steve Reeves, and Johnny Weissmuller on the big screen. When Reeves died in 2000, Schwarzenegger fondly remembered him: \"As a teenager, I grew up with Steve Reeves. His remarkable accomplishments allowed me a sense of what was possible, when others around me didn't always understand my dreams. Steve Reeves has been part of everything I've ever been fortunate enough to achieve.\" In 1961, Schwarzenegger met former Mr. Austria Kurt Marnul, who invited him to train at the gym in Graz. He was so dedicated as a youngster that he broke into the local gym on weekends, when it was usually closed, so that he could train. \"It would make me sick to miss a workout... I knew I couldn't look at myself in the mirror the next morning if I didn't do it.\" When Schwarzenegger was asked about his first movie experience as a boy, he replied: \"I was very young, but I remember my father taking me to the Austrian theaters and seeing some newsreels. The first real movie I saw, that I distinctly remember, was a John Wayne movie.\" \n\nOn May 20, 1971, his brother, Meinhard, died in a car accident. Meinhard had been drinking and was killed instantly. Schwarzenegger did not attend his funeral. Meinhard was due to marry Erika Knapp, and the couple had a three-year-old son, Patrick. Schwarzenegger would pay for Patrick's education and help him to emigrate to the United States. Gustav died the following year from a stroke. In Pumping Iron, Schwarzenegger claimed that he did not attend his father's funeral because he was training for a bodybuilding contest. Later, he and the film's producer said this story was taken from another bodybuilder for the purpose of showing the extremes that some would go to for their sport and to make Schwarzenegger's image more cold and machine-like in order to fan controversy for the film. Barbara Baker, his first serious girlfriend, has said he informed her of his father's death without emotion and that he never spoke of his brother. Over time, he has given at least three versions of why he was absent from his father's funeral.\n\nIn an interview with Fortune in 2004, Schwarzenegger told how he suffered what \"would now be called child abuse\" at the hands of his father: \"My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform, and whose will could not be broken. Therefore, I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'You can't do this,' I said, 'This is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody.'\"\n\nEarly adulthood \n\nSchwarzenegger served in the Austrian Army in 1965 to fulfill the one year of service required at the time of all 18-year-old Austrian males. During his army service, he won the Junior Mr. Europe contest. He went AWOL during basic training so he could take part in the competition and spent a week in military prison: \"Participating in the competition meant so much to me that I didn't carefully think through the consequences.\" He won another bodybuilding contest in Graz, at Steirer Hof Hotel (where he had placed second). He was voted best built man of Europe, which made him famous. \"The Mr. Universe title was my ticket to America – the land of opportunity, where I could become a star and get rich.\" Schwarzenegger made his first plane trip in 1966, attending the NABBA Mr. Universe competition in London. He would come in second in the Mr. Universe competition, not having the muscle definition of American winner Chester Yorton.\n\nCharles \"Wag\" Bennett, one of the judges at the 1966 competition, was impressed with Schwarzenegger and he offered to coach him. As Schwarzenegger had little money, Bennett invited him to stay in his crowded family home above one of his two gyms in Forest Gate, London, England. Yorton's leg definition had been judged superior, and Schwarzenegger, under a training program devised by Bennett, concentrated on improving the muscle definition and power in his legs. Staying in the East End of London helped Schwarzenegger improve his rudimentary grasp of the English language. Also in 1966, Schwarzenegger had the opportunity to meet childhood idol Reg Park, who became his friend and mentor. The training paid off and, in 1967, Schwarzenegger won the title for the first time, becoming the youngest ever Mr. Universe at the age of 20. He would go on to win the title a further three times. Schwarzenegger then flew back to Munich, training for four to six hours daily, attending business school and working in a health club (Rolf Putziger's gym where he worked and trained from 1966–1968), returning in 1968 to London to win his next Mr. Universe title. He frequently told Roger C. Field, his English coach and friend in Munich at that time, \"I'm going to become the greatest actor!\"\n\nMove to the U.S. \n\nSchwarzenegger, who dreamed of moving to the U.S. since the age of 10, and saw bodybuilding as the avenue through which to do so, realized his dream by moving to the United States in September 1968 at the age of 21, speaking little English. There he trained at Gold's Gym in Venice, Los Angeles, California, under Joe Weider. From 1970 to 1974, one of Schwarzenegger's weight training partners was Ric Drasin, a professional wrestler who designed the original Gold's Gym logo in 1973. Schwarzenegger also became good friends with professional wrestler Superstar Billy Graham. In 1970, at age 23, he captured his first Mr. Olympia title in New York, and would go on to win the title a total of seven times.\n\nThe immigration law firm Siskind & Susser has stated that Schwarzenegger may have been an illegal immigrant at some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s because of violations in the terms of his visa. LA Weekly would later say in 2002 that Schwarzenegger is the most famous immigrant in America, who \"overcame a thick Austrian accent and transcended the unlikely background of bodybuilding to become the biggest movie star in the world in the 1990s\".\n\nIn 1977, Schwarzenegger's autobiography/weight-training guide Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder was published and became a huge success. In 1977 he posed nude for the gay magazine After Dark. After taking English classes at Santa Monica College in California, he earned a BA by correspondence from the University of Wisconsin–Superior, where he graduated with a degree in international marketing of fitness and business administration in 1979. He got his American citizenship in 1983. \n\nHe tells that during this time he ran into a friend who told him that he was teaching Transcendental Meditation (TM), which prompted Schwarzenegger to reveal he had been struggling with anxiety for the first time in his life: \"Even today, I still benefit from [the year of TM] because I don't merge and bring things together and see everything as one big problem.\" \n\nBodybuilding career \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \nSchwarzenegger is considered among the most important figures in the history of bodybuilding, and his legacy is commemorated in the Arnold Classic annual bodybuilding competition. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent face in the bodybuilding sport long after his retirement, in part because of his ownership of gyms and fitness magazines. He has presided over numerous contests and awards shows.\n\nFor many years, he wrote a monthly column for the bodybuilding magazines Muscle & Fitness and Flex. Shortly after being elected Governor, he was appointed executive editor of both magazines, in a largely symbolic capacity. The magazines agreed to donate $250,000 a year to the Governor's various physical fitness initiatives. When the deal, including the contract that gave Schwarzenegger at least $1 million a year, was made public in 2005, many criticized it as being a conflict of interest since the governor's office made decisions concerning regulation of dietary supplements in California. Consequently, Schwarzenegger relinquished the executive editor role in 2005. American Media Inc., which owns Muscle & Fitness and Flex, announced in March 2013 that Schwarzenegger had accepted their renewed offer to be executive editor of the magazines.\n\nThe magazine MuscleMag International has a monthly two-page article on him, and refers to him as \"The King\".\n\nOne of the first competitions he won was the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. He won Mr. Europe the following year, at age 19. He would go on to compete in, and win, many bodybuilding contests. His bodybuilding victories included five Mr. Universe (4 – NABBA [England], 1 – IFBB [USA]) wins, and seven Mr. Olympia wins, a record which would stand until Lee Haney won his eighth consecutive Mr. Olympia title in 1991.\n\nSchwarzenegger continues to work out even today. When asked about his personal training during the 2011 Arnold Classic he said that he was still working out a half an hour with weights every day. \n* Competition Weight: 235 lb (top 250 lb (113 kg))\n* Off Season Weight: 255 lb (top 260 lb (118 kg))\n\nPowerlifting/weightlifting \n\nDuring Schwarzenegger's early years in bodybuilding, he also competed in several Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting contests. Schwarzenegger won two weightlifting contests in 1964 and 1965, as well as two powerlifting contests in 1966 and 1968.\n\nIn 1967, Schwarzenegger won the Munich stone-lifting contest, in which a stone weighing 508 German pounds (254 kg/560 lbs.) is lifted between the legs while standing on two foot rests.\n\nPersonal records \n\n* Clean and press – 264 lb\n* Snatch – 243 lb\n* Clean and jerk – 298 lb\n* Squat – 545 lb\n* Bench press – 520 lb \n* Deadlift – 710 lb\n\nMr. Olympia \n\nSchwarzenegger's goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, which meant becoming Mr. Olympia. His first attempt was in 1969, when he lost to three-time champion Sergio Oliva. However, Schwarzenegger came back in 1970 and won the competition, making him the youngest ever Mr. Olympia at the age of 23, a record he still holds to this day.\n\nHe continued his winning streak in the 1971–74 competitions. In 1975, Schwarzenegger was once again in top form, and won the title for the sixth consecutive time, beating Franco Columbu. After the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, Schwarzenegger announced his retirement from professional bodybuilding.\n\nMonths before the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, filmmakers George Butler and Robert Fiore persuaded Schwarzenegger to compete, in order to film his training in the bodybuilding documentary called Pumping Iron. Schwarzenegger had only three months to prepare for the competition, after losing significant weight to appear in the film Stay Hungry with Jeff Bridges. Lou Ferrigno proved not to be a threat, and a lighter-than-usual Schwarzenegger convincingly won the 1975 Mr. Olympia.\n\nSchwarzenegger came out of retirement, however, to compete in the 1980 Mr. Olympia. Schwarzenegger was training for his role in Conan, and he got into such good shape because of the running, horseback riding and sword training, that he decided he wanted to win the Mr. Olympia contest one last time. He kept this plan a secret, in the event that a training accident would prevent his entry and cause him to lose face. Schwarzenegger had been hired to provide color commentary for network television, when he announced at the eleventh hour that while he was there: \"Why not compete?\" Schwarzenegger ended up winning the event with only seven weeks of preparation. After being declared Mr. Olympia for a seventh time, Schwarzenegger then officially retired from competition.\n\nSteroid use \n\nSchwarzenegger has admitted to using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids while they were legal, writing in 1977 that \"steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up.\" He has called the drugs \"tissue building\". \n\nIn 1999, Schwarzenegger sued Dr. Willi Heepe, a German doctor who publicly predicted his early death on the basis of a link between his steroid use and his later heart problems. As the doctor had never examined him personally, Schwarzenegger collected a US$10,000 libel judgment against him in a German court. In 1999, Schwarzenegger also sued and settled with the Globe, a U.S. tabloid which had made similar predictions about the bodybuilder's future health. \n\nList of competitions \n\nActing career \n\nEarly roles \n\nSchwarzenegger wanted to move from bodybuilding into acting, finally achieving it when he was chosen to play the role of Hercules in 1970's Hercules in New York. Credited under the name \"Arnold Strong,\" his accent in the film was so thick that his lines were dubbed after production. His second film appearance was as a deaf mute hit-man for the mob in director Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), which was followed by a much more significant part in the film Stay Hungry (1976), for which he was awarded a Golden Globe for New Male Star of the Year. Schwarzenegger has discussed his early struggles in developing his acting career. \"It was very difficult for me in the beginning – I was told by agents and casting people that my body was 'too weird', that I had a funny accent, and that my name was too long. You name it, and they told me I had to change it. Basically, everywhere I turned, I was told that I had no chance.\"\n\nSchwarzenegger drew attention and boosted his profile in the bodybuilding film Pumping Iron (1977), elements of which were dramatized; in 1991, he purchased the rights to the film, its outtakes, and associated still photography. In 1977, he also appeared in an episode of the ABC situation comedy The San Pedro Beach Bums. Schwarzenegger auditioned for the title role of The Incredible Hulk, but did not win the role because of his height. Later, Lou Ferrigno got the part of Dr. David Banner's alter ego. Schwarzenegger appeared with Kirk Douglas and Ann-Margret in the 1979 comedy The Villain. In 1980, he starred in a biographical film of the 1950s actress Jayne Mansfield as Mansfield's husband, Mickey Hargitay.\n\nAction superstar \n\nSchwarzenegger's breakthrough film was the sword-and-sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian in 1982, which was a box-office hit. This was followed by a sequel, Conan the Destroyer, in 1984, although it was not as successful as its predecessor. In 1983, Schwarzenegger starred in the promotional video, Carnival in Rio. In 1984, he made his first appearance as the eponymous character, and what some would say was his acting career's signature role, in James Cameron's science fiction thriller film The Terminator. Following this, Schwarzenegger made Red Sonja in 1985.\n\nDuring the 1980s, audiences had an appetite for action films, with both Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone becoming international stars. Schwarzenegger's roles reflected his sense of humor, separating him from more serious action hero films, such as the alternative universe poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day starring Stallone in the comedy thriller Last Action Hero. He made a number of successful films, such as Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), The Running Man (1987), Predator (1987), and Red Heat (1988).\n\nTwins (1988), a comedy with Danny DeVito, also proved successful. Total Recall (1990) netted Schwarzenegger $10 million and 15% of the film's gross. A science fiction script, the film was based on the Philip K. Dick short story \"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale\". Kindergarten Cop (1990) reunited him with director Ivan Reitman, who directed him in Twins. Schwarzenegger had a brief foray into directing, first with a 1990 episode of the TV series Tales from the Crypt, entitled \"The Switch\", and then with the 1992 telemovie Christmas in Connecticut. He has not directed since.\n\nSchwarzenegger's commercial peak was his return as the title character in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was the highest-grossing film of 1991. In 1993, the National Association of Theatre Owners named him the \"International Star of the Decade\". His next film project, the 1993 self-aware action comedy spoof Last Action Hero, was released opposite Jurassic Park, and did not do well at the box office. His next film, the comedy drama True Lies (1994), was a popular spy film, and saw Schwarzenegger reunited with James Cameron.\n\nThat same year, the comedy Junior was released, the last of Schwarzenegger's three collaborations with Ivan Reitman and again co-starring Danny DeVito. This film brought him his second Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy. It was followed by the action thriller Eraser (1996), the Christmas comedy Jingle All The Way (1996), and the comic book-based Batman & Robin (1997), in which he played the villain Mr. Freeze. This was his final film before taking time to recuperate from a back injury. Following the critical failure of Batman & Robin, his film career and box office prominence went into decline. He returned with the supernatural thriller End of Days (1999), later followed by the action films The 6th Day (2000) and Collateral Damage (2002), both of which failed to do well at the box office. In 2003, he made his third appearance as the title character in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which went on to earn over $150 million domestically. \n\nIn tribute to Schwarzenegger in 2002, Forum Stadtpark, a local cultural association, proposed plans to build a 25-meter (82 ft) tall Terminator statue in a park in central Graz. Schwarzenegger reportedly said he was flattered, but thought the money would be better spent on social projects and the Special Olympics. \n\nRetirement \n\nHis film appearances after becoming Governor of California included a three-second cameo appearance in The Rundown, and the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days. In 2005, he appeared as himself in the film The Kid & I. He voiced Baron von Steuben in the Liberty's Kids episode \"Valley Forge\". He had been rumored to be appearing in Terminator Salvation as the original T-800; he denied his involvement, but he ultimately did appear briefly via his image being inserted into the movie from stock footage of the first Terminator movie. Schwarzenegger appeared in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables, where he made a cameo appearance.\n\nReturn to acting \n\nIn January 2011, just weeks after leaving office in California, Schwarzenegger announced that he was reading several new scripts for future films, one of them being the World War II action drama With Wings as Eagles, written by Randall Wallace, based on a true story. On March 6, 2011, at the Arnold Seminar of the Arnold Classic, Schwarzenegger revealed that he was being considered for several films, including sequels to The Terminator and remakes of Predator and The Running Man, and that he was \"packaging\" a comic book character. The character was later revealed to be the Governator, star of the comic book and animated series of the same name. Schwarzenegger inspired the character and co-developed it with Stan Lee, who would have produced the series. Schwarzenegger would have voiced the Governator. \n\nOn May 20, 2011, Schwarzenegger's entertainment counsel announced that all movie projects currently in development were being halted: \"Schwarzenegger is focusing on personal matters and is not willing to commit to any production schedules or timelines\". On July 11, 2011, it was announced that Schwarzenegger was considering a comeback film despite his legal problems. He appeared in The Expendables 2 (2012), and starred in The Last Stand (2013), his first leading role in 10 years, and Escape Plan (2013), his first co-starring role alongside Sylvester Stallone. He starred in Sabotage, released in March 2014, and appeared in The Expendables 3, released in August 2014. He starred in the fifth Terminator movie Terminator Genisys in 2015 and will reprise his role as Conan the Barbarian in The Legend of Conan. \n\nThe Celebrity Apprentice \n\nIn September 2015, it was announced Schwarzenegger would replace Donald Trump as host of The Celebrity Apprentice. This show, the 15th season of The Apprentice, will air in the 2016-2017 TV season.\n\nFilmography \n\nSelected notable roles:\n\n* Hercules in New York as Hercules (1970)\n* Stay Hungry as Joe Santo (1976)\n* Pumping Iron as himself (1977)\n* The Villain as Handsome Stranger (1979)\n* The Jayne Mansfield Story as Mickey Hargitay (1980)\n* Conan the Barbarian as Conan (1982)\n* Conan the Destroyer as Conan (1984)\n* The Terminator as The Terminator/T-800 Model 101 (1984)\n* Red Sonja as Kalidor (1985)\n* Commando as John Matrix (1985)\n* Raw Deal as Mark Kaminsky, a.k.a. Joseph P. Brenner (1986)\n* Predator as Major Alan \"Dutch\" Schaeffer (1987)\n* The Running Man as Ben Richards (1987)\n* Red Heat as Captain Ivan Danko (1988)\n* Twins as Julius Benedict (1988)\n* Total Recall as Douglas Quaid/Hauser (1990)\n* Kindergarten Cop as Detective John Kimble (1990)\n* Terminator 2: Judgment Day as The Terminator/T-800 Model 101 (1991)\n* Last Action Hero as Jack Slater / Himself (1993)\n* True Lies as Harry Tasker (1994)\n* Junior as Dr. Alex Hesse (1994)\n* Eraser as U.S. Marshal John Kruger (1996)\n* Jingle All the Way as Howard Langston (1996)\n* Batman and Robin as Mr. Freeze (1997)\n* End of Days as Jericho Cane (1999)\n* The 6th Day as Adam Gibson / Adam Gibson Clone (2000)\n* Collateral Damage as Gordy Brewer (2002)\n* Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines as The Terminator/T-850 Model 101 (2003)\n* Around the World in 80 Days as Prince Hapi (2004)\n* The Expendables as Trench (2010)\n* The Expendables 2 as Trench (2012)\n* The Last Stand as Sheriff Ray Owens (2013)\n* Escape Plan as Rottmayer (2013)\n* Sabotage as John 'Breacher' Wharton (2014)\n* The Expendables 3 as Trench (2014)\n* Maggie as Wade Vogel (2015)\n* Terminator Genisys as The Terminator/T-800 Model 101/ The Guardian (2015)\n* 478 as Victor (2016)\n\nPolitical career \n\nEarly politics \n\nSchwarzenegger has been a registered Republican for many years. As an actor, his political views were always well known as they contrasted with those of many other prominent Hollywood stars, who are generally considered to be a liberal and Democratic-leaning community. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Schwarzenegger gave a speech and explained why he was a Republican: \n\nIn 1985, Schwarzenegger appeared in \"Stop the Madness\", an anti-drug music video sponsored by the Reagan administration. He first came to wide public notice as a Republican during the 1988 presidential election, accompanying then-Vice President George H.W. Bush at a campaign rally. \n\nSchwarzenegger's first political appointment was as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, on which he served from 1990 to 1993. He was nominated by George H. W. Bush, who dubbed him \"Conan the Republican\". He later served as Chairman for the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under Governor Pete Wilson.\n\nBetween 1993 and 1994, Schwarzenegger was a Red Cross ambassador (a ceremonial role fulfilled by celebrities), recording several television/radio public service announcements to donate blood.\n\nIn an interview with Talk magazine in late 1999, Schwarzenegger was asked if he thought of running for office. He replied, \"I think about it many times. The possibility is there, because I feel it inside.\" The Hollywood Reporter claimed shortly after that Schwarzenegger sought to end speculation that he might run for governor of California. Following his initial comments, Schwarzenegger said, \"I'm in show business – I am in the middle of my career. Why would I go away from that and jump into something else?\"\n\nGovernor of California \n\nSchwarzenegger announced his candidacy in the 2003 California recall election for Governor of California on the August 6, 2003 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Schwarzenegger had the most name recognition in a crowded field of candidates, but he had never held public office and his political views were unknown to most Californians. His candidacy immediately became national and international news, with media outlets dubbing him the \"Governator\" (referring to The Terminator movies, see above) and \"The Running Man\" (the name of another one of his films), and calling the recall election \"Total Recall\" (yet another movie starring Schwarzenegger). Schwarzenegger declined to participate in several debates with other recall replacement candidates, and appeared in only one debate on September 24, 2003. \n\nOn October 7, 2003, the recall election resulted in Governor Gray Davis being removed from office with 55.4% of the Yes vote in favor of a recall. Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California under the second question on the ballot with 48.6% of the vote to choose a successor to Davis. Schwarzenegger defeated Democrat Cruz Bustamante, fellow Republican Tom McClintock, and others. His nearest rival, Bustamante, received 31% of the vote. In total, Schwarzenegger won the election by about 1.3 million votes. Under the regulations of the California Constitution, no runoff election was required. Schwarzenegger was the second foreign-born governor of California after Irish-born Governor John G. Downey in 1862.\n\nSchwarzenegger was entrenched in what he considered to be his mandate in cleaning up gridlock. Building on a catchphrase from the sketch \"Hans and Franz\" from Saturday Night Live (which partly parodied his bodybuilding career), Schwarzenegger called the Democratic State politicians \"girlie men\". \n\nSchwarzenegger's early victories included repealing an unpopular increase in the vehicle registration fee as well as preventing driver's licenses being given out to illegal immigrants, but later he began to feel the backlash when powerful state unions began to oppose his various initiatives. Key among his reckoning with political realities was a special election he called in November 2005, in which four ballot measures he sponsored were defeated. Schwarzenegger accepted personal responsibility for the defeats and vowed to continue to seek consensus for the people of California. He would later comment that \"no one could win if the opposition raised 160 million dollars to defeat you\". The U.S. Supreme Court later found the public employee unions' use of compulsory fundraising during the campaign had been illegal in Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000. \n\nSchwarzenegger then went against the advice of fellow Republican strategists and appointed a Democrat, Susan Kennedy, as his Chief of Staff. Schwarzenegger gradually moved towards a more politically moderate position, determined to build a winning legacy with only a short time to go until the next gubernatorial election.\n\nSchwarzenegger ran for re-election against Democrat Phil Angelides, the California State Treasurer, in the 2006 elections, held on November 7, 2006. Despite a poor year nationally for the Republican party, Schwarzenegger won re-election with 56.0% of the vote compared with 38.9% for Angelides, a margin of well over one million votes. In recent years, many commentators have seen Schwarzenegger as moving away from the right and towards the center of the political spectrum. After hearing a speech by Schwarzenegger at the 2006 Martin Luther King, Jr. breakfast, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said that, \"[H]e's becoming a Democrat [… H]e's running back, not even to the center. I would say center-left\".\n\nIt was rumored that Schwarzenegger might run for the United States Senate in 2010, as his governorship would be term-limited by that time. This turned out to be false. \n\nWendy Leigh, who wrote an unofficial biography on Schwarzenegger, claims he plotted his political rise from an early age using the movie business and bodybuilding as building blocks to escape a depressing home. Leigh portrays Schwarzenegger as obsessed with power and quotes him as saying, \"I wanted to be part of the small percentage of people who were leaders, not the large mass of followers. I think it is because I saw leaders use 100% of their potential – I was always fascinated by people in control of other people.\" Schwarzenegger has said that it was never his intention to enter politics, but he says, \"I married into a political family. You get together with them and you hear about policy, about reaching out to help people. I was exposed to the idea of being a public servant and Eunice and Sargent Shriver became my heroes.\" Eunice Kennedy Shriver was sister of John F. Kennedy, and mother-in-law to Schwarzenegger; Sargent Shriver is husband to Eunice and father-in-law to Schwarzenegger. He cannot run for president as he is not a natural born citizen of the United States. In The Simpsons Movie (2007), he is portrayed as the president, and in the Sylvester Stallone movie, Demolition Man (1993, ten years before his first run for political office), it is revealed that a constitutional amendment passed which allowed Schwarzenegger to become president. \n\nSchwarzenegger is a dual Austrian/United States citizen. He holds Austrian citizenship by birth and has held U.S. citizenship since becoming naturalized in 1983. Being Austrian and thus European, he was able to win the 2007 European Voice campaigner of the year award for taking action against climate change with the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and plans to introduce an emissions trading scheme with other US states and possibly with the EU. \n\nBecause of his personal wealth from his acting career, Schwarzenegger did not accept his governor's salary of $175,000 per year. \n\nSchwarzenegger's endorsement in the Republican primary of the 2008 U.S. presidential election was highly sought; despite being good friends with candidates Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain, Schwarzenegger remained neutral throughout 2007 and early 2008. Giuliani dropped out of the presidential race on January 30, 2008, largely because of a poor showing in Florida, and endorsed McCain. Later that night, Schwarzenegger was in the audience at a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. The following day, he endorsed McCain, joking, \"It's Rudy's fault!\" (in reference to his friendships with both candidates and that he could not make up his mind). Schwarzenegger's endorsement was thought to be a boost for Senator McCain's campaign; both spoke about their concerns for the environment and economy. \n\nIn its April 2010 report, Progressive ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Schwarzenegger one of 11 \"worst governors\" in the United States because of various ethics issues throughout Schwarzenegger's term as governor. \n\nGovernor Schwarzenegger played a significant role in opposing Proposition 66, a proposed amendment of the Californian Three Strikes Law, in November 2004. This amendment would have required the third felony to be either violent or serious to mandate a 25-years-to-life sentence. In the last week before the ballot, Schwarzenegger launched an intensive campaign against Proposition 66. He stated that \"it would release 26,000 dangerous criminals and rapists\".\n\nAlthough he began his tenure as governor with record high approval ratings (as high as 89% in December 2003), he left office with a record low 23%, only one percent higher than that of Gray Davis's when he was recalled in October 2003.\n\nAllegations of sexual misconduct \n\nDuring his initial campaign for governor, allegations of sexual and personal misconduct were raised against Schwarzenegger, dubbed \"Gropegate\". Within the last five days before the election, news reports appeared in the Los Angeles Times recounting allegations of sexual misconduct from several individual women, six of whom eventually came forward with their personal stories. \n\nThree of the women claimed he had grabbed their breasts, a fourth said he placed his hand under her skirt on her buttock. A fifth woman claimed Schwarzenegger tried to take off her bathing suit in a hotel elevator, and the last said he pulled her onto his lap and asked her about a sex act.\n\nSchwarzenegger admitted that he has \"behaved badly sometimes\" and apologized, but also stated that \"a lot of [what] you see in the stories is not true\". This came after an interview in adult magazine Oui from 1977 surfaced, in which Schwarzenegger discussed attending sexual orgies and using substances such as marijuana. Schwarzenegger is shown smoking a marijuana joint after winning Mr. Olympia in the 1975 documentary film Pumping Iron. In an interview with GQ magazine in October 2007, Schwarzenegger said, \"[Marijuana] is not a drug. It's a leaf. My drug was pumping iron, trust me.\" His spokesperson later said the comment was meant to be a joke.\n\nBritish television personality Anna Richardson settled a libel lawsuit in August 2006 against Schwarzenegger, his top aide, Sean Walsh, and his publicist, Sheryl Main. A joint statement read: \"The parties are content to put this matter behind them and are pleased that this legal dispute has now been settled.\" Richardson claimed they tried to tarnish her reputation by dismissing her allegations that Schwarzenegger touched her breast during a press event for The 6th Day in London. She claimed Walsh and Main libeled her in a Los Angeles Times article when they contended she encouraged his behavior.\n\nCitizenship \n\nSchwarzenegger became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 17, 1983. Shortly before he gained his citizenship, he asked the Austrian authorities for the right to keep his Austrian citizenship, as Austria does not usually allow dual citizenship. His request was granted, and he retained his Austrian citizenship. In 2005, Peter Pilz, a member of the Austrian Parliament from the Austrian Green Party, demanded that Parliament revoke Schwarzenegger's Austrian citizenship due to his decision not to prevent the executions of Donald Beardslee and Stanley Williams, causing damage of reputation to Austria, where the death penalty has been abolished since 1968. This demand was based on Article 33 of the Austrian Citizenship Act that states: \"A citizen, who is in the public service of a foreign country, shall be deprived of his citizenship, if he heavily damages the reputation or the interests of the Austrian Republic.\" Pilz claimed that Schwarzenegger's actions in support of the death penalty (prohibited in Austria under Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights) had indeed done damage to Austria's reputation. Schwarzenegger explained his actions by referring to the fact that his only duty as Governor of California was to prevent an error in the judicial system.\n\nEnvironmental record \n\nOn September 27, 2006 Schwarzenegger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, creating the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions. The law set new regulations on the amount of emissions utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants are allowed to release into the atmosphere. Schwarzenegger also signed a second global warming bill that prohibits large utilities and corporations in California from making long-term contracts with suppliers who do not meet the state's greenhouse gas emission standards. The two bills are part of a plan to reduce California's emissions by 25 percent to 1990s levels by 2020. In 2005, Schwarzenegger issued an executive order calling to reduce greenhouse gases to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. \n\nSchwarzenegger signed another executive order on October 17, 2006 allowing California to work with the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. They plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by issuing a limited amount of carbon credits to each power plant in participating states. Any power plants that exceed emissions for the amount of carbon credits will have to purchase more credits to cover the difference. The plan took effect in 2009. In addition to using his political power to fight global warming, the governor has taken steps at his home to reduce his personal carbon footprint. Schwarzenegger has adapted one of his Hummers to run on hydrogen and another to run on biofuels. He has also installed solar panels to heat his home. \n\nIn respect of his contribution to the direction of the US motor industry, Schwarzenegger was invited to open the 2009 SAE World Congress in Detroit, on April 20, 2009. \n\nIn 2011, Schwarzenegger founded the R20 Regions of Climate Action to develop a sustainable, low carbon economy. \n\nElectoral history \n\nPresidential ambitions \n\nIn October 2013, the New York Post reported that Schwarzenegger was exploring a future run for president. The former California governor would face a constitutional hurdle; Article II, Section I, Clause V nominally prevents individuals who are not natural-born citizens of the United States from assuming the office. He has reportedly been lobbying legislators about a possible constitutional change, or filing a legal challenge to the provision. Columbia University law professor Michael Dorf observed that Schwarzenegger's possible lawsuit could ultimately win him the right to run for the office, noting, \"The law is very clear, but it’s not 100 percent clear that the courts would enforce that law rather than leave it to the political process.\" \n\nBusiness career \n\nSchwarzenegger has had a highly successful business career. Following his move to the United States, Schwarzenegger became a \"prolific goal setter\" and would write his objectives at the start of the year on index cards, like starting a mail order business or buying a new car – and succeed in doing so. By the age of 30, Schwarzenegger was a millionaire, well before his career in Hollywood. His financial independence came from his success as a budding entrepreneur with a series of successful business ventures and investments.\n\nBricklaying business \n\nIn 1968, Schwarzenegger and fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu started a bricklaying business. The business flourished thanks to the pair's marketing savvy and an increased demand following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. Schwarzenegger and Columbu used profits from their bricklaying venture to start a mail order business, selling bodybuilding and fitness-related equipment and instructional tapes.\n\nInvestments \n\nSchwarzenegger rolled profits from the mail order business and his bodybuilding competition winnings into his first real estate investment venture: an apartment building he purchased for $10,000. He would later go on to invest in a number of real estate holding companies. \n\nSchwarzenegger was a founding celebrity investor in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants (modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe) along with Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore. Schwarzenegger severed his financial ties with the business in early 2000. Schwarzenegger said the company had not had the success he had hoped for, claiming he wanted to focus his attention on \"new US global business ventures\" and his movie career.\n\nHe also invested in a shopping mall in Columbus, Ohio. He has talked about some of those who have helped him over the years in business: \"I couldn't have learned about business without a parade of teachers guiding me... from Milton Friedman to Donald Trump... and now, Les Wexner and Warren Buffett. I even learned a thing or two from Planet Hollywood, such as when to get out! And I did!\" He has significant ownership in Dimensional Fund Advisors, an investment firm. Schwarzenegger is also the owner of Arnold's Sports Festival, which he started in 1989 and is held annually in Columbus, Ohio. It is a festival that hosts thousands of international health and fitness professionals which has also expanded into a three-day expo. He also owns a movie production company called Oak Productions, Inc. and Fitness Publications, a joint publishing venture with Simon & Schuster. \n\nRestaurant \n\nIn 1992, Schwarzenegger and his wife opened a restaurant in Santa Monica called Schatzi On Main. Schatzi literally means \"little treasure,\" colloquial for \"honey\" or \"darling\" in German. In 1998, he sold his restaurant. \n\nWealth \n\nSchwarzenegger's net worth had been conservatively estimated at $100–$200 million. After separating from his wife, Maria Shriver, in 2011, it has been estimated that his net worth has been approximately $400 million, and even as high as $800 million, based on tax returns he filed in 2006. Over the years as an investor, he invested his bodybuilding and movie earnings in an array of stocks, bonds, privately controlled companies, and real estate holdings worldwide, making his net worth as an accurate estimation difficult to calculate, particularly in light of declining real estate values owing to economic recessions in the U.S. and Europe since the late 2000s. In June 1997, Schwarzenegger spent $38 million of his own money on a private Gulfstream jet. Schwarzenegger once said of his fortune, \"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million, but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.\" He has also stated, \"I've made many millions as a businessman many times over.\"\n\nPersonal life \n\nEarly relationships \n\nIn 1969, Schwarzenegger met Barbara Outland (later Barbara Outland Baker), an English teacher he lived with until 1974. Schwarzenegger talked about Barbara in his memoir in 1977: \"Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man, and hated the very idea of ordinary life.\" Baker has described Schwarzenegger as \"[a] joyful personality, totally charismatic, adventurous, and athletic\" but claims towards the end of the relationship he became \"insufferable – classically conceited – the world revolved around him\". Baker published her memoir in 2006, entitled Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak. Although Baker, at times, painted an unflattering portrait of her former lover, Schwarzenegger actually contributed to the tell-all book with a foreword, and also met with Baker for three hours. Baker claims, for example, that she only learned of his being unfaithful after they split, and talks of a turbulent and passionate love life. Schwarzenegger has made it clear that their respective recollection of events can differ. The couple first met six to eight months after his arrival in the U.S – their first date was watching the first Apollo Moon landing on television. They shared an apartment in Santa Monica for three and a half years, and having little money, would visit the beach all day, or have barbecues in the back yard. Although Baker claims that when she first met him, he had \"little understanding of polite society\" and she found him a turn-off, she says, \"He's as much a self-made man as it's possible to be – he never got encouragement from his parents, his family, his brother. He just had this huge determination to prove himself, and that was very attractive … I'll go to my grave knowing Arnold loved me.\"\n\nSchwarzenegger met his next paramour, Sue Moray, a Beverly Hills hairdresser's assistant, on Venice Beach in July 1977. According to Moray, the couple led an open relationship: \"We were faithful when we were both in LA … but when he was out of town, we were free to do whatever we wanted.\" Schwarzenegger met Maria Shriver at the Robert F. Kennedy Tennis Tournament in August 1977, and went on to have a relationship with both women until August 1978, when Moray (who knew of his relationship with Shriver) issued an ultimatum.\n\nMarriage and family \n\nOn April 26, 1986, Schwarzenegger married television journalist Maria Shriver, niece of President John F. Kennedy, in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The Rev. John Baptist Riordan performed the ceremony at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. They have four children: Katherine Eunice Schwarzenegger (born December 13, 1989 in Los Angeles); Christina Maria Aurelia Schwarzenegger (born July 23, 1991 in Los Angeles); Patrick Arnold Shriver Schwarzenegger (born September 18, 1993 in Los Angeles); and Christopher Sargent Shriver Schwarzenegger (born September 27, 1997 in Los Angeles). Schwarzenegger lives in a 11000 sqft home in Brentwood. The divorcing couple currently own vacation homes in Sun Valley, Idaho and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. They attended St. Monica's Catholic Church. Following their separation, it is reported that Schwarzenegger is dating physical therapist Heather Milligan. \n\nMarital separation \n\nOn May 9, 2011, Shriver and Schwarzenegger ended their relationship after 25 years of marriage, with Shriver moving out of the couple's Brentwood mansion. On May 16, 2011, the Los Angeles Times revealed that Schwarzenegger had fathered a son more than fourteen years earlier with an employee in their household, Mildred Patricia 'Patty' Baena. \"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,\" Schwarzenegger said in a statement issued to The Times. In the statement, Schwarzenegger did not mention that he had confessed to his wife only after Shriver had confronted him with the information, which she had done after confirming with the housekeeper what she had suspected about the child. \n\nBaena is of Guatemalan origin, she was employed by the family for 20 years and retired in January 2011. The pregnant Baena was working in the home while Shriver was pregnant with the youngest of the couple’s four children. Baena's son with Schwarzenegger, Joseph, was born on October 2, 1997; Shriver gave birth to Christopher on September 27, 1997. Schwarzenegger says it took seven or eight years before he found out that he had fathered a child with his housekeeper. It wasn't until the boy \"started looking like me, that's when I kind of got it. I put things together,\" the action star and former California governor, told 60 Minutes. Schwarzenegger has taken financial responsibility for the child \"from the start and continued to provide support.\" KNX 1070 radio reported that in 2010 he bought a new four-bedroom house, with a pool, for Baena and their son in Bakersfield, about 112 mi north of Los Angeles. Baena separated from her husband, Rogelio, in 1997, a few months after Joseph's birth, and filed for divorce in 2008. Baena's ex-husband says that the child's birth certificate was falsified and that he plans to sue Schwarzenegger for engaging in conspiracy to falsify a public document, a serious crime in California. \n\nSchwarzenegger has consulted an attorney, Bob Kaufman. Kaufman has earlier handled divorce cases for celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. Schwarzenegger will keep the Brentwood home as part of their divorce settlement and Shriver has purchased a new home nearby so that the children may travel easily between their parents' homes. They will share custody of the two minor children. Schwarzenegger came under fire after the initial petition did not include spousal support and a reimbursement of attorney's fees. However, he claims this was not intentional and that he signed the initial documents without having properly read them. Schwarzenegger has filed amended divorce papers remedying this. \n\nAfter the scandal, actress Brigitte Nielsen came forward and stated that she too had an affair with Schwarzenegger while he was in a relationship with Shriver, saying, \"Maybe I wouldn't have got into it if he said 'I'm going to marry Maria' and this is dead serious, but he didn't, and our affair carried on.\" When asked in 2014 \"Of all the things you are famous for … which are you least proud of?\", Schwarzenegger replied \"I'm least proud of the mistakes I made that caused my family pain and split us up\". \n\nAccidents and injuries \n\nSchwarzenegger was born with a bicuspid aortic valve, an aortic valve with only two leaflets (a normal aortic valve has three leaflets). Schwarzenegger opted in 1997 for a replacement heart valve made of his own transplanted tissue; medical experts predicted he would require heart valve replacement surgery in the following two to eight years as his valve would progressively degrade. Schwarzenegger apparently opted against a mechanical valve, the only permanent solution available at the time of his surgery, because it would have sharply limited his physical activity and capacity to exercise. \n\nOn December 9, 2001, he broke six ribs and was hospitalized for four days after a motorcycle crash in Los Angeles. \n\nSchwarzenegger saved a drowning man's life in 2004 while on vacation in Hawaii by swimming out and bringing him back to shore. \n\nOn January 8, 2006, while Schwarzenegger was riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle in Los Angeles, with his son Patrick in the sidecar, another driver backed into the street he was riding on, causing him and his son to collide with the car at a low speed. While his son and the other driver were unharmed, the governor sustained a minor injury to his lip, requiring 15 stitches. \"No citations were issued\", said Officer Jason Lee, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman. Schwarzenegger did not obtain his motorcycle license until July 3, 2006. \n\nSchwarzenegger tripped over his ski pole and broke his right femur while skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho, with his family on December 23, 2006. On December 26, 2006, he underwent a 90-minute operation in which cables and screws were used to wire the broken bone back together. He was released from the St. John's Health Center on December 30, 2006. \n\nSchwarzenegger's private jet made an emergency landing at Van Nuys Airport on June 19, 2009, after the pilot reported smoke coming from the cockpit, according to a statement released by the governor's press secretary. No one was harmed in the incident. \n\nHeight \n\nSchwarzenegger's official height of 6'2\" (1.88 m) has been brought into question by several articles. In his bodybuilding days in the late 1960s, he was measured to be 6'1.5\" (1.87 m), a height confirmed by his fellow bodybuilders. However, in 1988 both the Daily Mail and Time Out magazine mentioned that Schwarzenegger appeared noticeably shorter. Prior to running for Governor, Schwarzenegger's height was once again questioned in an article by the Chicago Reader. As Governor, Schwarzenegger engaged in a light-hearted exchange with Assemblyman Herb Wesson over their heights. At one point, Wesson made an unsuccessful attempt to, in his own words, \"settle this once and for all and find out how tall he is\" by using a tailor's tape measure on the Governor. Schwarzenegger retaliated by placing a pillow stitched with the words \"Need a lift?\" on the five-foot-five inch (165 cm) Wesson's chair before a negotiating session in his office. Bob Mulholland also claimed Schwarzenegger was 5'10\" (1.78 m) and that he wore risers in his boots. In 1999, Men's Health magazine stated his height was 5'10\". \n\nAutobiography \n\nSchwarzenegger's autobiography, Total Recall, was released in October 2012. He devotes one chapter called \"The Secret\" to his extramarital affair. The majority of his book is about his successes in the three major chapters in his life: bodybuilder, actor, and Governor of California. \n\nVehicles \n\nSchwarzenegger was the first civilian to purchase a Humvee. He was so enamored by the vehicle that he lobbied the Humvee's manufacturer, AM General, to produce a street-legal, civilian version, which they did in 1992; the first two Hummers they sold were also purchased by Schwarzenegger. \n\nHe was in the news in 2014 for buying a rare Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse. He was spotted and filmed in 2015 Summer in his car, silver painted with bright aluminium forged wheels. Schwarzenegger's Bugatti has its interior adorned in dark brown leather. \n\nActivism \n\nThe Hummers that Schwarzenegger bought 1992 are so large – each weighs 6300 lb and is 7 ft wide – that they are classified as large trucks, and U.S. fuel economy regulations do not apply to them. During the gubernatorial recall campaign he announced that he would convert one of his Hummers to burn hydrogen. The conversion was reported to have cost about US$21,000. After the election, he signed an executive order to jump-start the building of hydrogen refueling plants called the California Hydrogen Highway Network, and gained a U.S. Department of Energy grant to help pay for its projected US$91,000,000 cost. California took delivery of the first H2H (Hydrogen Hummer) in October 2004. \n\nArnold Schwarzenegger has been involved with the Special Olympics for many years after they were founded by his ex-mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. In 2007, Schwarzenegger was the official spokesperson for the Special Olympics which were held in Shanghai, China. Schwarzenegger believes that quality school opportunities should be made available to children who might not normally be able to access them. In 1995, he founded the Inner City Games Foundation (ICG) which provides cultural, educational and community enrichment programming to youth. ICG is active in 15 cities around the country and serves over 250,000 children in over 400 schools countrywide. He has also been involved with After-School All-Stars, and founded the Los Angeles branch in 2002. ASAS is an after school program provider, educating youth about health, fitness and nutrition.\n\nOn February 12, 2010, Schwarzenegger took part in the Vancouver Olympic Torch relay. He handed off the flame to the next runner, Sebastian Coe. \n\nSchwarzenegger is a lifelong supporter and \"friend of Israel\", and has participated in L.A.'s Pro-Israel rally among other similar events. \n\nIn 2012, Schwarzenegger helped to found the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, which is a part of the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. The Institute's mission is to \"[advance] post-partisanship, where leaders put people over political parties and work together to find the best ideas and solutions to benefit the people they serve,\" and to \"seek to influence public policy and public debate in finding solutions to the serious challenges we face.\" Schwarzenegger serves as chairman of the Institute. \n\nAt a 2015 security conference, Arnold Schwarzenegger called climate change the issue of our time. \n\nFor the United States presidential election in 2016 Schwarzenegger endorsed fellow Republican John Kasich. However, he was seen in the audience of the 2016 Democratic National Convention on several evenings [Tuesday, July 26, 2016, and Wednesday, July 27, 2016]. (video record)\n\nAwards and honors \n\n* Seven-time Mr. Olympia winner\n* Four-time Mr. Universe winner\n* 1969 World Amateur Bodybuilding Champion\n* 1977 Golden Globe Award winner\n* Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame\n* International Sports Hall of Fame (class of 2012) \n* WWE Hall of Fame (class of 2015)\n* Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy (part of the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California) named in his honor.\n* Arnold's Run ski trail at Sun Valley Resort named in his honor. The trail is categorized as a black diamond, or most difficult, for its terrain.\n* \"A Day for Arnold\" on July 30, 2007 in Thal, Austria. For his 60th birthday the mayor sent Schwarzenegger the enameled address sign (Thal 145) of the house where Schwarzenegger was born, declaring \"This belongs to him. No one here will ever be assigned that number again\". \n\nBooks \n\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n*"
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Which musical featured the song Thank Heaven for Little Girls?
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tc_86
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"\"Thank Heaven for Little Girls\" is a 1957 song written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe and often associated with performer Maurice Chevalier. It opened and closed the 1958 film Gigi. Alfred Drake performed the song in the 1973 Broadway stage production of Gigi, though in the 2015 revival, it was sung as a duet between Victoria Clark and Dee Hoty.\n\nThe Chevalier version is often regarded as the definitive version of the song; he recorded it in 1958. In 2004 it finished at #56 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.\n\nIn the mid-'90s, a contemporary take on the song was recorded by the Seattle-based alternative band Ruby for a Mountain Dew commercial in the United States. This recording was later repurposed by PepsiCo for their Pepsi Max brand in the UK.\n\nIt has also been performed by Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Gérard Depardieu, Merle Haggard, Hugh Hefner, The King Brothers, Ed McMahon, and in his faux French accent, Peter Sellers."
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The Queen Elizabeth liner was destroyed by fire in the 70s in which harbour?
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tc_87
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"A harbor or harbour (see spelling differences), or haven, is a body of water where ships, boats and barges seek shelter from stormy weather, or are stored for future use. Harbors and ports are often confused with each other. A port is a manmade facility built for loading and unloading vessels and dropping off and picking up passengers. Ports are often located in harbors.\n\nHarbors can be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jettys, or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, United States which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century. \n\nIn contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by prominences of land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, Australia and Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka.\n\nArtificial harbors\n\nArtificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf, on the Red Sea coast, which is at least 4500 years old (ca. 2600-2550 BC, reign of King Khufu). The largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai. Other large and busy artificial harbors include: \n* Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands; \n* Port of Houston, Texas, United States;\n* Port of Savannah, Georgia, United States;\n* Port of Long Beach, California, United States; \n* Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California, United States.\n\nThe Ancient Carthaginians constructed fortified, artificial harbors called cothons.\n\nNatural harbors\n\nA natural harbor is a landform where a part of a body of water is protected and deep enough to furnish anchorage. Many such harbors are rias. Natural harbors have long been of great strategic naval and economic importance, and many great cities of the world are located on them. Having a protected harbor reduces or eliminates the need for breakwaters as it will result in calmer waves inside the harbor. Some examples are: \n* New York Harbor in the United States; \n* Poole Harbour in England, United Kingdom; \n* Kingston Harbour in Jamaica; \n* Grand Harbour in Malta; \n* Subic Bay in Zambales, the Philippines; \n* Scapa Flow in Scotland, United Kingdom;\n* Sydney Harbour in Australia; technically a ria\n* Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, United States; \n* Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka; \n* San Francisco Bay in California; \n* Visakhapatnam Harbour in Andhra Pradesh, India; \n* Killybegs in County Donegal, Ireland; \n* Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia, Canada;\n* Hamilton Harbour in Ontario, Canada;\n* Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, Canada;\n* Cork Harbour, Ireland;\n* Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand.\n* Port of Tobruk in Tobruk, Libya.\n\nIce-free harbors\n\nFor harbors near the North and South Poles, being ice-free is an important advantage, especially when it is year-round. Examples of these include: \n* Murmansk, Russia; \n* Pechenga, Russia; \n* Liinakhamari, Russia; \n* Hammerfest, Norway; \n* Vardø, Norway; \n* Vostochny Port; \n* Nakhodka in Nakhodka Bay, Russia; \n* Prince Rupert Harbour, Canada. \nThe world's southmost harbor, located at Antarctica's Winter Quarters Bay (77° 50′ South), is potentially ice-free, depending on the summertime pack ice conditions. \n\nImportant harbors\n\nAlthough the world's busiest port is a hotly contested title, in 2006 the world's busiest harbor by cargo tonnage was the Port of Shanghai. \n\nThe following are large natural harbors:\n*Algeciras, Spain\n*Amsterdam, Port of Amsterdam, Netherlands\n*Antwerp, Port of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium\n*Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Maryland, United States\n*Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, United States\n*Bremerhaven, Germany\n*Buenos Aires, Argentina\n*Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada\n*Busan, Korea\n*Cartagena, Colombia\n*Charleston, South Carolina, United States\n*Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India\n*Port of Chittagong, Chittagong City, Bangladesh\n*Cork Harbour, Ireland\n*Duluth–Superior harbor, Duluth, Minnesota, United States\n*Durban, South Africa\n*Falmouth, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom\n*Freetown Harbour, Sierra Leone\n*Golden Horn, Istanbul, Turkey\n*Gothenburg, Sweden\n*Grand Harbour, Malta\n*Gwangyang, Korea\n*Hai Phong Port, Haiphong, Vietnam\n*Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada\n*Hamburg Harbour, Germany\n*Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Virginia, United States\n*Havana Harbor\n*Incheon, Korea\n*Izmir, Turkey\n*Port of Jakarta (Tanjung Priok), Jakarta, Indonesia\n*Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan\n*Kingston, Jamaica\n*Kobe Harbour, Kobe, Japan\n*Lisbon, Portugal\n*Lushunkou, Dalian, China\n*Mahón, Minorca, Spain\n*Manila Bay, Philippines\n*Maputo, Mozambique\n*Milford Haven, Wales, United Kingdom\n*Montevideo, Uruguay\n*Mumbai, India\n*Nassau, Bahamas\n*New York Harbor, United States\n*Oslofjord, Norway\n*Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States\n*Piraeus, Attiki, Greece\n*Plymouth Sound, Devon, England, United Kingdom\n*Poole Harbour, Dorset, England, United Kingdom\n*Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia\n*Port of Portland, Casco Bay, Maine, United States\n*Port of Sevastopol, Sevastopol, Ukraine\n*Port Phillip, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia\n*Provincetown Harbor, Provincetown, Massachusetts, United States\n*Punta del Este, Uruguay\n*Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara Bay, Brazil\n*Rotterdam, Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands\n*Salvador, All Saint's Bay, Brazil\n*San Antonio, Chile\n*San Diego Bay, San Diego, California, United States\n*San Francisco Bay, California, United States\n*Sankt Petersburg, Russia\n*Subic Bay, Zambales, Philippines\n*Tanger-Med, Tangier, Morocco\n*Tauranga Harbour, Tauranga, New Zealand\n*Tokyo Bay, Tokyo, Japan\n*Trincomalee, Sri Lanka\n*Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, India\n*Port of Tyne, Tyne & Wear, United Kingdom\n*Ulsan, Korea\n*Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong\n*Victoria Harbour (British Columbia) & Esquimalt Harbour, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada\n*Visakhapatnam Port, Andhra Pradesh, India\n*Vizhinjam, Trivandrum, India\n*Waitemata Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand\n*Willemstad, Curaçao\n*Wellington Harbour, New Zealand\n\nOther notable harbors include:\n*Belém, Brazil\n*Port of Bruges-Zeebrugge, Flanders, Belgium\n*Port of Genoa, Italy\n*Port of Gdańsk, Poland\n*Kahului, Hawaii, United States\n*Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand\n*Kaohsiung, Taiwan\n*Keelung, Taiwan\n*Keppel Harbour, Singapore\n*Kilindini Harbour, Kenya\n*Manukau Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand\n*New Haven Harbor, Connecticut, United States\n*Portland Harbour, Dorset, England, United Kingdom\n*Rades, Tunisia\n*Rio Grande, Brazil\n*San Juan, Puerto Rico, United States\n*Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom\n*Sydney Harbour, Australia\n*Port of Szczecin, Poland\n*Trondheim, Norway\n*Valparaiso, Chile\n*Vladivostok, Russia",
"RMS Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line. With her sister ship ' she provided luxury liner service between Southampton, the United Kingdom, and New York City, the United States, via Cherbourg, France. She was also contracted for over 20 years to carry the Royal Mail as the second half of the two ships' weekly express service.\n\nWhile being constructed in the mid-1930s by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, she was known as Hull 552 but when launched, on 27 September 1938, she was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, who was then Queen Consort to King George VI and in 1952 became the Queen Mother. With a design that improved upon that of ', Queen Elizabeth was a slightly larger ship, the largest passenger liner ever built at that time and for 56 years thereafter. She also has the distinction of being the largest-ever riveted ship by gross tonnage. She first entered service in February 1940 as a troopship in World War II, and it was not until October 1946 that she served in her intended role as an ocean liner.\n\nWith the decline in the popularity of the transatlantic route, both ships were replaced by the smaller, more economical Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969. Queen Mary was retired from service on 9 December 1967, and was sold to the city of Long Beach, California, US. Queen Elizabeth was sold to a succession of buyers, most of whom had adventurous and unsuccessful plans for her. Finally she was sold to a Hong Kong businessman, Tung Chao Yung, who intended to convert her into a floating university cruise ship. In 1972, while undergoing refurbishment in Hong Kong harbour, she caught fire under mysterious circumstances and was capsized by the water used to fight the fire. In 1973, her wreck was deemed an obstruction, and she was partially scrapped where she lay. \n\nBuilding and design\n\nOn the day RMS Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage, Cunard's chairman, Sir Percy Bates, informed his ship designers that it was time to start designing the planned second ship known as Hull 552. The official contract between Cunard and government financiers was signed on 6 October 1936.\n\nThe new ship improved upon the design of Queen MaryMaxtone-Graham, John. The Only Way to Cross. New York: Collier Books, 1972, p. 355 with sufficient changes, including a reduction in the number of boilers to twelve instead of Mary twenty-four, that the designers could discard one funnel and increase deck, cargo and passenger space. The two funnels were self-supporting and braced internally to give a cleaner looking appearance while the forward well deck was omitted, a more refined hull shape was achieved and a sharper, raked bow was added for a third bow-anchor point. She was to be eleven feet longer and 4,000 tons greater displacement than her older sister ship, Mary. \n\nQueen Elizabeth was built on slipway four at John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. During her construction she was more commonly known by her shipyard number, Hull 552. The interiors were designed by a team of artists headed by the architect George Grey Wornum. Cunard's plan was for the ship to be launched in September 1938, with fitting out intended to be complete for the ship to enter service in the spring of 1940. The Queen herself performed the launching ceremony on 27 September 1938 and the ship was sent for fitting out. It was announced that on 23 August 1939 the King and Queen were to visit the ship and tour the engine room and 24 April 1940 was to be the proposed date of her maiden voyage. Due to the outbreak of World War II, these two dates were postponed, and Cunard's plans were shattered.\n\nQueen Elizabeth sat at the fitting-out dock at the shipyard in her Cunard colours until 2 November 1939, when the Ministry of Shipping issued special licences to declare her seaworthy. On 29 December her engines were tested for the first time, running from 0900 to 1600 with the propellers disconnected to monitor her oil and steam operating temperatures and pressures. Two months later Cunard received a letter from Winston Churchill,Maxtone-Graham 1972, p. 358-60 then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordering the ship to leave Clydeside as soon as possible and \"to keep away from the British Isles as long as the order was in force\".\n\nMaiden voyage\n\nAt the start of World War II, it was decided that Queen Elizabeth was so vital to the war effort that she must not have her movements tracked by German spies operating in the Clydebank area. Therefore, an elaborate ruse was fabricated involving her sailing to Southampton to complete her fitting out. Another factor prompting Queen Elizabeths departure was the necessity to clear the fitting out berth at the shipyard for the battleship , which was in need of its final fitting-out. Only the berth at John Brown could accommodate the King George V-class battleship's needs.\n\nOne major factor that limited the ship's secret departure date was that there were only two spring tides that year that would see the water level high enough for Queen Elizabeth to leave the Clydebank shipyard, and German intelligence were aware of this fact. A minimal crew of four hundred were assigned for the trip; most were signed up for a short voyage to Southampton from . Parts were shipped to Southampton, and preparations were made to drydock the new liner when she arrived. The names of Brown's shipyard employees were booked to local hotels in Southampton to give a false trail of information and Captain John Townley was appointed as her first master. Townley had previously commanded Aquitania on one voyage, and several of Cunard's smaller vessels before that. Townley and his hastily signed-on crew of four hundred Cunard personnel were told by a Cunard representative before they left to pack for a voyage where they could be away from home for up to six months.Floating Palaces. (1996) A&E. TV Documentary. Narrated by Fritz Weaver\n\nBy the beginning of March 1940, Queen Elizabeth was ready for her secret voyage. Her Cunard colours were painted over with battleship grey, and on the morning of 3 March she quietly left her moorings in the Clyde. She proceeded out of the river and sailed further down the coast, where she was met by the King's Messenger, who presented sealed orders directly to the captain. Whilst waiting for the messenger the ship was refuelled; adjustments to the ship's compass and some final testing of equipment were also carried out before she sailed to her secret destination.\n\nCaptain Townley discovered that he was to take the untested vessel directly to New York without stopping, without dropping off the Southampton harbour pilot who had embarked on Queen Elizabeth from Clydebank, and to maintain strict radio silence. Later that day at the time when she was due to arrive at Southampton, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe. After a crossing taking six days, Queen Elizabeth had zigzagged her way across the Atlantic at an average speed of 26 knots, avoiding Germany's U-boats; she arrived safely at New York and found herself moored alongside both Queen Mary and the French Line's . This would be the only time all three of the world's largest liners would be berthed together.\n\nCaptain Townley received two telegrams on his arrival in New York, one from his wife congratulating him and the other from the ship's namesake – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who thanked him for safe delivery of the ship that was named for her. The ship was then moored for the first time alongside Queen Mary and was secured so that no one could board her without prior permission. This included port officials. Cunard later issued a statement that it had been decided that, due to the global circumstances, it was best that the new liner was moved to a neutral location and that during that voyage the ship had carried no passengers or cargo.\n\nWorld War II\n\nQueen Elizabeth left the port of New York on 13 November 1940 for Singapore to receive her troopship conversion. After two stops to refuel and replenish her stores in Trinidad and Cape Town, she arrived in Singapore's Naval Docks where she was fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and her hull repainted black, although her superstructure remained grey.\n\nAs a troopship, Queen Elizabeth left Singapore on 11 February, and initially she carried Australian troops to operating theatres in Asia and Africa. After 1942, the two Queens were relocated to the North Atlantic for the transportation of American troops to Europe.\n\nQueen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were used as troop transports during the war. Their high speeds allowed them to outrun hazards, principally German U-boats, usually allowing them to travel without a convoy. During her war service as a troopship Queen Elizabeth carried more than 750,000 troops, and she also sailed some . Her captains during this period were Townley, Ernest Fall, Cyril Gordon Illinsworth, Charles Ford, and James Bisset.\n\nPost-war career\n\nFollowing the end of World War II, her sister ship Queen Mary remained in her wartime role and grey appearance, except for her funnels, which were repainted in the company's colours. For another year she did military service, returning troops and G.I. brides to the United States. Queen Elizabeth, meanwhile, was refitted and furnished as an ocean liner at the Firth of Clyde Drydock in Greenock by the John Brown Shipyard. Six years of war service had never permitted the formal sea trials to take place, and these were now finally undertaken. Under the command of Commodore Sir James Bisset the ship travelled to the Isle of Arran and her trials were carried out. Onboard was the ship's namesake Queen Elizabeth and her two daughters, the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. During the trials, her majesty Queen Elizabeth took the wheel for a brief time and the two young princesses recorded the two measured runs with stopwatches that they had been given for the occasion. Bisset was under strict instructions from Sir Percy Bates, who was also aboard the trials, that all that was required from the ship was two measured runs of no more than thirty knots and that she was not permitted to attempt to attain a higher speed record than Queen Mary. After her trials Queen Elizabeth finally entered Cunard White Star's two ship weekly service to New York. Despite similar specifications to her older sister ship Queen Mary, Elizabeth never held the Blue Riband, as Cunard White Star chairman Sir Percy Bates requested that the two ships not try to compete against one another.\n\nIn 1955 during an annual overhaul at Southampton, England, Queen Elizabeth was fitted with underwater fin stabilizers to smooth the ride in rough seas. Two fins were fitted on each side of the hull. The fins were retractable into the hull to save fuel in smooth seas and for docking. \n\nIn 1959, the ship made an appearance in the British satirical Eastman Color comedy film The Mouse That Roared starring Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg. While a troupe of invading men from a fictional European country cross the Atlantic to 'war' with the United States on a tow boat, they meet and pass the far larger Queen Elizabeth, and learn that New York City is closed due to an air raid drill. The men on the tow boat respond by loosing arrows at the two officers speaking from near the ocean liner's bridge.\n\nThe ship ran aground on a sandbank off Southampton on 14 April 1947, and was re-floated the following day. On 29 July 1959, she was in a collision with the American cargo ship American Hunter in foggy conditions in New York Harbour and was holed above the waterline.\n\nTogether with the Queen Mary, and in competition with , the Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger trade until their fortunes began to decline with the advent of the faster and more economical jet airliner in the late 1950s. As passenger numbers declined, the Queens became uneconomic to operate in the face of rising fuel and labour costs. For a short time, the Queen Elizabeth (now under the command of Commodore Geoffrey Trippleton Marr) attempted a dual role in order to become more profitable; when not plying her usual transatlantic route, which she now alternated in her sailings with the French Line's SS France, the ship cruised between New York and Nassau. For this new tropical purpose, the ship received a major refit in 1965, with a new lido deck added to her aft section, enhanced air conditioning, and an outdoor swimming pool. With these improvements, Cunard intended to keep the ship in operation until at least the middle 1970s. However, this strategy did not prove successful due to her high fuel costs, deep draught (which prevented her from entering various island ports), and great width, preventing her from using the Panama Canal.\n\nCunard retired both ships by 1969 and replaced them with a single, smaller ship, the more economical Queen Elizabeth 2.\n\nFinal years \n\nIn 1968, Queen Elizabeth was sold to a group of American businessmen from a company called The Queen Corporation (which was 85% owned by Cunard and 15% by them). The new company intended to operate the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction in Port Everglades, Florida, similar to the use of Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. Elizabeth, as she was now called, actually opened to tourists before Queen Mary (which opened in 1971) but it was not to last. The climate of southern Florida was much harder on Queen Elizabeth than the climate of southern California was on Queen Mary. Losing money and forced to close after being declared a fire hazard, the ship was sold at auction in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon Tung Chao Yung.\n\nTung, head of the Orient Overseas Line, intended to convert the vessel into a university for the World Campus Afloat program (later reformed and renamed as Semester at Sea). Following the tradition of the Orient Overseas Line, the ship was renamed Seawise University, as a play on Tung's initials.\n\nNear the completion of the £5 million conversion, the vessel caught fire on 9 January 1972. There is some suspicion that the fires were set deliberately, as several blazes broke out simultaneously throughout the ship. The fact that C.Y. Tung had acquired the vessel for $3.5 million, and had insured it for $8 million, led some to speculate that the inferno was part of a fraud to collect on the insurance claim. Others speculated that the fires were the result of a conflict between Tung, a Chinese Nationalist, and Communist-dominated ship construction unions. \n\nThe ship was completely destroyed by the fire, and the water sprayed on her by fireboats caused the burnt wreck to capsize and sink in Hong Kong Victoria Harbour. The vessel was finally declared a shipping hazard and dismantled for scrap between 1974 and 1975. Portions of the hull that were not salvaged were left at the bottom of the bay. The keel and boilers remained at the bottom of the harbour and the area was marked as \"Foul\" on local sea charts warning ships not to try to anchor there. It is estimated that around 40–50% of the wreck was still on the seabed. In the late 1990s, the final remains of the wreck were buried during land reclamation for the construction of Container Terminal 9. Position of wreck: . Queen Elizabeth is surpassed only by Costa Concordia in 2012 as the largest passenger shipwreck.\n\nAfter the fire, Tung had one of the liner's anchors and the metal letters \"Q\" and \"E\" from the name on the bow placed in front of the office building at Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, US that was intended to be the headquarters of the Seawise University venture, where they remain to this day. Two of the ship's fire warning system brass plaques were recovered by a dredger and these are now on display at The Aberdeen Boat Club in Hong Kong within a display area about the ship. The charred remnants of her last ensign were cut from the flag pole and framed in 1972, and still adorn the wall of the officers' mess of marine police HQ in Hong Kong. Parker Pen Company produced a special edition of 5,000 pens made from material recovered from the wreck in a presentation box and these are highly collectable. \n\nFollowing the demise of Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger ship in active service became , which was longer but had less tonnage than the Cunard liner.\n\nFictional appearances \n\nThe charred wreck was featured in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, as a covert headquarters for MI6. Q's labs are in the wreckage of this ship."
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What breed of dog did Columbo own?
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tc_88
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris) is a domesticated canid which has been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviours, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes.\n\nAlthough initially thought to have originated as an artificial variant of an extant canid species (variously supposed as being the dhole, golden jackal, or gray wolf ), extensive genetic studies undertaken during the 2010s indicate that dogs diverged from an extinct wolf-like canid in Eurasia 40,000 years ago. Being the oldest domesticated animal, their long association with people has allowed dogs to be uniquely attuned to human behavior, as well as thrive on a starch-rich diet which would be inadequate for other canid species.\n\nDogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This influence on human society has given them the sobriquet, \"man's best friend\".\n\nEtymology\n\nThe term \"domestic dog\" is generally used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The English word dog comes from Middle English dogge, from Old English docga, a \"powerful dog breed\". The term may possibly derive from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn, represented in Old English finger-docce (\"finger-muscle\"). The word also shows the familiar petname diminutive -ga also seen in frogga \"frog\", picga \"pig\", stagga \"stag\", wicga \"beetle, worm\", among others. The term dog may ultimately derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary. \n\nIn 14th-century England, hound (from ) was the general word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype of hound, a group including the mastiff. It is believed this \"dog\" type was so common, it eventually became the prototype of the category \"hound\". By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to types used for hunting. The word \"hound\" is ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *kwon- \"dog\". \n\nA male canine is referred to as a dog, while a female is called a bitch. The father of a litter is called the sire, and the mother is called the dam. (Middle English bicche, from Old English bicce, ultimately from Old Norse bikkja) The process of birth is whelping, from the Old English word hwelp. A litter refers to the multiple offspring at one birth which are called puppies or pups from the French poupée. \n\nTaxonomy\n\nThe dog is classified as Canis lupus familiaris under the Biological Species Concept and Canis familiaris under the Evolutionary Species Concept.Wang, Xiaoming; Tedford, Richard H.; Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008\n\nIn 1758, the taxonomist Linnaeus published in Systema Naturae a categorization of species which included the Canis species. Canis is a Latin word meaning dog, and the list included the dog-like carnivores: the domestic dog, wolves, foxes and jackals. The dog was classified as Canis familiaris, which means \"Dog-family\" or the family dog. On the next page he recorded the wolf as Canis lupus, which means \"Dog-wolf\". In 1978, a review aimed at reducing the number of recognized Canis species proposed that \"Canis dingo is now generally regarded as a distinctive feral domestic dog. Canis familiaris is used for domestic dogs, although taxonomically it should probably be synonymous with Canis lupus.\" In 1982, the first edition of Mammal Species of the World listed Canis familiaris under Canis lupus with the comment: \"Probably ancestor of and conspecific with the domestic dog, familiaris. Canis familiaris has page priority over Canis lupus, but both were published simultaneously in Linnaeus (1758), and Canis lupus has been universally used for this species\", which avoided classifying the wolf as the family dog. The dog is now listed among the many other Latin-named subspecies of Canis lupus as Canis lupus familiaris.\n\nIn 2003, the ICZN ruled in its Opinion 2027 that if wild animals and their domesticated derivatives are regarded as one species, then the scientific name of that species is the scientific name of the wild animal. In 2005, the third edition of Mammal Species of the World upheld Opinion 2027 with the name Lupus and the note: \"Includes the domestic dog as a subspecies, with the dingo provisionally separate - artificial variants created by domestication and selective breeding\". However, Canis familiaris is sometimes used due to an ongoing nomenclature debate because wild and domestic animals are separately recognizable entities and that the ICZN allowed users a choice as to which name they could use, and a number of internationally recognized researchers prefer to use Canis familiaris. \n\nLater genetic studies strongly supported dogs and gray wolves forming two sister monophyletic clades within the one species, and that the common ancestor of dogs and extant wolves is extinct.\n\nOrigin\n\nThe origin of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris) is not clear. Whole genome sequencing indicates that the dog, the gray wolf and the extinct Taymyr wolf diverged at around the same time 27,000–40,000 years ago. These dates imply that the earliest dogs arose in the time of human hunter-gatherers and not agriculturists. Modern dogs are more closely related to ancient wolf fossils that have been found in Europe than they are to modern gray wolves. Nearly all dog breeds' genetic closeness to the gray wolf are due to admixture, except several Arctic dog breeds are close to the Taimyr wolf of North Asia due to admixture.\n\nBiology\n\nAnatomy\n\nDomestic dogs have been selectively bred for millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Modern dog breeds show more variation in size, appearance, and behavior than any other domestic animal. Dogs are predators and scavengers, and like many other predatory mammals, the dog has powerful muscles, fused wrist bones, a cardiovascular system that supports both sprinting and endurance, and teeth for catching and tearing.\n\nSize and weight\n\nDogs are highly variable in height and weight. The smallest known adult dog was a Yorkshire Terrier, that stood only at the shoulder, in length along the head-and-body, and weighed only 113 g. The largest known dog was an English Mastiff which weighed and was 250 cm from the snout to the tail. The tallest dog is a Great Dane that stands at the shoulder. \n\nSenses\n\nThe dog's senses include vision, hearing, sense of smell, sense of taste, touch and sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field.\n\nSee further: Dog anatomy-senses\n\nCoat\n\nThe coats of domestic dogs are of two varieties: \"double\" being common with dogs (as well as wolves) originating from colder climates, made up of a coarse guard hair and a soft down hair, or \"single\", with the topcoat only.\n\nDomestic dogs often display the remnants of countershading, a common natural camouflage pattern. A countershaded animal will have dark coloring on its upper surfaces and light coloring below, which reduces its general visibility. Thus, many breeds will have an occasional \"blaze\", stripe, or \"star\" of white fur on their chest or underside. \n\nTail\n\nThere are many different shapes for dog tails: straight, straight up, sickle, curled, or cork-screw. As with many canids, one of the primary functions of a dog's tail is to communicate their emotional state, which can be important in getting along with others. In some hunting dogs, however, the tail is traditionally docked to avoid injuries. In some breeds, such as the Braque du Bourbonnais, puppies can be born with a short tail or no tail at all. \n\nHealth\n\nThere are many household plants that are poisonous to dogs including begonia, Poinsettia and aloe vera. \n\nSome breeds of dogs are prone to certain genetic ailments such as elbow and hip dysplasia, blindness, deafness, pulmonic stenosis, cleft palate, and trick knees. Two serious medical conditions particularly affecting dogs are pyometra, affecting unspayed females of all types and ages, and bloat, which affects the larger breeds or deep-chested dogs. Both of these are acute conditions, and can kill rapidly. Dogs are also susceptible to parasites such as fleas, ticks, and mites, as well as hookworms, tapeworms, roundworms, and heartworms.\n\nA number of common human foods and household ingestibles are toxic to dogs, including chocolate solids (theobromine poisoning), onion and garlic (thiosulphate, sulfoxide or disulfide poisoning), grapes and raisins, macadamia nuts, xylitol, as well as various plants and other potentially ingested materials. The nicotine in tobacco can also be dangerous. Dogs can get it by scavenging in garbage or ashtrays; eating cigars and cigarettes. Signs can be vomiting of large amounts (e.g., from eating cigar butts) or diarrhea. Some other signs are abdominal pain, loss of coordination, collapse, or death. Dogs are highly susceptible to theobromine poisoning, typically from ingestion of chocolate. Theobromine is toxic to dogs because, although the dog's metabolism is capable of breaking down the chemical, the process is so slow that even small amounts of chocolate can be fatal, especially dark chocolate.\n\nDogs are also vulnerable to some of the same health conditions as humans, including diabetes, dental and heart disease, epilepsy, cancer, hypothyroidism, and arthritis. \n\nLifespan\n\nIn 2013, a study found that mixed breeds live on average 1.2 years longer than pure breeds, and that increasing body-weight was negatively correlated with longevity (i.e. the heavier the dog the shorter its lifespan). \n\nThe typical lifespan of dogs varies widely among breeds, but for most the median longevity, the age at which half the dogs in a population have died and half are still alive, ranges from 10 to 13 years. Individual dogs may live well beyond the median of their breed.\n\nThe breed with the shortest lifespan (among breeds for which there is a questionnaire survey with a reasonable sample size) is the Dogue de Bordeaux, with a median longevity of about 5.2 years, but several breeds, including Miniature Bull Terriers, Bloodhounds, and Irish Wolfhounds are nearly as short-lived, with median longevities of 6 to 7 years.\n\nThe longest-lived breeds, including Toy Poodles, Japanese Spitz, Border Terriers, and Tibetan Spaniels, have median longevities of 14 to 15 years. The median longevity of mixed-breed dogs, taken as an average of all sizes, is one or more years longer than that of purebred dogs when all breeds are averaged. The dog widely reported to be the longest-lived is \"Bluey\", who died in 1939 and was claimed to be 29.5 years old at the time of his death. On 5 December 2011, Pusuke, the world's oldest living dog recognized by Guinness Book of World Records, died aged 26 years and 9 months. \n\nReproduction\n\nIn domestic dogs, sexual maturity begins to happen around age six to twelve months for both males and females, although this can be delayed until up to two years old for some large breeds. This is the time at which female dogs will have their first estrous cycle. They will experience subsequent estrous cycles biannually, during which the body prepares for pregnancy. At the peak of the cycle, females will come into estrus, being mentally and physically receptive to copulation. Because the ova survive and are capable of being fertilized for a week after ovulation, it is possible for a female to mate with more than one male.\n\n2–5 days after conception fertilization occurs, 14–16 days later the embryo attaches to the uterus and after 22–23 days the heart beat is detectable. \n\nDogs bear their litters roughly 58 to 68 days after fertilization, with an average of 63 days, although the length of gestation can vary. An average litter consists of about six puppies, though this number may vary widely based on the breed of dog. In general, toy dogs produce from one to four puppies in each litter, while much larger breeds may average as many as twelve.\n\nSome dog breeds have acquired traits through selective breeding that interfere with reproduction. Male French Bulldogs, for instance, are incapable of mounting the female. For many dogs of this breed, the female must be artificially inseminated in order to reproduce. \n\nNeutering\n\nNeutering refers to the sterilization of animals, usually by removal of the male's testicles or the female's ovaries and uterus, in order to eliminate the ability to procreate and reduce sex drive. Because of the overpopulation of dogs in some countries, many animal control agencies, such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), advise that dogs not intended for further breeding should be neutered, so that they do not have undesired puppies that may have to later be euthanized. \n\nAccording to the Humane Society of the United States, 3–4 million dogs and cats are put down each year in the United States and many more are confined to cages in shelters because there are many more animals than there are homes. Spaying or castrating dogs helps keep overpopulation down. Local humane societies, SPCAs, and other animal protection organizations urge people to neuter their pets and to adopt animals from shelters instead of purchasing them.\n\nNeutering reduces problems caused by hypersexuality, especially in male dogs. Spayed female dogs are less likely to develop some forms of cancer, affecting mammary glands, ovaries, and other reproductive organs. However, neutering increases the risk of urinary incontinence in female dogs, and prostate cancer in males, as well as osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, cruciate ligament rupture, obesity, and diabetes mellitus in either sex. \n\nInbreeding depression\n\nA common breeding practice for pet dogs is mating between close relatives (e.g. between half- and full siblings). In a study of seven different French breeds of dogs (Bernese mountain dog, basset hound, Cairn terrier, Epagneul Breton, German Shepard dog, Leonberger, and West Highland white terrier) it was found that inbreeding decreases litter size and survival . Another analysis of data on 42,855 dachshund litters, found that as the inbreeding coefficient increased, litter size decreased and the percentage of stillborn puppies increased, thus indicating inbreeding depression. \n\nAbout 22% of boxer puppies die before reaching 7 weeks of age. Stillbirth is the most frequent cause of death, followed by infection. Mortality due to infection was found to increase significantly with increases in inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is considered to be due largely to the expression of homozygous deleterious recessive mutations. Outcrossing between unrelated individuals, including dogs of different breeds, results in the beneficial masking of deleterious recessive mutations in progeny. \n\nIntelligence, behavior and communication\n\nIntelligence\n\nDog intelligence is the ability of the dog to perceive information and retain it as knowledge for applying to solve problems. Dogs have been shown to learn by inference. A study with Rico showed that he knew the labels of over 200 different items. He inferred the names of novel items by exclusion learning and correctly retrieved those novel items immediately and also 4 weeks after the initial exposure. Dogs have advanced memory skills. A study documented the learning and memory capabilities of a border collie, \"Chaser\", who had learned the names and could associate by verbal command over 1,000 words. Dogs are able to read and react appropriately to human body language such as gesturing and pointing, and to understand human voice commands. Dogs demonstrate a theory of mind by engaging in deception. A study showed compelling evidence that Australian dingos can outperform domestic dogs in non-social problem-solving experiment, indicating that domestic dogs may have lost much of their original problem-solving abilities once they joined humans. Another study indicated that after undergoing training to solve a simple manipulation task, dogs that are faced with an insoluble version of the same problem look at the human, while socialized wolves do not. Modern domestic dogs use humans to solve their problems for them. \n\nBehavior\n\nDog behavior is the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of the domestic dog (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external stimuli. As the oldest domesticated species, with estimates ranging from 9,000–30,000 years BCE, the minds of dogs inevitably have been shaped by millennia of contact with humans. As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs, more than any other species, have acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans and they are uniquely attuned to our behaviors. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a surprising set of social-cognitive abilities in the otherwise humble domestic dog. These abilities are not possessed by the dog's closest canine\nrelatives nor by other highly intelligent mammals such as great apes. Rather, these skills parallel some of the social-cognitive skills of human children.\n\nCommunication\n\nDog communication is about how dogs \"speak\" to each other, how they understand messages that humans send to them, and how humans can translate the ideas that dogs are trying to transmit. These communication behaviors include eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of bodies and limbs) and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones and taste). Humans communicate with dogs by using vocalization, hand signals and body posture.\n\nCompared to wolves\n\nPhysical characteristics\n\nDespite their close genetic relationship and the ability to inter-breed, there are a number of diagnostic features to distinguish the gray wolves from domestic dogs. Domesticated dogs are clearly distinguishable from wolves by starch gel electrophoresis of red blood cell acid phosphatase. The tympanic bullae are large, convex and almost spherical in gray wolves, while the bullae of dogs are smaller, compressed and slightly crumpled. Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls and 30% smaller brains. The teeth of gray wolves are also proportionately larger than those of dogs. Compared to wolves, dogs have a more domed forehead. The temporalis muscle that closes the jaws is more robust in wolves. Wolves do not have dewclaws on their back legs, unless there has been admixture with dogs that had them. Dogs lack a functioning pre-caudal gland, and most enter estrus twice yearly, unlike gray wolves which only do so once a year. Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves. The dog's limp ears may be the result of atrophy of the jaw muscles. The skin of domestic dogs tends to be thicker than that of wolves, with some Inuit tribes favoring the former for use as clothing due to its greater resistance to wear and tear in harsh weather. The paws of a dog are half the size of those of a wolf, and their tails tend to curl upwards, another trait not found in wolves The dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal. For example, height measured to the withers ranges from a 6 in in the Chihuahua to in the Irish Wolfhound; color varies from white through grays (usually called \"blue\") to black, and browns from light (tan) to dark (\"red\" or \"chocolate\") in a wide variation of patterns; coats can be short or long, coarse-haired to wool-like, straight, curly, or smooth. It is common for most breeds to shed their coat.\n\nBehavioral differences\n\nSee also Behavior compared to other canids.\n\nUnlike other domestic species which were primarily selected for production-related traits, dogs were initially selected for their behaviors. In 2016, a study found that there were only 11 fixed genes that showed variation between wolves and dogs. These gene variations were unlikely to have been the result of natural evolution, and indicate selection on both morphology and behavior during dog domestication. These genes have been shown affect the catecholamine synthesis pathway, with the majority of the genes affecting the fight-or-flight response (i.e. selection for tameness), and emotional processing. Dogs generally show reduced fear and aggression compared to wolves. Some of these genes have been associated with aggression in some dog breeds, indicating their importance in both the initial domestication and then later in breed formation.\n\nEcology\n\nPopulation and habitat\n\nThe global dog population is estimated at 900 million and rising. Although it is said that the \"dog is man's best friend\" regarding 17–24% of dogs in developed countries, in the developing world they are feral, village or community dogs, with pet dogs uncommon. These live their lives as scavengers and have never been owned by humans, with one study showing their most common response when approached by strangers was to run away (52%) or respond with aggression (11%). We know little about these dogs, nor about the dogs that live in developed countries that are feral, stray or are in shelters, yet the great majority of modern research on dog cognition has focused on pet dogs living in human homes. \n\nCompetitors\n\nBeing the most abundant carnivore, feral and free-ranging dogs have the greatest potential to compete with wolves. A review of the studies in the competitive effects of dogs on sympatric carnivores did not mention any research on competition between dogs and wolves. Competition would favor the wolf that is known to kill dogs, however wolves tend to live in pairs or in small packs in areas where they are highly persecuted, giving them a disadvantage facing large dog groups.\n\nWolves kill dogs wherever the two canids occur. One survey claims that in Wisconsin in 1999 more compensation had been paid for dog losses than livestock, however in Wisconsin wolves will often kill hunting dogs, perhaps because they are in the wolf's territory. Some wolf pairs have been reported to prey on dogs by having one wolf lure the dog out into heavy brush where the second animal waits in ambush. In some instances, wolves have displayed an uncharacteristic fearlessness of humans and buildings when attacking dogs, to the extent that they have to be beaten off or killed. Although the numbers of dogs killed each year are relatively low, it induces a fear of wolves entering villages and farmyards to take dogs. In many cultures, there are strong social and emotional bonds between humans and their dogs that can be seen as family members or working team members. The loss of a dog can lead to strong emotional responses with demands for more liberal wolf hunting regulations.\n\nCoyotes and big cats have also been known to attack dogs. Leopards in particular are known to have a predilection for dogs, and have been recorded to kill and consume them regardless of the dog's size or ferocity. Tigers in Manchuria, Indochina, Indonesia, and Malaysia are reputed to kill dogs with the same vigor as leopards. Striped hyenas are major predators of village dogs in Turkmenistan, India, and the Caucasus. \n\nDiet\n\nDespite their descent from wolves and classification as Carnivora, dogs are variously described in scholarly and other writings as carnivores or omnivores. Unlike obligate carnivores, dogs can adapt to a wide-ranging diet, and are not dependent on meat-specific protein nor a very high level of protein in order to fulfill their basic dietary requirements. Dogs will healthily digest a variety of foods, including vegetables and grains, and can consume a large proportion of these in their diet, however all-meat diets are not recommended for dogs due to their lack of calcium and iron. Comparing dogs and wolves, dogs have adaptations in genes involved in starch digestion that contribute to an increased ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet.\n\nBreeds\n\nMost breeds of dog are at most a few hundred years old, having been artificially selected for particular morphologies and behaviors by people for specific functional roles. Through this selective breeding, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal. For example, height measured to the withers ranges from in the Chihuahua to about 76 cm in the Irish Wolfhound; color varies from white through grays (usually called \"blue\") to black, and browns from light (tan) to dark (\"red\" or \"chocolate\") in a wide variation of patterns; coats can be short or long, coarse-haired to wool-like, straight, curly, or smooth. It is common for most breeds to shed this coat.\n\nWhile all dogs are genetically very similar, natural selection and selective breeding have reinforced certain characteristics in certain populations of dogs, giving rise to dog types and dog breeds. Dog types are broad categories based on function, genetics, or characteristics. \nDog breeds are groups of animals that possess a set of inherited characteristics that distinguishes them from other animals within the same species. Modern dog breeds are non-scientific classifications of dogs kept by modern kennel clubs.\n\nPurebred dogs of one breed are genetically distinguishable from purebred dogs of other breeds, but the means by which kennel clubs classify dogs is unsystematic. DNA microsatellite analyses of 85 dog breeds showed they fell into four major types of dogs that were statistically distinct. These include the \"old world dogs\" (e.g., Malamute and Shar Pei), \"Mastiff\"-type (e.g., English Mastiff), \"herding\"-type (e.g., Border Collie), and \"all others\" (also called \"modern\"- or \"hunting\"-type). \n\nRoles with humans\n\nDomestic dogs inherited complex behaviors, such as bite inhibition, from their wolf ancestors, which would have been pack hunters with complex body language. These sophisticated forms of social cognition and communication may account for their trainability, playfulness, and ability to fit into human households and social situations, and these attributes have given dogs a relationship with humans that has enabled them to become one of the most successful species on the planet today. \n\nThe dogs' value to early human hunter-gatherers led to them quickly becoming ubiquitous across world cultures. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This influence on human society has given them the nickname \"man's best friend\" in the Western world. In some cultures, however, dogs are also a source of meat.\n\nEarly roles\n\nWolves, and their dog descendants, would have derived significant benefits from living in human camps—more safety, more reliable food, lesser caloric needs, and more chance to breed. They would have benefited from humans' upright gait that gives them larger range over which to see potential predators and prey, as well as color vision that, at least by day, gives humans better visual discrimination. Camp dogs would also have benefited from human tool use, as in bringing down larger prey and controlling fire for a range of purposes.\nThe dogs of Thibet are twice the size of those seen in India, with large heads and hairy bodies. They are powerful animals, and are said to be able to kill a tiger. During the day they are kept chained up, and are let loose at night to guard their masters' house. \nHumans would also have derived enormous benefit from the dogs associated with their camps. For instance, dogs would have improved sanitation by cleaning up food scraps. Dogs may have provided warmth, as referred to in the Australian Aboriginal expression \"three dog night\" (an exceptionally cold night), and they would have alerted the camp to the presence of predators or strangers, using their acute hearing to provide an early warning.\n\nAnthropologists believe the most significant benefit would have been the use of dogs' robust sense of smell to assist with the hunt. The relationship between the presence of a dog and success in the hunt is often mentioned as a primary reason for the domestication of the wolf, and a 2004 study of hunter groups with and without a dog gives quantitative support to the hypothesis that the benefits of cooperative hunting was an important factor in wolf domestication. \n\nThe cohabitation of dogs and humans would have greatly improved the chances of survival for early human groups, and the domestication of dogs may have been one of the key forces that led to human success. \n\nEmigrants from Siberia that walked across the Bering land bridge into North America may have had dogs in their company, and one writer suggests that the use of sled dogs may have been critical to the success of the waves that entered North America roughly 12,000 years ago, although the earliest archaeological evidence of dog-like canids in North America dates from about 9,400 years ago. Dogs were an important part of life for the Athabascan population in North America, and were their only domesticated animal. Dogs also carried much of the load in the migration of the Apache and Navajo tribes 1,400 years ago. Use of dogs as pack animals in these cultures often persisted after the introduction of the horse to North America. \n\nAs pets\n\nIt is estimated that three-quarters of the world's dog population lives in the developing world as feral, village, or community dogs, with pet dogs uncommon.\n\n\"The most widespread form of interspecies bonding occurs between humans and dogs\" and the keeping of dogs as companions, particularly by elites, has a long history. (As a possible example, at the Natufian culture site of Ain Mallaha in Israel, dated to 12,000 BC, the remains of an elderly human and a four-to-five-month-old puppy were found buried together). However, pet dog populations grew significantly after World War II as suburbanization increased. In the 1950s and 1960s, dogs were kept outside more often than they tend to be today (using the expression \"in the doghouse\" to describe exclusion from the group signifies the distance between the doghouse and the home) and were still primarily functional, acting as a guard, children's playmate, or walking companion. From the 1980s, there have been changes in the role of the pet dog, such as the increased role of dogs in the emotional support of their human guardians. People and dogs have become increasingly integrated and implicated in each other's lives, to the point where pet dogs actively shape the way a family and home are experienced. \n\nThere have been two major trends in the changing status of pet dogs. The first has been the 'commodification' of the dog, shaping it to conform to human expectations of personality and behaviour. The second has been the broadening of the concept of the family and the home to include dogs-as-dogs within everyday routines and practices.\n\nThere are a vast range of commodity forms available to transform a pet dog into an ideal companion. The list of goods, services and places available is enormous: from dog perfumes, couture, furniture and housing, to dog groomers, therapists, trainers and caretakers, dog cafes, spas, parks and beaches, and dog hotels, airlines and cemeteries. While dog training as an organized activity can be traced back to the 18th century, in the last decades of the 20th century it became a high profile issue as many normal dog behaviors such as barking, jumping up, digging, rolling in dung, fighting, and urine marking (which dogs do to establish territory through scent), became increasingly incompatible with the new role of a pet dog. Dog training books, classes and television programs proliferated as the process of commodifying the pet dog continued. \n\nThe majority of contemporary people with dogs describe their pet as part of the family, although some ambivalence about the relationship is evident in the popular reconceptualization of the dog–human family as a pack. A dominance model of dog–human relationships has been promoted by some dog trainers, such as on the television program Dog Whisperer. However it has been disputed that \"trying to achieve status\" is characteristic of dog–human interactions. Pet dogs play an active role in family life; for example, a study of conversations in dog–human families showed how family members use the dog as a resource, talking to the dog, or talking through the dog, to mediate their interactions with each other. \n\nIncreasingly, human family members are engaging in activities centered on the perceived needs and interests of the dog, or in which the dog is an integral partner, such as dog dancing and dog yoga.\n\nAccording to statistics published by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association in the National Pet Owner Survey in 2009–2010, it is estimated there are 77.5 million people with pet dogs in the United States. The same survey shows nearly 40% of American households own at least one dog, of which 67% own just one dog, 25% two dogs and nearly 9% more than two dogs. There does not seem to be any gender preference among dogs as pets, as the statistical data reveal an equal number of female and male dog pets. Yet, although several programs are ongoing to promote pet adoption, less than a fifth of the owned dogs come from a shelter.\n\nThe latest study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) comparing humans and dogs showed that dogs have same response to voices and use the same parts of the brain as humans do. This gives dogs the ability to recognize emotional human sounds, making them friendly social pets to humans. \n\nWork\n\nDogs have lived and worked with humans in so many roles that they have earned the unique nickname, \"man's best friend\", a phrase used in other languages as well. They have been bred for herding livestock, hunting (e.g. pointers and hounds), rodent control, guarding, helping fishermen with nets, detection dogs, and pulling loads, in addition to their roles as companions. In 1957, a husky-terrier mix named Laika became the first animal to orbit the Earth. \n\nService dogs such as guide dogs, utility dogs, assistance dogs, hearing dogs, and psychological therapy dogs provide assistance to individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Some dogs owned by epileptics have been shown to alert their handler when the handler shows signs of an impending seizure, sometimes well in advance of onset, allowing the guardian to seek safety, medication, or medical care. \n\nDogs included in human activities in terms of helping out humans are usually called working dogs.\n\nSports and shows\n\nPeople often enter their dogs in competitions such as breed-conformation shows or sports, including racing, sledding and agility competitions.\n\nIn conformation shows, also referred to as breed shows, a judge familiar with the specific dog breed evaluates individual purebred dogs for conformity with their established breed type as described in the breed standard. As the breed standard only deals with the externally observable qualities of the dog (such as appearance, movement, and temperament), separately tested qualities (such as ability or health) are not part of the judging in conformation shows.\n\nAs food\n\nIn China and South Vietnam dogs are a source of meat for humans. Dog meat is consumed in some East Asiann countries, including Korea, China, and Vietnam, a practice that dates back to antiquity. It is estimated that 13–16 million dogs are killed and consumed in Asia every year. Other cultures, such as Polynesia and pre-Columbian Mexico, also consumed dog meat in their history. However, Western, South Asian, African, and Middle Eastern cultures, in general, regard consumption of dog meat as taboo. In some places, however, such as in rural areas of Poland, dog fat is believed to have medicinal properties—being good for the lungs for instance. Dog meat is also consumed in some parts of Switzerland. Proponents of eating dog meat have argued that placing a distinction between livestock and dogs is western hypocrisy, and that there is no difference with eating the meat of different animals. \n\nIn Korea, the primary dog breed raised for meat, the nureongi (누렁이), differs from those breeds raised for pets that Koreans may keep in their homes. \n\nThe most popular Korean dog dish is gaejang-guk (also called bosintang), a spicy stew meant to balance the body's heat during the summer months; followers of the custom claim this is done to ensure good health by balancing one's gi, or vital energy of the body. A 19th century version of gaejang-guk explains that the dish is prepared by boiling dog meat with scallions and chili powder. Variations of the dish contain chicken and bamboo shoots. While the dishes are still popular in Korea with a segment of the population, dog is not as widely consumed as beef, chicken, and pork.\n\nHealth risks to humans\n\nIn 2005, the WHO reported that 55,000 people died in Asia and Africa from rabies, a disease for which dogs are the most important vector. \n\nCiting a 2008 study, the U.S. Center for Disease Control estimated in 2015 that 4.5 million people in the USA are bitten by dogs each year. A 2015 study estimated that 1.8% of the U.S. population is bitten each year. In the 1980s and 1990s the US averaged 17 fatalities per year, while in the 2000s this has increased to 26. 77% of dog bites are from the pet of family or friends, and 50% of attacks occur on the property of the dog's legal owner.\n\nA Colorado study found bites in children were less severe than bites in adults. The incidence of dog bites in the US is 12.9 per 10,000 inhabitants, but for boys aged 5 to 9, the incidence rate is 60.7 per 10,000. Moreover, children have a much higher chance to be bitten in the face or neck. Sharp claws with powerful muscles behind them can lacerate flesh in a scratch that can lead to serious infections. \n\nIn the UK between 2003 and 2004, there were 5,868 dog attacks on humans, resulting in 5,770 working days lost in sick leave. \n\nIn the United States, cats and dogs are a factor in more than 86,000 falls each year. It has been estimated around 2% of dog-related injuries treated in UK hospitals are domestic accidents. The same study found that while dog involvement in road traffic accidents was difficult to quantify, dog-associated road accidents involving injury more commonly involved two-wheeled vehicles. \n\nToxocara canis (dog roundworm) eggs in dog feces can cause toxocariasis. In the United States, about 10,000 cases of Toxocara infection are reported in humans each year, and almost 14% of the U.S. population is infected. In Great Britain, 24% of soil samples taken from public parks contained T. canis eggs. Untreated toxocariasis can cause retinal damage and decreased vision. Dog feces can also contain hookworms that cause cutaneous larva migrans in humans. \n\nHealth benefits for humans\n\nThe scientific evidence is mixed as to whether companionship of a dog can enhance human physical health and psychological wellbeing. Studies suggesting that there are benefits to physical health and psychological wellbeing have been criticised for being poorly controlled, and finding that \"[t]he health of elderly people is related to their health habits and social supports but not to their ownership of, or attachment to, a companion animal.\" Earlier studies have shown that people who keep pet dogs or cats exhibit better mental and physical health than those who do not, making fewer visits to the doctor and being less likely to be on medication than non-guardians. \n\nA 2005 paper states \"recent research has failed to support earlier findings that pet ownership is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, a reduced use of general practitioner services, or any psychological or physical benefits on health for community dwelling older people. Research has, however, pointed to significantly less absenteeism from school through sickness among children who live with pets.\" In one study, new guardians reported a highly significant reduction in minor health problems during the first month following pet acquisition, and this effect was sustained in those with dogs through to the end of the study. \n\nIn addition, people with pet dogs took considerably more physical exercise than those with cats and those without pets. The results provide evidence that keeping pets may have positive effects on human health and behaviour, and that for guardians of dogs these effects are relatively long-term. Pet guardianship has also been associated with increased coronary artery disease survival, with human guardians being significantly less likely to die within one year of an acute myocardial infarction than those who did not own dogs. \n\nThe health benefits of dogs can result from contact with dogs in general, and not solely from having dogs as pets. For example, when in the presence of a pet dog, people show reductions in cardiovascular, behavioral, and psychological indicators of anxiety. Other health benefits are gained from exposure to immune-stimulating microorganisms, which, according to the hygiene hypothesis, can protect against allergies and autoimmune diseases. The benefits of contact with a dog also include social support, as dogs are able to not only provide companionship and social support themselves, but also to act as facilitators of social interactions between humans. One study indicated that wheelchair users experience more positive social interactions with strangers when they are accompanied by a dog than when they are not. In 2015, a study found that pet owners were significantly more likely to get to know people in their neighborhood than non-pet owners. \n\nThe practice of using dogs and other animals as a part of therapy dates back to the late 18th century, when animals were introduced into mental institutions to help socialize patients with mental disorders. Animal-assisted intervention research has shown that animal-assisted therapy with a dog can increase social behaviors, such as smiling and laughing, among people with Alzheimer's disease. One study demonstrated that children with ADHD and conduct disorders who participated in an education program with dogs and other animals showed increased attendance, increased knowledge and skill objectives, and decreased antisocial and violent behavior compared to those who were not in an animal-assisted program. \n\nMedical detection dogs\n\nMedical detection dogs are capable of detecting diseases by sniffing a person directly or samples of urine or other specimens. Dogs can detect odour in one part per trillion, as their brain's olfactory cortex is (relative to total brain size) 40 times larger than humans. Dogs may have as many as 300 million odour receptors in their nose, while humans may have only 5 million. Each dog is trained specifically for the detection of single disease from the blood glucose level indicative to diabetes to cancer. To train a cancer dog requires 6 months. A Labrador Retriever called Daisy has detected 551 cancer patients with an accuracy of 93 percent and received the Blue Cross (for pets) Medal for her life-saving skills. \n\nShelters\n\nEvery year, between 6 and 8 million dogs and cats enter US animal shelters. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) estimates that approximately 3 to 4 million of those dogs and cats are euthanized yearly in the United States. However, the percentage of dogs in US animal shelters that are eventually adopted and removed from the shelters by their new legal owners has increased since the mid-1990s from around 25% to a 2012 average of 40% among reporting shelters (with many shelters reporting 60–75%). \n\nCultural depictions\n\nDogs have been viewed and represented in different manners by different cultures and religions, over the course of history.\n\nMythology\n\nIn mythology, dogs often serve as pets or as watchdogs. \n\nIn Greek mythology, Cerberus is a three-headed watchdog who guards the gates of Hades. In Norse mythology, a bloody, four-eyed dog called Garmr guards Helheim. In Persian mythology, two four-eyed dogs guard the Chinvat Bridge. In Philippine mythology, Kimat who is the pet of Tadaklan, god of thunder, is responsible for lightning. In Welsh mythology, Annwn is guarded by Cŵn Annwn.\n\nIn Hindu mythology, Yama, the god of death owns two watch dogs who have four eyes. They are said to watch over the gates of Naraka. Hunter god Muthappan from North Malabar region of Kerala has a hunting dog as his mount. Dogs are found in and out of the Muthappan Temple and offerings at the shrine take the form of bronze dog figurines. \n\nThe role of the dog in Chinese mythology includes a position as one of the twelve animals which cyclically represent years (the zodiacal dog).\n\nReligion and culture\n\nIn Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, when the disguised Odysseus returns home after 20 years he is recognized only by his faithful dog, Argos, who has been waiting for his return.\n\nIn Islam, dogs are viewed as unclean because they are viewed as scavengers. In 2015 city councillor Hasan Küçük of The Hague called for dog ownership to be made illegal in that city. Islamic activists in Lérida, Spain, lobbied for dogs to be kept out of Muslim neighborhoods, saying their presence violated Muslims' religious freedom. In Britain, police sniffer dogs are carefully used, and are not permitted to contact passengers, only their luggage. They are required to wear leather dog booties when searching mosques or Muslim homes.\n\nJewish law does not prohibit keeping dogs and other pets. Jewish law requires Jews to feed dogs (and other animals that they own) before themselves, and make arrangements for feeding them before obtaining them. In Christianity, dogs represent faithfulness.\n\nIn Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan, dogs are viewed as kind protectors.\n\nArt\n\nCultural depictions of dogs in art extend back thousands of years to when dogs were portrayed on the walls of caves. Representations of dogs became more elaborate as individual breeds evolved and the relationships between human and canine developed. Hunting scenes were popular in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Dogs were depicted to symbolize guidance, protection, loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness, watchfulness, and love."
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Phil Collins appeared in which Spielberg film with Robin Williams?
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"Philip David Charles \"Phil\" Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer and actor. He is known as the drummer and lead singer in the rock band Genesis and as a solo artist. Between 1983 and 1990, Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins had more US top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. His most successful singles from the period include \"In the Air Tonight\", \"Against All Odds\", \"Sussudio\" and \"Another Day in Paradise\".\n\nBorn and raised in west London, Collins played drums from the age of five and completed drama school training, which secured him various roles as a child actor. He then pursued a music career, joining Genesis in 1970 as their drummer and becoming lead singer in 1975 following the departure of Peter Gabriel. Collins began a solo career in the 1980s, initially inspired by his marital breakdown and love of soul music, releasing a series of successful albums, including Face Value (1981), No Jacket Required (1985), and ...But Seriously (1989). Collins became \"one of the most successful pop and adult contemporary singers of the '80s and beyond\". He also became known for a distinctive gated reverb drum sound on many of his recordings. After leaving Genesis in 1996, Collins pursued various solo projects before a return in 2007 for the Turn It On Again Tour. In 2011, he retired to focus on his family life, but continued to write songs. He announced his return to the music industry in 2015.\n\nCollins' discography includes eight studio albums that have sold 33.5 million certified units in the US and an estimated 150 million worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists. He is one of three recording artists, along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, who have sold over 100 million albums worldwide both as solo artists and separately as principal members of a band. He has won seven Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, an Academy Award, and a Disney Legend Award. In 1999, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010, and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2012. Despite his commercial success and his status as a respected and influential drummer, music critics are divided in their opinion of his work and he has publicly received both criticism and praise from other prominent music artists.\n\nEarly life\n\nPhilip David Charles Collins was born on 30 January 1951 in Chiswick, the son of Winifred M. \"June\" (née Strange), a theatrical agent, and Greville Philip Austin Collins, an insurance agent. He was given a toy drum kit for Christmas when he was five. Later, his uncle made him a makeshift set that he used regularly. As Collins grew older, these were followed by more complete sets bought by his parents. He practiced by playing with music on the television and radio, but never learned to read and write conventional musical notation; instead, he used a system which he devised himself. According to Barbara Speake, founder of the eponymous stage school he later attended, Collins always had a rare ear for music: \"Phil was always special; aged five he entered a Butlins talent contest singing Davy Crockett, but he stopped the orchestra halfway through to tell them they were in the wrong key.\" \n\nCollins studied drum rudiments as a teenager, first learning basic rudiments under Lloyd Ryan and later studying further under Frank King. Collins would recall: \"Rudiments I found very, very helpful – much more helpful than anything else because they're used all the time. In any kind of funk or jazz drumming, the rudiments are always there.\" However, Collins regretted that he never mastered musical notation, saying: \"I never really came to grips with the music. I should have stuck with it. I've always felt that if I could hum it, I could play it. For me, that was good enough, but that attitude is bad.\" Lloyd Ryan recalled: \"Phil always had a problem with reading. That was always a big problem for him. That’s a shame because reading drum music isn’t that difficult.\" \n\nThe Beatles were a strong early musical influence on Collins, including their drummer Ringo Starr. He also followed the lesser-known London band the Action, whose drummer he would copy and whose work introduced him to the soul music of Motown and Stax Records. Collins was also influenced by the jazz and big band drummer Buddy Rich, whose opinion on the importance of the hi-hat prompted Collins to stop using two bass drums and start using the hi-hat. While attending Chiswick County School for Boys, Collins formed a band called the Real Thing and later joined the Freehold. With the latter group, he wrote his first song titled \"Lying Crying Dying\". His professional acting training began at age 14, at the Barbara Speake Stage School, a fee-paying but non-selective independent school in East Acton, whose talent agency had been established by his mother. \n\nCareer\n\n1963–1970: Early acting roles and Flaming Youth\n\nCollins began a career as a child actor while at the Barbara Speake Stage School and won his first major role as the Artful Dodger in the London stage production of Oliver! He was an extra in the the Beatles's film A Hard Day's Night (1964) among the screaming teenagers during the television concert sequence. This was followed by a role in Calamity the Cow (1967), produced by the Children's Film Foundation, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) as one of the children who storm the castle at the end, but the scene was cut. Collins auditioned for the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968) but this was won by Leonard Whiting. \n\nDespite the beginnings of an acting career, Collins continued to gravitate towards music. His first record deal came as drummer for Hickory with guitarists Ronnie Caryl and Gordon Smith and keyboardist Brian Chatton. After changing their name to Flaming Youth they recorded one album, Ark 2, released in October 1969 on Uni Records that premiered with a performance at the London Planetarium. A concept album inspired by the media attention surrounding the 1969 moon landing, Ark 2 featured each member sharing lead vocals. Though a commercial failure, it received some positive critical reviews; Melody Maker named it \"Pop Album of the Month\", describing it as \"adult music beautifully played with nice tight harmonies\". After a year of touring, the group disbanded in 1970. Collins went on to play percussion on \"Art of Dying\" by George Harrison for his album All Things Must Pass. Harrison acknowledged Collins's contribution in the remastered edition released in 2000.\n\n1970–1978: Joining Genesis\n\nIn mid-1970, rock band Genesis advertised for \"a drummer sensitive to acoustic music and 12-string acoustic guitarist\" following the departure of guitarist Anthony Phillips and drummer John Mayhew. Collins recognised Charisma Records owner Tony Stratton-Smith's name in the ad and applied to audition with Caryl. Auditions took place at the parents' home of singer Peter Gabriel in Chobham, Surrey. As they arrived early, Collins took a swim in the pool and memorised the pieces before his own audition. He recalled, \"They put on 'Trespass', and my initial impression was of a very soft and round music, not edgy, with vocal harmonies and I came away thinking Crosby, Stills and Nash\". In August 1970, Collins became Genesis's new drummer. Caryl's audition was unsuccessful; guitarist Mike Rutherford thought he was not a good fit for the group (they selected Steve Hackett in January 1971).\n\nFrom 1970 to 1975, Collins played the drums, percussion, and backing vocals on Genesis albums and live shows. His first album recorded with the band, Nursery Cryme, was recorded and released in 1971. \"For Absent Friends\", an acoustic track written by Collins and Hackett, is the first Genesis song with Collins on lead vocals. He sang \"More Fool Me\" on their 1973 album Selling England by the Pound. In 1974, during the recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Collins played drums on Brian Eno's second album Taking Tiger Mountain after Eno had contributed electronic effects known as \"Enossification\" on \"In the Cage\" and \"Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging\". \n\nIn August 1975, following the The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour, Gabriel left Genesis. Collins became lead vocalist during production of A Trick of the Tail after a lengthy search for Gabriel's replacement where he sang back-up with applicants that responded to a Melody Maker advert that attracted around 400 replies. A Trick of the Tail was a commercial and critical success for the band, reaching No. 3 in the UK and No. 31 in the U.S. Rolling Stone wrote, \"Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success.\" For the album's 1976 tour, Collins accepted an offer from former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford to play drums while Collins sang vocals. Wind & Wuthering is the last album recorded with Hackett before his 1977 departure. Bruford was replaced by Chester Thompson, who became a mainstay of the band's live line-up, as well as Collins's solo back-up band, through the following decades.\n\nIn 1977, Collins, Banks, and Rutherford decided to continue Genesis as a trio. As the decade closed, Genesis began to shift from their progressive rock roots to a more accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock sound. The 1978 album ...And Then There Were Three... featured their first UK Top 10 and U.S. Top 40 single, \"Follow You Follow Me\".\n\nIn 1975 Collins played with several artists. He played the drums and sang on Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte; performed on Eno's albums Another Green World, Before and After Science, and Music for Films; and replaced drummer Phil Spinelli of the jazz fusion group Brand X before recording their 1976 debut album, Unorthodox Behaviour. Collins credits Brand X as his first use of a drum machine as well as his first use of a home 8-track tape machine. He then sang on Phillips's solo album, The Geese and the Ghost, and the second Brand X album, Moroccan Roll.\n\n1978–1983: Start of solo career: Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going!\n\nIn December 1978, Genesis began a period of inactivity as Collins's marriage was at risk of collapse after touring had made him frequently absent from his wife and children. Collins went to Vancouver, Canada to try and rebuild the family. He explained: \"I was never going to leave the band. It was just that if I was going to be living in Vancouver then we'd have had to organise ourselves differently.\" In April 1979, Collins returned to the UK after his attempt to save his marriage had failed. With time to spare before working on a new Genesis album, Collins played on the Brand X album Product and its accompanying tour, and started writing his first solo album, Face Value, at his home in Shalford, Surrey. After Banks and Rutherford rejoined with Collins, work began on Duke, released in 1980. The dominant theme running through Collins's early solo recordings, though never specifically mentioned, was the acrimonious breakdown of his first marriage. Two songs he wrote on Duke, \"Please Don't Ask\", and the U.S. top 20 hit \"Misunderstanding\", dealt with his failed relationships.\n\nFace Value was released in February 1981. It features a rework of \"Behind the Lines\" from Duke with a more funk and dance-oriented style. Collins cited his divorce as his main influence. Regarding Face Value, he says, \"I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes.\" Collins produced the album in collaboration with Hugh Padgham, with whom he had worked on Peter Gabriel's 1980 studio album. Collins played keyboards and drums on Face Value. \n\nUpon its release, Face Value was an international success, reaching No. 1 in seven countries worldwide and No. 7 in the U.S. where it went on to sell 5 million copies. \"In the Air Tonight\", the album's lead single, became a hit and reached No. 2 in the UK. The song is known for the gated reverb effect used on Collins's drums, a technique developed by producer Hugh Padgham when he worked as an engineer on Peter Gabriel's song \"Intruder\", which Collins played drums on. Following an invitation by record producer Martin Lewis, Collins made his debut live performance as a solo artist at the Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in September 1981. He performed \"In the Air Tonight\" and \"The Roof Is Leaking\" accompanied by Troy Street United.\n\nIn September 1981, Genesis released Abacab. This was followed by its 1981 supporting tour and a two-month tour in 1982 promoting the Genesis live album Three Sides Live. On 2 October 1982, Collins took part in a Genesis concert, 'Six of the Best' which featured Gabriel on lead vocals and Hackett on guitar.\n\nCollins's second solo album, Hello, I Must Be Going!, was released in November 1982. His marital problems continued to provide inspiration for his songs, including \"I Don't Care Anymore\" and \"Do You Know, Do You Care\". The album reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 8 in the U.S., where it sold 3 million copies. Its second single, a cover of \"You Can't Hurry Love\" by The Supremes, became Collins's first UK No. 1 single and went to No. 10 in the US. Collins supported the album with the Hello, I Must Be Going! tour of Europe and North America from November 1982 to February 1983.\n\nIn May 1983, Collins recorded Genesis with Banks and Rutherford. Its tour ended in February 1984.\n\n1984–1985: No Jacket Required\n\nCollins changed his musical style with \"Against All Odds\", the main theme song for the movie of the same name in 1984. The more pop-friendly and radio-accessible single became Collins's first solo single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and gave him his first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male. Later that year, Collins contributed to production on Earth, Wind & Fire vocalist Philip Bailey's third solo album, Chinese Wall, collaborating with Bailey on the duet, \"Easy Lover\", which reached No. 1 in the UK.\n\nIn November 1984, Collins played drums and was part of the all-star choir for Band Aid's \"Do They Know It's Christmas?\", a song written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the victims of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, which became the UK Christmas #1 and the best-selling single in UK Singles Chart history, selling a million copies in the first week alone. \n\nCollins released his most successful album, the Diamond-certified No Jacket Required, in February 1985. It reached No. 1 in both the UK and U.S. It contained the U.S. number-one hits \"One More Night\" and \"Sussudio\" as well top ten hits \"Don't Lose My Number\" and \"Take Me Home\". It also contains the lesser known \"Who Said I Would\", and \"Only You Know and I Know\". The album featured contributions from The Police's vocalist, Sting, ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel, and Helen Terry as backing vocalists. He also recorded the successful song \"Separate Lives\", a duet with Marilyn Martin, and a U.S. #1, for the movie White Nights. Collins had three U.S. number-one songs in 1985, the most by any artist that year. No Jacket Required won three Grammy Awards including Album of the Year. \n\nNo Jacket Required was criticised for being \"too commercial\", despite favourable reviews from many music critics. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, \"After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans's expectations next time around.\" \"Sussudio\" attracted negative attention for sounding too similar to Prince's \"1999\", a charge that Collins did not deny, and its hook line (\"Su-su-su-sussudio\") has been named as the most widely disliked element of his career.\n\nIn 1985 Bob Geldof asked Collins to perform at the Live Aid charity event, a continuation of the fundraising effort for Ethiopia started by Band Aid. Collins had the distinction of being the only performer to appear at both the UK concert at Wembley Stadium and the U.S. concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia; he performed several songs, including \"Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)\" and \"In the Air Tonight\". He accomplished this by performing early in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting, then transferring to a Concorde flight to the U.S. enabling him to perform his solo material, and play drums with Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia. The Led Zeppelin reunion was poorly received and later disowned by the band. Guitarist Jimmy Page alleged that Collins \"hadn't learned\" his drum part. Page said: \"You can get away with that in a pop band but not with Led Zeppelin\". Collins responded that the band \"weren't very good\" and that he \"was made to feel a little uncomfortable by the dribbling Jimmy Page.\" To avoid negative attention, he persisted with the set rather than leave the stage. \n\nBesides his number-one duet with Marilyn Martin in 1985, Collins scored two more hits from movies with the singles, \"A Groovy Kind of Love\" (#1 UK and U.S.) and \"Two Hearts\" (#1 U.S., #6 UK), both from the soundtrack of his feature film, Buster. In 1986 Collins won the first two of his six Brit Awards for Best British Male and Best British Album for No Jacket Required. \n\nThe music press noted Collins's astronomical success as a solo artist had made him more popular than Genesis. Before the release of No Jacket Required, Collins insisted that he would not leave the band. \"The next one to leave the band will finish it,\" Collins told Rolling Stone magazine in May 1985. \"I feel happier with what we're doing now, because I feel it's closer to me. I won't be the one.\" Collins added, \"Poor old Genesis does get in the way sometimes. I still won't leave the group, but I imagine it will end by mutual consent.\"\n\n1985–1991: ...But Seriously\n\nIn October 1985, Collins reunited with Banks and Rutherford to record the next Genesis album, Invisible Touch. Its title track was released as a single and reached No. 1 in the US, the only Genesis song to do so. The group received a Grammy Award (their only one) and a nomination for the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1987 for the single \"Land of Confusion\" which featured puppet caricatures created by the British satirical team Spitting Image. The video was directed by Jim Yukich. Reviews of Invisible Touch were mixed and many comparisons were made with Collins's solo work, but Rolling Stones J. D. Considine praised the album's commercial appeal, stating, \"every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook\". \n\nIn 1989 Collins worked on his fourth studio album ...But Seriously, and appeared on The Who Tour 1989, performing the role of young Tommy's wicked Uncle Ernie in a reprisal of the rock opera Tommy (a part originally played by their late drummer, Keith Moon). In November, Collins released ...But Seriously, which became another huge success, featuring as its lead single the anti-homelessness anthem \"Another Day in Paradise\", with David Crosby singing backing vocals. \"Another Day in Paradise\" reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts at the end of 1989, won Collins Best British Single at the Brit Awards in 1990, and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1991; it was also one of Germany's most successful singles of all time. It became the final U.S. number-one single of the 1980s. Despite its success, the song was also heavily criticised. It also became linked to allegations of hypocrisy made against Collins.\n\n...But Seriously became the first number-one U.S. album of the 1990s and the best-selling album of 1990 in the UK. Other songs included \"Something Happened on the Way to Heaven\" (#4 U.S., #15 UK), \"Do You Remember?\" (not released in the UK, but #4 in the U.S.), and \"I Wish It Would Rain Down\" (the latter featuring Eric Clapton on guitar; #3 U.S., #7 UK). Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins's turn to political themes. A live album, Serious Hits... Live!, followed, which reached the top ten around the world. In September 1990 Collins performed \"Sussudio\" at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles. Collins also played drums on the 1989 Tears for Fears hit single, \"Woman in Chains\". \n\n1991–1997: Leaving Genesis, Both Sides and Dance into the Light\n\nAfter a hiatus of five years, Genesis reconvened for the 1991 album release We Can't Dance, Collins's last studio album with the group to date. It features the singles \"Jesus He Knows Me\", \"I Can't Dance\", \"No Son of Mine\", and \"Hold on My Heart\". Collins performed on their 1992 tour. At the 1993 American Music Awards, Genesis won the award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group. \n\nCollins's record sales began to drop with the 1993 release of Both Sides, a largely experimental album that, according to Collins, included songs that \"were becoming so personal, so private, I didn't want anyone else's input\". Featuring a less polished sound and fewer up-tempo songs than his previous albums, Both Sides was a significant departure. Collins used no backing musicians and he performed all the vocal and instrumental parts at his home studio, using rough vocal takes for the final product. The album was not as well received by radio. Its two biggest hits were \"Both Sides of the Story\" and \"Everyday\". In 1995, Collins turned down the chance to contribute to Tower of Song, an album of covers of Leonard Cohen songs, due to his touring commitments. \n\nCollins left Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career. He formed The Phil Collins Big Band with himself on drums. The band performed jazz renditions of songs from Genesis and his solo career. His sixth solo album, Dance into the Light, was released in October 1996. The album was received negatively by the music press and sold less than his previous albums. Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that \"even Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins\". Singles from the album included the title track, which reached No. 9 in the UK, and The Beatles-inspired \"It's in Your Eyes\". The album achieved Gold certification in the United States. On 15 September 1997, Collins appeared at the Music for Montserrat concert at the Royal Albert Hall. \n\n1998–2006: Big Band Tour, work with Disney and Testify\n\nThe Phil Collins Big Band completed a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999 they released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of \"Invisible Touch\", \"Sussudio\", and \"The Los Endos Suite\" from A Trick of the Tail.\n\nA compilation album ...Hits was released in 1998 and sold well, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in the U.S. The album's one new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit \"True Colors\", received considerable airplay on U.S. Adult Contemporary stations while peaking at No. 2. \n\nIn 1999 Collins reunited with Genesis to re-record \"The Carpet Crawlers\" for the compilation album Turn It On Again: The Hits.\n\nCollins's next single, \"You'll Be in My Heart\", from the Disney animated movie Tarzan, spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart—the longest time ever up to that point. The song won Collins an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award both for Best Original Song. It was his third nomination in the songwriters's category, after being nominated in 1985 and 1989. Collins was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on 16 June 1999. \n\nIn 2000 Collins suddenly developed a deafness in one ear, due to a viral infection.[http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/11/phil-collins-interview-take-a-look-at-me-now-remastered-albums-rerelease-2016?utm_source\nesp&utm_mediumEmail&utm_campaign\nGU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+header&utm_term158329&subid\n9600366&CMP=ema_565] \"Phil Collins Returns\", The Guardian, 11 February 2016 He contemplated ending his musical career at that point; the combined partial deafness and growing criticism were wearing him down. However, when medical treatment cured his deafness, he continued his chosen path. In June 2002 he accepted an invitation to drum for the house band at the Party at the Palace event held at Buckingham Palace Garden, a concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. \n\nIn November 2002 Collins released his seventh solo album, Testify. Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found this record to be the worst-reviewed album at the time of its release, though it has since been \"surpassed\" by three more recent releases. The album's single \"Can't Stop Loving You\" (a Leo Sayer cover) was a number-one Adult Contemporary hit. Testify only sold 140,000 copies in the U.S. by year's end. From June 2004 to November 2005, Collins performed his First Final Farewell Tour, a reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. In 2006, he worked with Disney on a musical production of Tarzan. \n\n2006–2015: Genesis reunion, Going Back, and retirement\n\nCollins reunited with Banks and Rutherford and announced Turn It On Again: The Tour on 7 November 2006, nearly 40 years after the band first formed. The tour took place during summer 2007, and played in twelve countries across Europe, followed by a second leg in North America. During the tour Genesis performed at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium, London. In 2007 they were honoured at the second annual VH1 Rock Honors, performing \"Turn It On Again\", \"No Son of Mine\" and \"Los Endos\" at the ceremony in Las Vegas. \n\nIn October 2009, it was reported that Collins was to record a Motown covers album. He told a German newspaper, \"I want the songs to sound exactly like the originals\", and that the album would feature up to 30 songs. In January 2010, Chester Thompson said that the album had been completed and would be released some time soon. He also revealed that Collins managed to play the drums on the album despite a spinal operation. \n\nGoing Back was released on 13 September 2010, entering the UK charts at No. 4, rising to No. 1 the following week. In summer 2010, Collins played six concerts with the music from Going Back. These included a special programme, Phil Collins: One Night Only, aired ITV1 on 18 September 2010. Collins also promoted Going Back with his first and only appearance on the BBC's foremost music series Later... with Jools Holland, broadcast on 17 September 2010. \n\nIn March 2010, Collins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis at a ceremony in New York City. As of January 2011, Collins has spent 1,730 weeks in the German music charts—766 weeks of them with Genesis albums and singles and 964 weeks with solo releases. \n\nOn 4 March 2011, citing health problems and other concerns, Collins announced that he was taking time off from his career, prompting widespread reports of his retirement. On 7 March his UK representative told the press, \"He is not, has no intention of, retiring.\" However, later that day, Collins posted a message to his fans on his own website, confirming his intention to retire to focus on his family life. \n\nIn July 2012, Collins's greatest hits collection ...Hits re-entered the U.S. charts, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200. \n\nIn November 2013, Collins told German media that he was considering a return to music and speculated that this could mean further live shows with Genesis, stating: \"Everything is possible. We could tour in Australia and South America. We haven't been there yet.\" Speaking to reporters in Miami, Florida in December 2013 at an event promoting his charity work, Collins indicated that he was writing music once again and might tour again. \n\nOn 24 January 2014, Collins announced in an interview with Inside South Florida that he was writing new compositions with fellow English singer Adele. Collins said he had no idea who Adele was when he learned she wanted to collaborate with him. He said \"I wasn't actually too aware [of her]. I live in a cave.\" Collins agreed to join her in the studio after hearing her voice. He said, \"[She] achieved an incredible amount. I really love her voice. I love some of this stuff she's done, too.\" However, in September 2014, Collins revealed that the collaboration had ended and he said it had been \"a bit of a non-starter\". \n\nIn May 2014, Collins gave a live performance of \"In the Air Tonight\" and \"Land of Confusion\" with young student musicians at the Miami Country Day School in Miami, Florida. Collins was asked to perform there by his sons, who are students at the school. In August 2014, Collins was reported to have accepted an invitation to perform in December at a benefit concert in Miami in aid of his Little Dreams Foundation charity. He ultimately missed the concert due to illness. \n\n2015–present: Out of retirement\n\nIn May 2015 Collins signed a deal with Warner Music Group to remaster his eight solo albums with previously unreleased material. In October, he announced that he was no longer officially retired and is planning to tour and write a new album. Collins said that he plans to release an autobiography Not Dead Yet on 25 October 2016. \n\nDrumming and impact\n\nIn his book on the \"legends\" who defined progressive rock drumming, American drummer Rich Lackowski wrote: \"Phil Collins's grooves in early Genesis recordings paved the way for many talented drummers to come. His ability to make the drums bark with musicality and to communicate so convincingly in odd time signatures left many a drummer tossing on the headphones and playing along to Phil's lead.\" In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted Collins the fourth most influential progressive rock drummer for his work on the 1974 Genesis album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. MusicRadar named Collins one of the six pioneers of progressive rock drumming. In 2005, Planet Rock listeners voted Collins the fifth greatest rock drummer in history. Collins was ranked tenth in \"The Greatest Drummers of All Time\" list by Gigwise and number nine in a list of \"The 20 greatest drummers of the last 25 years\" by MusicRadar in 2010. \n\nFoo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins cites Collins as one of his drumming heroes. He said, \"Collins is an incredible drummer. Anyone who wants to be good on the drums should check him out – the man is a master.\" In the April 2001 issue of Modern Drummer, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy named Collins in an interview when asked about drummers he was influenced by and had respect for. In another conversation in 2014, Portnoy lauded his \"amazing progressive drumming\" back in the early and mid-1970s. Rush drummer Neil Peart praised his \"beautiful drumming\" and \"lovely sound\" on the 1973 Genesis album Selling England by the Pound, which he called \"an enduring masterpiece of drumming\". Marco Minnemann, drummer for artists including Joe Satriani and Steven Wilson, described Collins as \"brilliant\" for the way \"he composes his parts, and the sounds he gets\". He said, \"Phil is almost like John Bonham to me. I hear his personality, his perspective.\" He singled out the drumming on \"In the Air Tonight\" as an example of \"ten notes that everybody knows\" and concluded \"Phil is a insanely talented drummer\". \n\nModern Drummer readers voted for Collins every year between 1987 and 1991 as Pop/Mainstream Rock drummer of the year. In 2000, he was voted as Big Band drummer of the year. In 2012, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.\n\nEquipment\n\nCollins is a left-handed drummer, and uses Gretsch drums, Remo heads and Sabian cymbals. Past kits he used were made by Pearl and Premier.\n\nThe Gretsch Company drums: (all drums are single head concert toms except snare)\n* 14 x 20\" bass drum\n* 5.5 x 8\" rack tom\n* 6.5 x 10\" rack tom\n* 8 x 12\" rack tom\n* 12 x 15\" rack tom\n* 16 x 16\" floor tom\n* 18 x 18\" floor tom\n* 3.5 x 14\" snare drum\n\nSabian cymbals:\n*15\" Hi Hats\n*22\" HH China\n*16\" HH Medium Thin Crash\n*17\" HH Extra Thin Crash\n*21\" HH Raw Bell Dry Ride\n*20\" HH Medium Crash\n*20\" HH China\n\nOther instruments associated with Collins's sound (particularly in his post-1978 Genesis and subsequent solo career) include the Roland CR-78, Roland TR-808, Roland TR-909, the Simmons SDS-V electronic drum set, and the Linn LM-1 and LinnDrum drum machines; he also used a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer, the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano, the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, Oberheim DMX drum machine (as heard on \"Sussudio\"), Korg Wavestation, Korg KARMA, Korg Trinity, \n\nRecord producer and guest musician\n\nFor his solo career and his career with Genesis, Collins produced or co-produced virtually all of his singles and albums, the notable exceptions being \"Against All Odds\" (produced by Arif Mardin), and his cover of \"True Colors\" (produced by Kenneth \"Babyface\" Edmonds). \n\nCollins also maintained a career as a producer for other artists throughout the 1980s, usually working on outside projects at the rate of one artist per year. His first outside work as a producer was the 1981 album Glorious Fool for John Martyn; in 1979 he had played drums and contributed backing vocals on Martyn's Grace and Danger. He followed that up by producing Anni-Frid \"Frida\" Lyngstad's (Frida Lyngstad of ABBA) 1982 album Something's Going On, which contained the international hit \"I Know There's Something Going On\". \n\nIn 1976 Collins was brought in to contribute some percussion to one or more tracks on Thin Lizzy's album Johnny The Fox, seemingly because he was a close friend of Phil Lynott. Brian Robertson later said, \"Collins was a mate of Phil's... I think Phil probably wanted to get him on the album to name-drop.\" Neither Brian Robertson nor Brian Downey has been able to remember exactly which songs Collins played on. \n\nCollins played drums on Robert Plant's first two solo albums, Pictures at Eleven and The Principle of Moments. \n\nIn 1983 Collins produced two tracks for Adam Ant, on which he also played drums, both of which hit the UK charts: \"Puss 'N' Boots\" and \"Strip\". \"Strip\" was a minor US hit as well. \n\nIn 1984 Collins produced Phillip Bailey's album Chinese Wall, which included the hit Bailey/Collins duet \"Easy Lover\". It also contained the Bailey hit \"Walking on the Chinese Wall\". \n\nIn 1985 Collins produced and played drums on several tracks on the Eric Clapton album Behind the Sun. The following year, he produced (in collaboration with Hugh Padgham) one track for Howard Jones, the international hit No One Is to Blame, on which he also played drums. \n\nCollins was one of the producers on Eric Clapton's 1987 album August, which included the UK top 20 single \"Behind the Mask\". \n\nIn 1988, Collins and Lamont Dozier collaborated as writers and producers of The Four Tops top 10 UK hit Loco in Acapulco, from the soundtrack of the film Buster, in which Collins starred.\n\nIn 1989, Collins played drums on one track, \"Bad Love,\" on Eric Clapton's Journeyman album. He also appeared in the music video for the song. \n\nCollins co-wrote, sang and played on the song \"Hero\" on David Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads. \n\nFilm, theatre, and television\n\nThe majority of Collins's film work has been through music. Four of his seven U.S. number-one songs came from film soundtracks, and his work on Disney's Tarzan earned him an Oscar. Collins also sang German, Italian, Spanish and French versions of the Tarzan soundtrack for the respective film versions. He also did the soundtrack to another Disney film Brother Bear in 2003. His acting career has been brief. As a child, he appeared in three films, although two of the films were for brief moments as an extra. \n\nCollins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven U.S. number-one songs, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was not invited to perform the song at that year's presentation, although he was in the audience as the song's composer. Collins had arranged his U.S. tour to accommodate the possibility of appearing on the telecast in the event his song was nominated for an Oscar. It is believed that the producers of that year's Academy Awards show were not aware of his prominence as a musical performer. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, \"Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper [sic]. I'm afraid the spots have already been filled\". Collins instead watched actress and dancer Ann Reinking perform his song. Reinking's performance was described by one critic as an \"absurdly inept rendition\" of the song. The Los Angeles Times said: \"Reinking did an incredible job of totally destroying a beautiful song. The best that can be said about her performance is that the stage set was nice.\" Collins would introduce it at subsequent concerts by saying: \"I'm sorry Miss Ann Reinking couldn't be here tonight; I guess I just have to sing my own song.\"\n\nAs a lead vocalist, Collins sang Stephen Bishop's composition \"Separate Lives\" for the film White Nights (1985) as a duet with Marilyn Martin. The single of the recording became another number-one hit for Collins. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (a category that honours composers, not vocalists). Bishop's song had parallels to some of those on Collins's first two albums. Writer Stephen Bishop noted that he was inspired by a failed relationship and called \"Separate Lives\" \"a song about anger\". When the song was being nominated for an Academy Award, in interviews about the original snub by the Academy for \"Against All Odds\", Collins would jokingly say \"the hell with him – I'm going up too,\" should Bishop's song win the award.\n\nCollins's first film role since embarking on his career as a musician came in 1988 with the romantic comedy-drama Buster. He starred as Buster Edwards, a criminal convicted for his role in the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in August 1963. Reviews for the film were mixed and controversy ensued over its subject matter, with Prince Charles and Princess Diana deciding to withdraw from attending the film's première after it was accused of glorifying crime. However, Collins's performance opposite Julie Walters received good reviews and he contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack. His slow ballad rendition of \"A Groovy Kind of Love\", originally a 1966 single by The Mindbenders, became his only single to reach No. 1 in both the U.S. and the UK. The film also spawned the hit single Two Hearts, which he co-wrote with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier; the two artists would go on to win a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and receive an Oscar nomination in the same category, the second such honour for Collins; \"Big Noise\", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on the lead vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of \"A Groovy Kind of Love\"). The final song, \"Loco in Acapulco\", was another collaboration with Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group The Four Tops. Film critic Roger Ebert said the role of Buster was \"played with surprising effectiveness\" by Collins, although the film's soundtrack proved more successful than the film did. \n\nCollins had cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and the AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On (1993). He starred in Frauds, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. He supplied voices to two animated features: Amblin's Balto (1995) and Disney's The Jungle Book 2 (2003). A long-discussed but never completed project was a film titled The Three Bears; originally meant to star Collins, Danny DeVito, and Bob Hoskins. He often mentioned the film, though an appropriate script never materialised. \n\nCollins performed the soundtrack to the animated film Tarzan (1999) for The Walt Disney Company. He won an Academy Award for You'll Be in My Heart, which he performed at that year's telecast as well as during a Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show. The song, which he also recorded in Spanish among other languages, became his only appearance on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart. Disney hired Collins and Tina Turner for the soundtrack to the 2003 animated film, Brother Bear, and had some airplay with the song \"Look Through My Eyes\". \n\nCollins's music is featured in the satirical black comedy film American Psycho, with psychotic lead character Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) portrayed as an obsessive fan who reads deep meaning into his work, especially with Genesis, while describing his solo music as \"...more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way.\" Bateman delivers a monologue praising Collins and Genesis during a sequence in which he engages the services of two prostitutes while playing \"In Too Deep\" and \"Sussudio\".\n\nCollins twice hosted the Billboard Music Awards on television, which were produced and directed by his longtime music video and TV special collaborators, Paul Flattery and Jim Yukich of FYI (Flattery Yukich Inc). He also appeared in an episode of the series Miami Vice, entitled \"Phil the Shill\", in which he plays a cheating con-man. He also appeared in several sketches with The Two Ronnies.\n\nIn 2001, Collins was one of several celebrities who were tricked into appearing in a controversial British comedy series, Brass Eye, shown on public service broadcaster Channel 4. In the episode, Collins endorsed a hoax anti-paedophile campaign wearing a T-shirt with the words \"Nonce Sense\" and warned children against speaking to suspicious people. Collins was reported by the BBC to have consulted lawyers regarding the programme, which was originally pulled from broadcast but eventually rescheduled. Collins said he had taken part in the programme \"in good faith for the public benefit\", believing it to be \"a public service programme that would be going around schools and colleges in a bid to stem child abduction and abuse\". Collins also accused the makers of the programme of \"some serious taste problems\" and warned it would prevent celebrities from supporting \"public spirited causes\" in the future. \n\nCollins appeared as himself in the 2006 PSP and PS2 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. Set in 1984, he appears in three missions in which the main character, Victor, must save him from a gang that is trying to kill him, the final mission occurring during his concert, where the player must defend the scaffolding against saboteurs while Collins is performing \"In the Air Tonight\". After this, the player is given the opportunity to watch this performance of \"In the Air Tonight\" for only 6,000 dollars in the game. \"In the Air Tonight\" was also featured in the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and it was also featured in the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, the 2009 movie The Hangover and the 2007 Gorilla commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate. The advertisement also helped the song re-enter the New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart at No. 3 in July 2008, the following week reaching No. 1, beating its original 1981 No. 6 peak. \"In the Air Tonight\" was also sampled in the song \"I Can Feel It\" on Sean Kingston's self-titled debut album. \n\nCollins was portrayed in the cartoon South Park in the episode \"Timmy 2000\" holding his Oscar throughout, referring to his 1999 win for You'll Be in My Heart, which defeated \"Blame Canada\" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He was seen again in the episode \"Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000\". Collins appears briefly in the Finnish animated sitcom Pasila in the episode \"Phil Collins Hangover\". The music of this episode is a pastiche of Collins's Another Day in Paradise. Collins was mentioned in the Psych episode \"Disco Didn't Die. It Was Murdered!\" as resembling Shawn Spencer's father, Henry, portrayed by actor Corbin Bernsen. \n\nCriticism and praise\n\nCritical and public perceptions \n\nAccording to a 2000 BBC biography of Collins, \"critics sneer at him\" and \"bad publicity also caused problems\", which \"damaged his public profile\". Rock historian Martin C. Strong wrote that Collins \"truly polarised opinion from the start, his ubiquitous smugness and increasingly sterile pop making him a favourite target for critics\". During his recording career Collins would regularly place telephone calls to music writers to take issue with their written reviews. Over time, he came to be personally disliked; in 2009, journalist Mark Lawson told how Collins's media profile had shifted from \"pop's Mr. Nice Guy, patron saint of ordinary blokes\", to someone accused of \"blandness, tax exile and ending a marriage by sending a fax\". Collins has rejected accusations of tax avoidance, and, despite confirming that some of the divorce-related correspondence between him and second wife Jill Tavelman, was by fax (a message from Collins regarding access to their daughter was reproduced for the front cover of The Sun in 1993), he states that he did not terminate the marriage in that fashion. Nevertheless, the British media has often repeated the fax claim. Collins has been the victim of scathing remarks in regard to his alleged right-wing political leanings. Caroline Sullivan, a music critic of The Guardian, referred to his cumulative negative publicity in her 2007 article \"I wish I'd never heard of Phil Collins\", writing that it was difficult for her to hear his work \"without being riven by distaste for the man himself\". According to Jeff Shannon in The Seattle Times, Collins is the \"target of much South Park derision\". A New Musical Express writer also observed the series' \"endless lampooning\" of Collins. \n\nSeveral critics have commented on Collins's omnipresence, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s. Journalist Frank DiGiacomo wrote a 1999 piece for The New York Observer titled The Collins Menace; he said, \"Even when I sought to escape the sounds [of Collins] in my head by turning on the TV, there would be Mr. Collins...mugging for the cameras—intent on showing the world just how hard he would work to sell millions of records to millions of stupid people.\" In his 2010 article Love don't come easy: artists we love to hate, The Irish Times critic Kevin Courtney expressed similar sentiments. Naming Collins as one of the ten most disliked pop stars in the world, he wrote: \"[Collins] performed at Live Aid, playing first at Wembley, then flying over to Philadelphia via Concorde, just to make sure no one in the U.S. got off lightly. By the early 1990s, Phil phatigue [sic] had really set in.\" Appraising Collins's legacy in a 2013 review of the American Psycho musical (adapted from a 2000 film incorporating his music), The Guardian critic Tom Service described Collins as \"un-stomachable\" and his music as \"perfectly vacuous\". He also compared him unfavourably with pop contemporaries such as the Pet Shop Boys and The Human League, whose music he said had endured far more successfully. Service described Collins's most popular album No Jacket Required (1985) as \"unlistenable to today\", reserving particular criticism for \"Sussudio\". \n\nCollins received acerbic comments in the press following reports about his retirement in 2011. He was dubbed \"the most hated man in rock\" by The Daily Telegraph, and by FHM as \"the pop star that nobody likes\". Rolling Stone journalist John Dioso acknowledged \"the incredible, overwhelming popularity\" Collins and Genesis achieved, but said that he had become \"a negative figure in the music world\" and that the reaction to his legacy was strongly unfavourable. Tim Chester of the New Musical Express alluded to the widespread disdain for Collins in an article titled, \"Is It Time We All Stopped Hating Phil Collins?\" He described Collins as \"the go-to guy for ironic appreciation and guilty pleasures\" and stated he was responsible for \"some moments of true genius (often accompanied, it must be said, by some real stinkers)\". He also argued that \"Genesis turned shit at the precise point he jumped off the drum stool\" to replace the departing Peter Gabriel as frontman, and said of the unrelenting derision he has suffered, \"..a lot of it he brings on himself.\" He said that Collins was \"responsible for some of the cheesiest music ever committed to acetate\". Erik Hedegaard of Rolling Stone mentioned that Phil Collins hate sites had \"flourished\" online, and acknowledged that he had been called \"the sellout who took Peter Gabriel's Genesis, that paragon of prog-rock, and turned it into a lame-o pop act and went on to make all those supercheesy hits that really did define the 1980s\". \n\nCriticism from other artists\n\nWriting about Collins in a 2013 publication on 1980s popular music, Dylan Jones said that, along with the press, \"many of his peers despised him so\". Some fellow artists have criticised Collins publicly. Appearing on a 1989 edition of BBC programme Juke Box Jury, Collins applauded an upcoming single by British new wave band Sigue Sigue Sputnik; this prompted their singer, Martin Degville, to say directly to Collins's face: \"God! We must have really got it wrong if you like us!\" In 1990, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters criticised Collins's \"ubiquitous nature\", including his involvement in The Who's 1989 reunion tour. David Bowie subsequently dismissed his own critically reviled 1980s output as his \"Phil Collins years/albums\". In addition to the song's negative press from music journalists, singer-songwriter and political activist Billy Bragg also criticised Collins for writing \"Another Day in Paradise\", stating: \"Phil Collins might write a song about the homeless, but if he doesn't have the action to go with it he's just exploiting that for a subject.\" \n\nOasis songwriter Noel Gallagher criticised Collins on multiple occasions, including the comment: \"Just because you sell lots of records, it doesn't mean to say you're any good. Look at Phil Collins.\" Collins said he has \"at times, been very down\" about Gallagher's criticisms. Gallagher's brother, Oasis singer Liam, recalled the \"boring\" Collins's chart dominance in the 1980s and stated that, by the 1990s, it was \"time for some real lads to get up there and take charge\". Appearing on television series Room 101 in 2005, Collins nominated the Gallaghers as entrants into the titular room. He described them as \"horrible\" and stated: \"They're rude and not as talented as they think they are. I won't mince words here, but they've had a go at me personally.\" On the closing track of their 2014 album What Have We Become?, titled \"When I Get Back to Blighty\", former Beautiful South collaborators Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott included the lyric: \"Everyone around us agrees that Phil Collins must die\". MusicOMH critic David Meller remarked that the line \"is delivered with willing, almost pleasurable conviction by Abbott\". \n\nCollins on criticism \n\nCollins acknowledged in 2010 that he had been \"omnipresent\". He said of his character: \"The persona on stage came out of insecurity...it seems embarrassing now. I recently started transferring all my VHS tapes onto DVD to create an archive, and everything I was watching, I thought, 'God, I'm annoying.' I appeared to be very cocky, and really I wasn't.\" Collins concedes his status as a figure of contempt for many people and has said that he believes this is a consequence of his music being overplayed. In 2011 Collins was quoted: \"The fact that people got so sick of me wasn't really my fault … It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me. I'm sorry that it was all so successful. I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that!\" Collins has described criticism of his physical appearance over the years as \"a cheap shot\", but has acknowledged the \"very vocal element\" of Genesis fans who believe that the group sold out under his tenure as lead singer. \n\nRegarding criticism of his single \"Another Day in Paradise\", Collins stated: \"When I drive down the street, I see the same things everyone else sees. It's a misconception that if you have a lot of money you're somehow out of touch with reality.\" \n\nResponding to reports about his retirement in 2011, Collins dismissed the notion that his departure from the music industry was due to negative attention, and stated small parts of conversations had been made into headlines. He said: \"I have ended up sounding like a tormented weirdo who thinks he was at the Alamo in another life, who feels very sorry for himself, and is retiring hurt because of the bad press over the years. None of this is true.\"\n\nPraise\n\nPaul Lester of The Guardian wrote in 2013 that Collins is one of several pop acts that \"used to be a joke\" but are \"now being hailed as gods\". Despite the criticism he has received, Collins has become an iconic figure within U.S. urban music, influencing artists such as Kanye West, Alicia Keys and Beyoncé. His songs have been sampled by various hip-hop and contemporary R&B acts, and performers including Lil' Kim, Kelis and Wu-Tang Clan co-founder Ol' Dirty Bastard covered his work on the 2001 tribute album Urban Renewal. In 2004, indie rock musician Ben Gibbard praised Collins's singing, claiming he's a \"great vocalist\". Collins's music has been championed by his contemporary, the heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne, David Crosby has called him \"a dear friend\" who has helped him \"enormously\" and Robert Plant paid tribute to him as \"the most spirited and positive and really encouraging force\" when commencing his own solo career after the break-up of Led Zeppelin. Collins has been championed by modern artists in diverse genres, including indie rock groups The 1975, Generationals, Neon Indian, Yeasayer, St. Lucia and Sleigh Bells, electronica artist Lorde, and soul singer Diane Birch, who said in 2014, \"Collins walks a really fine line between being really cheesy and being really sophisticated. He can seem appalling, but at the same time, he has awesome production values and there's a particular richness to the sound. It's very proficient in the instrumentation and savvy about melodies.\" \n\nGenesis bandmate Mike Rutherford has praised Collins's personality, saying that \"he always had a bloke-next-door, happy-go-lucky demeanour about him: let's have a drink in the pub, crack a joke, smoke a cigarette or a joint\". He has been characterised by favourable critics as a \"rock god\", and an artist who has remained \"down to earth\". In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, published in 2004, J. D. Considine wrote: \"For a time, Phil Collins was nearly inescapable on the radio, and enormously popular with the listening public—something that made him an obvious target for critics. Despite his lumpen-pop appeal, however, Collins is an incisive songwriter and resourceful musician.\" Creation Records founder Alan McGee wrote in 2009 that there was a \"non-ironic revival of Phil Collins\" happening. According to McGee: \"The kids don't care about 'indie cred' anymore. To them, a great pop song is just that: a great pop song. In this time of revivals, nothing is a sacred cow anymore, and that can only be a good thing for music.\" Commenting on Collins's popularity with hip-hop acts, he argued: \"It's not surprising. Collins is a world-class drummer whose songs immediately lend themselves to being sampled.\"\n\nIn 2010, Gary Mills of The Quietus made an impassioned defence of Collins: \"There can't be many figures in the world of pop who have inspired quite the same kind of hatred-bordering-on-civil-unrest as Collins, and there can't be too many who have shifted anything like the 150 million plus units that he's got through as a solo artist either...The disgrace of a career bogged entirely in the determined dross of No Jacket Required however is simply not justified, regardless of how Collins gained either his fortune, or his public image.\" David Sheppard wrote for the BBC in 2010: \"Granted, Collins has sometimes been guilty of painting the bull’s-eye on his own forehead (that self-aggrandising Live Aid Concorde business, the cringe-worthy lyrics to 'Another Day in Paradise', Buster, etc.), but nonetheless, the sometime Genesis frontman’s canon is so substantial and his hits so profuse that it feels myopic to dismiss him merely as a haughty purveyor of tortured, romantic ballads for the middle income world.\" \n\nRolling Stone journalist Erik Hedegaard has expressed disapproval of the widespread criticism which Collins has received, suggesting that he has been \"unfairly and inexplicably vilified\". Martin C. Strong stated in 2011 that \"the enigmatic and amiable Phil Collins has had his fair share of mockers and critics over the years, although one thing is sure, and that is his dexterity and undeniable talent\". In a piece the following year, titled \"10 Much-Mocked Artists It's Time We Forgave\", New Musical Express critic Anna Conrad said Collins had been portrayed as a \"villain\", and wrote: \"Was the bile really justified?...come on, admit it. You've air drummed to 'In the Air Tonight', and loved it.\" The Guardian journalist Dave Simpson wrote a complimentary article in 2013; while acknowledging \"few pop figures have become as successful and yet reviled as Phil Collins\", he argued \"it's about time we recognised Collins's vast influence as one of the godfathers of popular culture\".\n\nPersonal life\n\nFamily\n\nCollins has been married three times; each has ended in divorce. He married Andrea Bertorelli in 1975. They met as students in a London drama class. They had a son, Simon Collins, who became a vocalist and drummer with the band Sound of Contact. Collins adopted Bertorelli's daughter Joely, who became a Canadian actress and film producer. \n\nCollins met his second wife, U.S. citizen Jill Tavelman, in 1980. They were married from 1984 to 1996. They had one daughter, Lily Collins, born in 1989. \n\nCollins married his third wife, Orianne Cevey, a Swiss national, in 1999. They have two sons, Nicholas and Matthew. They bought Sir Jackie Stewart's former house located in Begnins, Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva. Announcing their separation on 16 March 2006, they were divorced on 17 August 2008. Collins continued to live in Switzerland at the time, residing in Féchy, while he also maintained homes in New York City and Dersingham, Norfolk. In 2008, after his wife left him, she and the boys moved to Miami, leaving Collins devastated. He recalled: \"I went through a few bits of darkness; drinking too much. I killed my hours watching TV and drinking, and it almost killed me.\" He revealed in 2015 that he hadn't consumed alcohol in three years. In 2015, Collins then moved to Miami (in a separate home, previously owned by Jennifer Lopez) to be closer to his family. In January 2016, Collins said he was back with his third wife and they were living together in the house he had bought in Miami. \n\nFrom 2007 to 2015, Collins dated CBS 2 WCBS-TV news reporter Dana Tyler. \n\nFortune\n\nCollins was estimated to have a fortune of £115 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him one of the 20 wealthiest people in the British music industry. In 2012 Collins was estimated to be the second wealthiest drummer in the world, beaten to first place by Ringo Starr. \n\nCourt case\n\nOn 29 March 2000, Collins launched a case against two former musicians from his band to recoup £500,000 ($780,000) in royalties that were overpaid. Louis Satterfield, 62, and Rahmlee Davis, 51, claimed their contract entitled them to 0.5 per cent of the royalties from Serious Hits... Live!, a live album recorded during Collins's Seriously, Live! World Tour in 1990. Their claim was they were an integral part of the whole album, but Collins responded the two should only receive royalties from the five tracks in which they were involved. Instead of asking for a return of what Collins considered overpayment, he sought to recoup the funds by withholding future royalties to Satterfield and Davis.\n\nOn 19 April 2000, the High Court ruled that the two musicians would receive no more royalty money from Phil Collins. The amount that Collins was seeking was halved, and Satterfield and Davis (who originally brought the suit forward in California) would not have to repay any of it. The judge agreed with Collins's argument that Satterfield and Davis should have been paid for only the five tracks on which they performed, including the hit \"Sussudio\". \n\nHealth problems\n\nCollins had reportedly lost hearing in his left ear in 2000 due to a viral infection; the condition was resolved after the infection was cured. In September 2009, it was reported that Collins could no longer play the drums, due to a recent operation to repair dislocated vertebrae in his neck. A statement from Collins on the Genesis band website said, \"There isn't any drama regarding my 'disability' and playing drums. Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally. Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any 'distressed' state; stuff happens in life.\" However, in 2010 Collins alluded to feelings of depression and low self-esteem in recent years, claiming in an interview that he had contemplated committing suicide, but he resisted for the sake of his children. \n\nIn October 2014, Collins told John Wilson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row that he still could not play the drums; he said the problem was not arthritis but an undiagnosed nerve problem where he was unable to \"grip the sticks\". He confirmed in a 2016 interview that he was still unable to drum with the left hand; however, he has also said that after a major back surgery, his doctor advised him that if he wanted to play the drums again, all he needed to do was practice as long as he took it step by step. \n\nHonorary degrees\n\nCollins has received several honorary degrees in recognition of his work in music and his personal interests. In 1987 he received an honorary doctorate of fine arts at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 1991 he received an honorary doctorate of music at the Berklee College of Music. On 12 May 2012 he received an honorary doctorate of history at the McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, for his research and collection of Texas Revolution artefacts and documents (see other interests section).\n\nPolitics\n\nCollins has often been mentioned erroneously in the British media as being a supporter of the Conservative Party and an opponent of the Labour Party. This derives from the famous article in The Sun, printed on the day of the 1992 UK general election, titled \"If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights\", which stated that Collins was among several celebrities who were planning to leave Britain in the event of a Labour victory. \n\nCollins is sometimes reported in the British press to have left the UK and moved to Switzerland in protest at the Labour Party's victory in the 1997 general election. Shortly before the 2005 election (when Collins was living in Switzerland), Labour supporter Noel Gallagher was quoted: \"Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here. And let's face it, none of us want that.\" However, Collins has since stated that although he did once claim many years earlier that he might leave Britain if most of his income was taken in tax, which was Labour Party policy at that time for top earners, he has never been a Conservative Party supporter and he left Britain for Switzerland in 1994 purely because he started a relationship with a woman who lived there. He said of Gallagher: \"I don't care if he likes my music or not. I do care if he starts telling people I'm a wanker because of my politics. It's an opinion based on an old misunderstood quote.\" \n\nDespite his statement that he did not leave Britain for tax purposes, Collins was one of several wealthy figures living in tax havens who were singled out for criticism in a 2008 report by the charity Christian Aid. The Independent included Collins as one of their \"ten celebrity tax exiles\", erroneously repeating that he had left the country when Labour won the 1997 general election and that he threatened to return if the Conservatives won in 2005. Referring to the 1997 general election in his article \"Famous men and their misunderstood politics\" for MSN, Hugh Wilson stated: \"Labour won it in a landslide, which just goes to show the influence pop stars really wield\". He also wrote that Collins's reported comments and subsequent move to Switzerland led to \"accusations of hypocrisy\" since he had \"bemoaned the plight of the homeless in the song 'Another Day in Paradise'\", making him \"an easy target when future elections came round\". The Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott song \"When I Get Back to Blighty\", from their 2014 album What Have We Become?, made reference to Collins as \"a prisoner to his tax returns\".\n\nQuestioned about his politics by Mark Lawson in an interview for the BBC, broadcast in 2009, Collins said: \"My father was Conservative but it wasn't quite the same, I don't think, when he was alive. Politics never loomed large in our family anyway. I think the politics of the country were very different then.\" In a 2016 interview in The Guardian, Collins stated that talking about politics to The Sun was one of his biggest regrets. When asked whether he had ever voted Conservative, he said: \"I didn’t vote, actually. And that’s not something I’m proud of. I was just so busy that I rarely was here.\" \n\nOther interests\n\nCollins has a long-standing interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artefacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and has spoken at related events. His passion for the Battle of the Alamo has also led him to write the book The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey, ISBN 978-1-933337-50-0, published in 2012. A short film was released in 2013 called Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier which captures Collins on a book tour in June 2012. On 26 June 2014, a press conference was held from The Alamo, where Collins spoke, announcing that he was donating his entire collection to The Alamo via the State of Texas. On 11 March 2015, in honour of his donation, Collins was named an honorary Texan by the state legislature. \n\nIn common with Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton, Collins is also a model railway enthusiast. \n\nActivism\n\nCollins was appointed a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO) in 1994, in recognition of his work on behalf of the Prince's Trust. Collins has stated he is a supporter of animal rights and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In 2005 he donated autographed drum sticks in support of PETA's campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken. \n\nIn February 2000, Collins and his wife Orianne founded Little Dreams Foundation, a non-profit organisation that aims to \"...realise the dreams of children in the fields of sports and art\" by providing future prodigies aged 4 to 16 years with financial, material, and mentoring support with the help of experts in various fields. Collins took the action after receiving letters from children asking him how they could break into the music industry. Mentors to the students who have benefited from his foundation include Tina Turner and Natalie Cole. In 2013 he visited Miami Beach, Florida, to promote the expansion of his foundation. \n\nCollins supports the South African charity Topsy Foundation, which provides relief services to some of South Africa's most under-resourced rural communities through a multi-faceted approach to the consequences of HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty. He donates all the royalties earned from his music sales in South Africa to the organisation. \n\nAwards and nominations\n\nDiscography\n\n;Studio albums\n* Face Value (1981)\n* Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982)\n* No Jacket Required (1985)\n* ...But Seriously (1989)\n* Both Sides (1993)\n* Dance into the Light (1996)\n* Testify (2002)\n* Going Back (2010)\n\nFilmography",
"Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era, as well as being viewed as one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios.\n\nIn a prolific career spanning more than four decades, Spielberg's films have spanned many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films, such as Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, civil rights, war, and terrorism in such films as The Color Purple (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), Schindler's List (1993), Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and Bridge of Spies (2015). His other films include Jurassic Park (1993), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and War of the Worlds (2005).\n\nSpielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, as well as receiving five other nominations. Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film. The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing director in history. His personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion. He is also known for his long-standing associations with several actors, producers, and technicians, most notably composer John Williams, who has composed music for all but two of Spielberg's feature films.\n\nEarly life\n\nSpielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an Orthodox Jewish family. His mother, Leah (Adler) Posner (born 1920), was a restaurateur and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg (born 1917), was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine who settled in Cincinnati in the first decade of the 1900s. In 1950, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey when his father took a job with RCA. Three years later, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis. \n\nAs a child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew with the perception of him by other children he played with. \"It isn't something I enjoy admitting,\" he once said, \"but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents' Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times.\" Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice and bullying: \"In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible.\"\n\nHis first home movie was of a train wreck involving his toy Lionel trains, then age 12. Throughout his early teens, and after entering high school, Spielberg continued to make amateur 8 mm \"adventure\" films. \n\nIn 1958, he became a Boy Scout and fulfilled a requirement for the photography merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Years later, Spielberg recalled to a magazine interviewer, \"My dad's still-camera was broken, so I asked the scoutmaster if I could tell a story with my father's movie camera. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western. I made it and got my merit badge. That was how it all started.\" \nAt age thirteen, while living in Phoenix, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war film he titled Escape to Nowhere, using a cast composed of other high school friends. That motivated him to make 15 more amateur 8mm films. In 1963, at age sixteen, Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent film, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight, which would later inspire Close Encounters. The film was made for $500, most of which came from his father, and was shown in a local cinema for one evening, which earned back its cost. \n\nAfter attending Arcadia High School in Phoenix for three years, his family next moved to Saratoga, California where he later graduated from Saratoga High School in 1965. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout. His parents divorced while he was still in school, and soon after he graduated Spielberg moved to Los Angeles, staying initially with his father. His long-term goal was to become a film director. His three sisters and mother remained in Saratoga.\n\nIn Los Angeles, he applied to the University of Southern California's film school, but was turned down because of his \"C\" grade average.Fischer, Dennis. Science Fiction Film Directors, 1895-1998, McFarland & Co. (2000) He then applied and was admitted to California State University, Long Beach, where he majored in English, and became a brother of Theta Chi Fraternity. \n\nWhile still a student, he was offered a small unpaid intern job at Universal Studios with the editing department. He was later given the opportunity to make a short film for theatrical release, the 26-minute, 35mm, Amblin', which he wrote and directed. Studio vice president Sidney Sheinberg was impressed by the film, which had won a number of awards, and offered Spielberg a seven-year directing contract. It made him the youngest director ever to be signed for a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio. He subsequently dropped out of college to begin professionally directing TV productions with Universal. \n\nCareer\n\n1970s\n\nHis first professional TV job came when he was hired to direct one of the segments for the 1969 pilot episode of Night Gallery. The segment, \"Eyes,\" starred Joan Crawford; she and Spielberg were reportedly close friends until her death. The episode is unusual in his body of work, in that the camerawork is more highly stylized than his later, more \"mature\" films. After this, and an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D., Spielberg got his first feature-length assignment: an episode of The Name of the Game called \"L.A. 2017\". This futuristic science fiction episode impressed Universal Studios and they signed him to a short contract. He did another segment on Night Gallery and did some work for shows such as Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist, before landing the first series episode of Columbo (previous episodes were actually TV films).\n\nBased on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to do four TV films. The first was a Richard Matheson adaptation called Duel. The film is about a psychotic Peterbilt 281 tanker truck driver who chases the terrified driver (Dennis Weaver) of a small Plymouth Valiant and tries to run him off the road. Special praise of this film by the influential British critic Dilys Powell was highly significant to Spielberg's career. Another TV film (Something Evil) was made and released to capitalize on the popularity of The Exorcist, then a major best-selling book which had not yet been released as a film. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV film-length pilot of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau. Spielberg's debut full-length feature film was The Sugarland Express, about a married couple who are chased by police as the couple tries to regain custody of their baby. Spielberg's cinematography for the police chase was praised by reviewers, and The Hollywood Reporter stated that \"a major new director is on the horizon.\" However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.\n\nStudio producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws, a thriller-horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel about an enormous killer shark. Spielberg has often referred to the gruelling shoot as his professional crucible. Despite the film's ultimate, enormous success, it was nearly shut down due to delays and budget over-runs. But Spielberg persevered and finished the film. It was an enormous hit, winning three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound) and grossing more than $470 million worldwide at the box office. It also set the domestic record for box office gross, leading to what the press described as \"Jawsmania.\" Jaws made Spielberg a household name and one of America's youngest multi-millionaires, allowing him a great deal of autonomy for his future projects. It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.\n\nRejecting offers to direct Jaws 2, King Kong and Superman, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFOs, which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). One of the rare films both written and directed by Spielberg, Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well as earning six other Academy Awards nominations. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing, Frank E. Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg's rise. His next film, 1941, a big-budgeted World War II farce, was not nearly as successful and though it grossed over $92.4 million worldwide (and did make a small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics. \n\nSpielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film restored the original ending.\n\n1980s\n\nNext, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played by Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films as Han Solo). The film was considered an homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still considered a landmark example of the action-adventure genre. The film also led to Ford's casting in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. \n\nA year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his companions and is attempting to return home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.\n\nBetween 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films: Poltergeist (for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation of The Twilight Zone (for which he directed the segment \"Kick The Can\"), and The Goonies (Spielberg, executive producer, also wrote the story on which the screenplay was based). Spielberg appeared in a cameo on Cyndi Lauper's music video for the movie's theme song, \"The Goonies 'R' Good Enough\". \n\nHis next directorial feature was the Raiders prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the Spielberg-produced Gremlins led to the creation of the PG-13 rating due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent Indy film. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984. It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife, actress Kate Capshaw.\n\nIn 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Goldberg and Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination.\n\nIn 1987, as China began opening to Western capital investment, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield substantial box office revenues. Reviewer Andrew Sarris called it the best film of the year and later included it among the best films of the decade. Spielberg was also a co-producer of the 1987 film *batteries not included.\n\nAfter two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then directed the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean Connery in a supporting role as Indy's father. The film earned generally positive reviews and was another box office success, becoming the highest-grossing film worldwide that year; its total box office receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated film Batman, which had been the bigger hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic comedy-drama Always, about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and had mixed reviews.\n\n1990s\n\nIn 1991, Spielberg directed Hook, about a middle-aged Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, who returns to Neverland. Despite innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with mixed reviews, the film proved popular with audiences, making over $300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).\n\nIn 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic company, the film would eventually become the highest-grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest-grossing film ever.\n\nSpielberg's next film, Schindler's List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). With the film a huge success at the box office, Spielberg used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of Holocaust survivors. In 1997, the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.\n\nIn 1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio, DreamWorks, with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. In 1996, he directed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park with The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which generated over $618 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest film of 1997 behind James Cameron's Titanic (which topped the original Jurassic Park to become the new recordholder for box office receipts).\n\nHis next film, Amistad, was based on a true story (like Schindler's List), specifically about an African slave rebellion. Despite decent reviews from critics, it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad under DreamWorks Pictures, which has produced all of his films from Amistad onwards with the exception of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Adventures of Tintin and Ready Player One. \n\nIn 1998, Spielberg re-visited Close Encounters yet again, this time for a more definitive 137-minute \"Collector's Edition\" that puts more emphasis on the original 1977 release, while adding some elements of the previous 1980 \"Special Edition,\" but deleting the latter version's \"Mothership Finale,\" which Spielberg regretted shooting in the first place, feeling it should have remained ambiguous in the minds of viewers.\n\nHis next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, about a group of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) sent to bring home a paratrooper whose three older brothers were killed in the same twenty-four hours, June 5–6, of the Normandy landing. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the year at the North American box office (worldwide it made second place after Michael Bay's Armageddon). Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war films such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the first major hit for DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures (as such, it was Spielberg's first release from the latter that was not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later, Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The series won a number of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.\n\n2000s\n\nIn 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, A.I. Artificial Intelligence which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic film about a humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg himself. Though the film's reception in the US was relatively muted, it performed better overseas for a worldwide total box office gross of $236 million.\n\nSpielberg and actor Tom Cruise collaborated for the first time for the futuristic neo-noir Minority Report, based upon the science fiction short story written by Philip K. Dick about a Washington D.C. police captain in the year 2054 who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 92% approval rating, reporting that 206 out of the 225 reviews they tallied were positive. The film earned over $358 million worldwide. Roger Ebert, who named it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of the future as well as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action. \n\nSpielberg's 2002 film Catch Me If You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It earned Christopher Walken an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. It was a hit both commercially and critically. \n\nSpielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in 2004's The Terminal, a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time.\n\nAlso in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H. G. Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan of the book and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and, as with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) provided the visual effects. Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which depicted friendly alien visitors, War of the Worlds featured violent invaders. The film was another huge box office smash, grossing over $591 million worldwide.\n\nSpielberg's film Munich, about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, was his second film essaying Jewish relations in the world (the first being Schindler's List). The film is based on Vengeance, a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas. It was previously adapted into the 1986 made-for-TV film Sword of Gideon. The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the U.S. and world box-office; it remains one of Spielberg's most controversial films to date. Munich received five Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, Film Editing, Original Music Score (by John Williams), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for Spielberg. It was Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination and fifth Best Picture nomination.\n\nIn June 2006, Steven Spielberg announced he would direct a scientifically accurate film about \"a group of explorers who travel through a worm hole and into another dimension\", from a treatment by Kip Thorne and producer Lynda Obst. In January 2007, screenwriter Jonathan Nolan met with them to discuss adapting Obst and Thorne's treatment into a narrative screenplay. The screenwriter suggested the addition of a \"time element\" to the treatment's basic idea, which was welcomed by Obst and Thorne. In March of that year, Paramount hired Nolan, as well as scientists from Caltech, forming a workshop to adapt the treatment under the title Interstellar. The following July, Kip Thorne said there was a push by people for him to portray himself in the film. Spielberg later abandoned Interstellar, which was eventually directed by Christopher Nolan. \n\nSpielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which wrapped filming in October 2007 and was released on May 22, 2008. This was his first film not to be released by DreamWorks since 1997. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and was financially successful, grossing $786 million worldwide.\n\n2010s\n\nIn early 2009, Spielberg shot the first film in a planned trilogy of motion capture films based on The Adventures of Tintin, written by Belgian artist Hergé, with Peter Jackson. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, was not released until October 2011, due to the complexity of the computer animation involved. The world premiere took place on October 22, 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. The film was released in North American theaters on December 21, 2011, in Digital 3D and IMAX. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and grossed over $373 million worldwide. The Adventures of Tintin won the award for Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe Awards that year. It is the first non-Pixar film to win the award since the category was first introduced. Jackson has been announced to direct the second film. \n\nSpielberg followed with War Horse, shot in England in the summer of 2010. It was released just four days after The Adventures of Tintin, on December 25, 2011. The film, based on the novel of the same name written by Michael Morpurgo and published in 1982, follows the long friendship between a British boy and his horse Joey before and during World War I – the novel was also adapted into a hit play in London which is still running there, as well as on Broadway. The film was released and distributed by Walt Disney Studios, with whom DreamWorks made a distribution deal in 2009; War Horse was the first of four consecutive Spielberg films released by Disney. War Horse received generally positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. \n\nSpielberg next directed the historical drama film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the film covered the final four months of Lincoln's life. Written by Tony Kushner, the film was shot in Richmond, Virginia, in late 2011, and was released in the United States in November 2012. Upon release, Lincoln received widespread critical acclaim, and was nominated for twelve Academy Awards (the most of any film that year) including Best Picture and Best Director for Spielberg. It won the award for Best Production Design and Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Lincoln, becoming the first three time winner in that category as well as the first to win for a performance directed by Spielberg.\n\nIt was announced on May 2, 2013, that Spielberg would direct the film about the story of U.S. sniper Chris Kyle, titled American Sniper. However, on August 5, 2013, it was announced that Spielberg had decided not to direct the film, which was instead directed by Clint Eastwood. \n\nSpielberg directed 2015's Bridge of Spies, a Cold War thriller based on the 1960 U-2 incident, and focusing on James B. Donovan's negotiations with the Soviets for the release of pilot Gary Powers after his aircraft was shot down over Soviet territory. The film starred Tom Hanks as Donovan, as well as Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, and Alan Alda, with a script by the Coen brothers. The film was shot from September to December 2014 on location in New York City, Berlin and Wroclaw, Poland (which doubled for East Berlin), and was released on October 16, 2015. Bridge of Spies received positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the second actor to win for a performance directed by Spielberg.\n\nSpielberg's The BFG is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's celebrated children's story, starring newcomer Ruby Barnhill, and Rylance as the titular Big Friendly Giant. DreamWorks bought the rights in 2010, originally intending John Madden to direct. The film was the last to be written by E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison before she died. It was co-produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures, marking the first Disney-branded film to be directed by Spielberg. The BFG premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2016 and received a wide release in the US on July 1, 2016.\n\nProduction credits\n\nSince the mid-1980s, Spielberg has increased his role as a film producer. He headed up the production team for several cartoons, including the Warner Bros. hits Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Toonsylvania, and Freakazoid!, for which he collaborated with Jean MacCurdy and Tom Ruegger. Due to his work on these series, in the official titles, most of them say, \"Steven Spielberg presents\" as well as making numerous cameos on the shows. Spielberg also produced the Don Bluth animated features, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, which were released by Universal Studios. He also served as one of the executive producers of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and its three related shorts (Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit, Trail Mix-Up), which were all released by Disney, under both the Walt Disney Pictures and the Touchstone Pictures banners. He was furthermore, for a short time, the executive producer of the long-running medical drama ER. In 1989, he brought the concept of The Dig to LucasArts. He contributed to the project from that time until 1995 when the game was released. He also collaborated with software publishers Knowledge Adventure on the multimedia game Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair, which was released in 1996. Spielberg appears, as himself, in the game to direct the player. The Spielberg name provided branding for a Lego Moviemaker kit, the proceeds of which went to the Starbright Foundation.\n\nIn 1993, Spielberg acted as executive producer for the highly anticipated television series seaQuest DSV; a science fiction series set \"in the near future\" starring Roy Scheider (who Spielberg had directed in Jaws) and Jonathan Brandis that aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm. on NBC. While the first season was moderately successful, the second season did less well. Spielberg's name no longer appeared in the third season and the show was cancelled midway through it.\n\nSpielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on The Haunting, The Prince of Egypt, Just Like Heaven, Shrek, Road to Perdition, and Evolution. He served as an executive producer for the 1997 film Men in Black, and its sequels, Men in Black II and Men in Black III. In 2005, he served as a producer of Memoirs of a Geisha, an adaptation of the novel by Arthur Golden, a film to which he was previously attached as director. In 2006, Spielberg co-executive produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis a CGI children's film called Monster House, marking their eighth collaboration since 1990's Back to the Future Part III. He also teamed with Clint Eastwood for the first time in their careers, co-producing Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima with Robert Lorenz and Eastwood himself. He earned his twelfth Academy Award nomination for the latter film as it was nominated for Best Picture. Spielberg served as executive producer for Disturbia and the Transformers live action film with Brian Goldner, an employee of Hasbro. The film was directed by Michael Bay and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and Spielberg continued to collaborate on the sequels, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In 2011, he produced the J. J. Abrams science fiction thriller film Super 8 for Paramount Pictures. \n\nOther major television series Spielberg produced were Band of Brothers, Taken and The Pacific. He was an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV miniseries Into the West which won two Emmy awards, including one for Geoff Zanelli's score. For his 2010 miniseries The Pacific he teamed up once again with co-producer Tom Hanks, with Gary Goetzman also co-producing'. The miniseries is believed to have cost $250 million and is a 10-part war miniseries centered on the battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer Bruce McKenna, who penned several installments of (Band of Brothers), was the head writer.\n\nIn 2007, Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett co-produced On the Lot a short-lived TV reality show about filmmaking. Despite this, he never gave up working on television. He currently serves as one of the executive producers on United States of Tara, a show created by Academy Award winner Diablo Cody which they developed together (Spielberg is uncredited as creator).\n\nIn 2011, Spielberg launched Falling Skies, a science fiction television series, on the TNT network. He developed the series with Robert Rodat and is credited as an executive producer. Spielberg is also producing the Fox TV series Terra Nova. Terra Nova begins in the year 2149 when all life on the planet Earth is threatened with extinction resulting in scientists opening a door that allows people to travel back 85 million years to prehistoric times. Spielberg also produced The River, Smash, Under the Dome, Extant and The Whispers, as well as a TV adaptation of Minority Report. \n\nIn 2008, Spielberg and DreamWorks acquired the rights to produce a live-action film adaptation of the original Ghost in the Shell manga. Avi Arad and Steven Paul were later confirmed as producers, Rupert Sanders directed, and Scarlett Johansson stars in the lead role. \n\nIn March 2013, Spielberg announced that he was \"developing a Stanley Kubrick screenplay for a miniseries, not for a motion picture, about the life of Napoleon.\" In May 2016 it was announced that Cary Fukunaga is in talks to direct the miniseries for HBO, from a script by David Lenland based on extensive research materials accumulated by Kubrick over many years. \n\nActing credits\n\nSpielberg had cameo roles in The Blues Brothers, Gremlins, Vanilla Sky, and Austin Powers in Goldmember, as well as small uncredited cameos in a handful of other films, such as a life-station worker in Jaws. He also made numerous cameo roles in the Warner Bros. cartoons he produced, such as Animaniacs, and even made reference to some of his films. Spielberg voiced himself in the film Paul, and in one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures titled Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.\n\nInvolvement in video games\n\nApart from being an ardent gamer Spielberg has had a long history of involvement in video games. He has been giving thanks to his games of his division DreamWorks Interactive most notable as Someone's in the Kitchen with script written by Animaniacs' Paul Rugg, Goosebumps: Escape from HorrorLand, The Neverhood (all in 1996), Skullmonkeys, Dilbert's Desktop Games, Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant (all 1997), Boombots (1999), T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger (1999), and Clive Barker's Undying (2001). In 2005 the director signed with Electronic Arts to collaborate on three games including an action game and an award winning puzzle game for the Wii called Boom Blox (and its 2009 sequel: Boom Blox Bash Party). Previously, he was involved in creating the scenario for the adventure game The Dig. In 1996, Spielberg worked on and shot original footage for a movie-making simulation game called Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair. He is the creator of the Medal of Honor series by Electronic Arts. He is credited in the special thanks section of the 1998 video game Trespasser. In 2013, Spielberg has announced he is collaborating with 343 Industries for a live-action TV show of Halo. \n\nUpcoming projects\n\nSpielberg began filming an adaptation of the popular sci-fi novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline in London in July 2016, starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance. It was originally slated to be released on December 15, 2017 by Warner Bros., but was pushed back to March 30, 2018, to avoid competition with Star Wars Episode VIII. \n\nAfter completing filming on Ready Player One, while it is in its lengthy, effects-heavy post-production, he will film his long-planned adaptation of David Kertzer's acclaimed The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. The book follows the true story of a young Jewish boy in 1858 Italy who was secretly baptized by a family servant and then kidnapped from his family by the Papal States, where he was raised and trained as a priest, causing international outrage and becoming a media sensation. First announced in 2014, the book has been adapted by Tony Kushner and the film will again star Mark Rylance, in his fourth consecutive collaboration with Spielberg, in the role of Pope Pius IX. It will also star Oscar Isaac. It will be filmed in early 2017 for release at the end of that year, before Ready Player One is completed and released in 2018. \n\nSpielberg will follow that with a fifth installment in the Indiana Jones series. The untitled film is set to star Harrison Ford and will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. It is being written by David Koepp, who has written numerous other films for Spielberg, including the last Indiana Jones film. It will be released by Disney on July 19, 2019. \n\nSpielberg is attached to direct Cortes, a historical epic written by Steven Zaillian about the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, and Cortes's relationship with Aztec ruler Montezuma. The script is based on an earlier one from 1965 by Oscar-winner Dalton Trumbo. The project at one time had Javier Bardem attached to play the lead role of explorer Hernán Cortés.\n\nSpielberg is attached to direct an adaptation of American photojournalist Lynsey Addario's memoir It's What I Do. Jennifer Lawrence is attached to star in the lead role. \n\nProjects on hold\n\nSpielberg was scheduled to shoot a $200 million adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson's novel Robopocalypse, adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard. The film would follow a global human war against a robot uprising about 15–20 years in the future. Like Lincoln, it was to be released by Disney in the United States and Fox overseas. It was set for release on April 25, 2014, with Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth set to star, but Spielberg postponed production indefinitely in January 2013, just before it had been set to begin. \n\nIn 2009, Spielberg reportedly tried to obtain the screen rights to make a film based on Microsoft's Halo series. In September 2008, Steven Spielberg bought film rights for John Wyndham's novel Chocky and is interested in directing it. He is also interested in making an adaptation of A Steady Rain, Pirate Latitudes, The 39 Clues, and a remake of When Worlds Collide.\n\nIn May 2009, Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the life story of Martin Luther King, Jr. Spielberg will be involved not only as producer but also as a director. However, the purchase was made from the King estate, led by son Dexter, while the two other surviving children, the Reverend Bernice and Martin III, immediately threatened to sue, not having given their approvals to the project. \n\nSpielberg has also considered directing a remake of West Side Story. \n\nThemes\n\nSpielberg's films often deal with several recurring themes. Most of his films deal with ordinary characters searching for or coming in contact with extraordinary beings or finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances. In an AFI interview in August 2000 Spielberg commented on his interest in the possibility of extra terrestrial life and how it has influenced some of his films. Spielberg described himself as feeling like an alien during childhood, and his interest came from his father, a science fiction fan, and his opinion that aliens would not travel light years for conquest, but instead curiosity and sharing of knowledge. \n\nA strong consistent theme in his family-friendly work is a childlike sense of wonder and faith, as attested by works such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The BFG. According to Warren Buckland, these themes are portrayed through the use of low height camera tracking shots, which have become one of Spielberg's directing trademarks. In the cases when his films include children (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, etc.), this type of shot is more apparent, but it is also used in films like Munich, Saving Private Ryan, The Terminal, Minority Report, and Amistad. If one views each of his films, one will see this shot utilized by the director, notably the water scenes in Jaws are filmed from the low-angle perspective of someone swimming. Another child oriented theme in Spielberg's films is that of loss of innocence and coming-of-age. In Empire of the Sun, Jim, a well-groomed and spoiled English youth, loses his innocence as he suffers through World War II China. Similarly, in Catch Me If You Can, Frank naively and foolishly believes that he can reclaim his shattered family if he accumulates enough money to support them.\n\nThe most persistent theme throughout his films is tension in parent-child relationships. Parents (often fathers) are reluctant, absent or ignorant. Peter Banning in Hook starts off in the beginning of the film as a reluctant married-to-his-work parent who through the course of the film regains the respect of his children. The notable absence of Elliott's father in E.T., is the most famous example of this theme. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is revealed that Indy has always had a very strained relationship with his father, who is a professor of medieval literature, as his father always seemed more interested in his work, specifically in his studies of the Holy Grail, than in his own son, although his father does not seem to realize or understand the negative effect that his aloof nature had on Indy (he even believes he was a good father in the sense that he taught his son \"self reliance,\" which is not how Indy saw it). Even Oskar Schindler, from Schindler's List, is reluctant to have a child with his wife. Munich depicts Avner as a man away from his wife and newborn daughter. There are of course exceptions; Brody in Jaws is a committed family man, while John Anderton in Minority Report is a shattered man after the disappearance of his son. This theme is arguably the most autobiographical aspect of Spielberg's films, since Spielberg himself was affected by his parents' divorce as a child and by the absence of his father. Furthermore, to this theme, protagonists in his films often come from families with divorced parents, most notably E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (protagonist Elliot's mother is divorced) and Catch Me If You Can (Frank Abagnale's mother and father split early on in the film). Little known also is Tim in Jurassic Park (early in the film, another secondary character mentions Tim and Lex's parents' divorce). The family often shown divided is often resolved in the ending as well. Following this theme of reluctant fathers and father figures, Tim looks to Dr. Alan Grant as a father figure. Initially, Dr. Grant is reluctant to return those paternal feelings to Tim. However, by the end of the film, he has changed, and the kids even fall asleep with their heads on his shoulders.\n\nMost of his films are generally optimistic in nature. Though some critics accuse his films of being a little overly sentimental, Spielberg feels it is fine as long as it is disguised. He is still a highly praised director as well as being credited as one of the most influential directors of all time. The influence comes from directors Frank Capra and John Ford. \n\nFrequent collaborators\n\nActors\n\nIn terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known penchant for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance, he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several films: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Always. Aside from his role as Indiana Jones, Spielberg also cast Harrison Ford as a headteacher in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (though the scene was ultimately cut). Although Spielberg directed veteran voice actor Frank Welker only once (in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for which he voiced many of the animals), Welker has lent his voice in a number of productions Spielberg has executive produced from Gremlins to its sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, as well as The Land Before Time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and television shows such as Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and SeaQuest DSV. Spielberg has used Tom Hanks on several occasions and has cast him in Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, and Bridge of Spies. Spielberg has collaborated with Tom Cruise twice on Minority Report and War of the Worlds, and cast Shia LaBeouf in five films: Transformers, Eagle Eye, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Spielberg cast Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies and The BFG, as well as the upcoming Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and Ready Player One.\n\nOther collaborations\n\nSpielberg prefers working with production members with whom he has developed an existing working relationship. An example of this is his production relationship with Kathleen Kennedy who has served as producer on all his major films from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the recent Lincoln. For cinematography, Allen Daviau, a childhood friend and cinematographer, shot the early Spielberg film Amblin and most of his films up to Empire of the Sun; Janusz Kamiński who has shot every Spielberg film since Schindler's List (see List of film director and cinematographer collaborations); and the film editor Michael Kahn who has edited every film directed by Spielberg from Close Encounters to Munich (except E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Most of the DVDs of Spielberg's films have documentaries by Laurent Bouzereau.\n\nA famous example of Spielberg working with the same professionals is his long-time collaboration with John Williams and the use of his musical scores in all of his films since The Sugarland Express (except Bridge of Spies, The Color Purple and Twilight Zone: The Movie). One of Spielberg's trademarks is his use of music by Williams to add to the visual impact of his scenes and to try and create a lasting picture and sound of the film in the memories of the film audience. These visual scenes often uses images of the sun (e.g. Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, the final scene of Jurassic Park, and the end credits of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (where they ride into the sunset)), of which the last two feature a Williams score at that end scene. Spielberg is a contemporary of filmmakers George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Brian De Palma, collectively known as the \"Movie Brats\". Aside from his principal role as a director, Spielberg has acted as a producer for a considerable number of films, including early hits for Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis. Spielberg has often never worked with the same screenwriter in his films, beside Tony Kushner and David Koepp, who have written a few of his films more than once.\n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriages and children\n\nSpielberg first met actress Amy Irving in 1976 at the suggestion of director Brian De Palma, who knew he was looking for an actress to play in Close Encounters. After meeting her, Spielberg told his co-producer Julia Phillips, \"I met a real heartbreaker last night.\" Although she was too young for the role, she and Spielberg began dating and she eventually moved in to what she described as his \"bachelor funky\" house. They lived together for four years, but the stresses of their professional careers took a toll on their relationship. Irving wanted to be certain that whatever success she attained as an actress would be her own: \"I don't want to be known as Steven's girlfriend,\" she said, and chose not to be in any of his films during those years.\n\nAs a result, they broke up in 1979, but remained close friends. Then in 1984 they renewed their romance, and in November 1985, they married, already having had a son, Max Samuel. After three and a half years of marriage, however, many of the same competing stresses of their careers caused them to divorce in 1989. They agreed to maintain homes near each other as to facilitate the shared custody and parenting of their son. Their divorce was recorded as the third most costly celebrity divorce in history. \n\nSpielberg subsequently developed a relationship with actress Kate Capshaw, whom he met when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They married on October 12, 1991. Capshaw is a convert to Judaism. They currently move among their four homes in Pacific Palisades, California; New York City; Quelle Farm, Georgica Pond in East Hampton, New York, on Long Island; and Naples, Florida.\n\nThere are seven children in the Spielberg-Capshaw family:\n* Jessica Capshaw (born August 9, 1976) – daughter from Kate Capshaw's previous marriage to Robert Capshaw\n* Max Samuel Spielberg (born June 13, 1985) – son from Spielberg's previous marriage to actress Amy Irving\n* Theo Spielberg (born August 21, 1988) – son adopted by Capshaw before her marriage to Spielberg, who later also adopted him \n* Sasha Rebecca Spielberg (born May 14, 1990, Los Angeles)\n* Sawyer Avery Spielberg (born March 10, 1992, Los Angeles)\n* Mikaela George (born February 28, 1996) – adopted with Kate Capshaw\n* Destry Allyn Spielberg (born December 1, 1996)\n\nReligion\n\nSpielberg grew up in a Jewish household, including having a bar mitzvah ceremony in Phoenix when he turned 13. He grew away from Judaism after his family moved to various cities during his high school years, where they became the only Jews in the neighborhood. Before those years, his family was involved in the synagogue and had many Jewish friends and nearby relatives.\n\nHe remembers his grandparents telling him about their life in Russia, where they were subjected to religious persecution, causing them to eventually flee to the United States. He was made aware of the Holocaust by his parents, who he says “talked about it all the time, and so it was always on my mind.” His father had lost between sixteen and twenty relatives during the Holocaust.\n\nSpielberg \"rediscovered the honor of being a Jew,\" he says, before he made Schindler's List, when he married Kate Capshaw.Pogrebin, Abigail. Stars of David, Broadway Books, NY, (2005) Until then, having become a filmmaker, he only felt his connection to Judaism when he visited his parents. He says he made the film partly to create “something that would confirm my Judaism to my family and myself.”Loshitzky, Yosefa. Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on “Schindler's List”, Indiana Univ. Press (1997) p. 162\n\nHe credits her with fueling his family's current level of observance and for keeping the “momentum flowing\" in their lives, as they now observe Jewish holidays, light candles on Friday nights, and give their children Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. \"This shiksa goddess has made me a better Jew than my own parents.\"\n\nProducing Schindler's List in 1993 also renewed his faith, Spielberg says, but \"it really was the fact that my wife took a profound interest in Judaism.\" He waited ten years after being given the story in 1982 to make the film, as he did not yet feel \"mature\" enough. He first wanted to have a family, \"to figure out what my place was in the world. . . . When my first son, [Max] was born, it greatly affected me. . . . A spirit began to ignite in me, and I became a Jewish dad. . .\"\n\nHe said that making the film became a “natural experience” for him, adding, \"I had to tell the story. I've lived on its outer edges.\" The film, writes biographer Joseph McBride, thereby became the \"culmination\" of Spielberg's long personal struggle with his Jewish identity.McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography (3rd edition) Some claim the film has made Spielberg \"the one true heir to the great Jewish moguls who created Hollywood,\" most of whom had actively avoided depicting Jews or the Holocaust in their films.\n\nWealth\n\nForbes magazine places Spielberg's personal net worth at $3 billion.\n\nRecognition\n\nIn 2002, Spielberg was one of eight flagbearers who carried the Olympic Flag into Rice-Eccles Stadium at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. In 2006, Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. Time listed him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the Century. At the end of the 20th century, Life named him the most influential person of his generation. In 2009, Boston University presented him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. \n\nAccording to Forbes Most Influential Celebrities 2014 list, Spielberg was listed as the most influential celebrity in America. The annual list is conducted by E-Poll Market Research and it gave more than 6,600 celebrities on 46 different personality attributes a score representing \"how that person is perceived as influencing the public, their peers, or both.\" Spielberg received a score of 47, meaning 47% of the US believes he is influential. Gerry Philpott, president of E-Poll Market Research, supported Spielberg's score by stating, \"If anyone doubts that Steven Spielberg has greatly influenced the public, think about how many will think for a second before going into the water this summer.\" \n\nPolitics\n\nSpielberg usually supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He has donated over $800,000 to the Democratic party and its nominees. He has been a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and worked with the President for the USA Millennium celebrations. He directed an 18-minute film for the project, scored by John Williams and entitled The American Journey. It was shown at America's Millennium Gala on December 31, 1999, in the National Mall at the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. \n\n Spielberg resigned as a member of the national advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America in 2001 because of his disapproval of the organization's anti-homosexuality stance. In 2007 the Arab League voted to boycott Spielberg's movies after he donated $1 million for relief efforts in Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War. On February 20, 2007, Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama. In February 2008, Spielberg pulled out of his role as advisor to the 2008 Summer Olympics in response to the Chinese government's inaction over the War in Darfur. Spielberg said in a statement that \"I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual.\" It also said that \"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more..\" The International Olympic Committee respected Spielberg's decision, but IOC president Jacques Rogge admitted in an interview that \"[Spielberg] certainly would have brought a lot to the opening ceremony in terms of creativity.\" Spielberg's statement drew criticism from Chinese officials and state-run media calling his criticism \"unfair\". In September 2008, Spielberg and his wife offered their support to same-sex marriage, by issuing a statement following their donation of $100,000 to the \"No on Proposition 8\" campaign fund, a figure equal to the amount of money Brad Pitt donated to the same campaign less than a week prior. \n\nSpielberg supports Hillary Clinton for President of the United States in the 2016 election. He donated US$1 million to Priorities USA, a pro-Clinton Super PAC. \n\nHobbies\n\nA collector of film memorabilia, Spielberg purchased a balsa Rosebud sled from Citizen Kane (1941) in 1982. He bought Orson Welles's own directorial copy of the script for the radio broadcast The War of the Worlds (1938) in 1994. Spielberg has purchased Academy Award statuettes being sold on the open market and donated them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to prevent their further commercial exploitation. His donations include the Oscars that Bette Davis received for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), and Clark Gable's Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934). \n\nSpielberg is a major collector of the work of American illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell. A collection of 57 Rockwell paintings and drawings owned by Spielberg and fellow Rockwell collector and film director George Lucas were displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum July 2, 2010 – January 2, 2011, in an exhibition titled Telling Stories. \n\nSpielberg is an avid film buff, and, when not shooting a picture, he will watch many films in a single weekend. He sees almost every major summer blockbuster in theaters if not preoccupied and enjoys most of them. \n\nSince playing Pong while filming Jaws in 1974, Spielberg has been an avid video gamer. Spielberg played many of LucasArts adventure games, including the first Monkey Island games. He owns a Wii, a PlayStation 3, a PSP, and Xbox 360, and enjoys playing first-person shooters such as the Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He has also criticized the use of cut scenes in games, calling them intrusive, and feels making story flow naturally into the gameplay is a challenge for future game developers. \n\nStalking\n\nIn 2001, Spielberg was stalked by conspiracy theorist and former social worker Diana Napolis. She accused him, along with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, of controlling her thoughts through \"cybertronic\" technology and being part of a satanic conspiracy against her. Napolis was committed to a mental institution before pleading guilty to stalking, and released on probation with a condition that she have no contact with either Spielberg or Hewitt. \n\nJonathan Norman was arrested after making two attempts to enter Spielberg's Pacific Palisades home in June and July 1997. Norman was jailed for 25 years in California. Spielberg told the court: \"Had Jonathan Norman actually confronted me, I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, believe that I would have been raped or maimed or killed.\" \n\nAwards and honors\n\nSpielberg has won three Academy Awards. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards for the category of Best Director, winning two of them (Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan), and ten of the films he directed were up for the Best Picture Oscar (Schindler's List won). In 1987 he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his work as a creative producer.\n\nDrawing from his own experiences in Scouting, Spielberg helped the Boy Scouts of America develop a merit badge in cinematography in order to help promote filmmaking as a marketable skill. The badge was launched at the 1989 National Scout Jamboree, which Spielberg attended, and where he personally counseled many boys in their work on requirements. \nThat same year, 1989, saw the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The opening scene shows a teenage Indiana Jones in scout uniform bearing the rank of a Life Scout. Spielberg stated he made Indiana Jones a Boy Scout in honor of his experience in Scouting. For his career accomplishments, service to others, and dedication to a new merit badge Spielberg was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. \n\nSteven Spielberg received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995.\n\nIn 1998 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Award was presented to him by President Roman Herzog in recognition of his film Schindler's List and his Shoa-Foundation. \n\nIn 1999, Spielberg received an honorary degree from Brown University. Spielberg was also awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen at the Pentagon on August 11, 1999; Cohen presented the award in recognition of Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan.\n\nIn 2001, he was honored as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. \n\nIn 2004 he was admitted as knight of the Légion d'honneur by president Jacques Chirac. On July 15, 2006, Spielberg was also awarded the Gold Hugo Lifetime Achievement Award at the Summer Gala of the Chicago International Film Festival, and also was awarded a Kennedy Center honour on December 3. The tribute to Spielberg featured a short, filmed biography narrated by Tom Hanks and included thank-yous from World War II veterans for Saving Private Ryan, as well as a performance of the finale to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, conducted by John Williams (Spielberg's frequent composer).\n\nThe Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Spielberg in 2005, the first year it considered non-literary contributors.. Press release March 24, 2005. Science Fiction Museum (sfhomeworld.org). Archived 2005-03-26. Retrieved 2013-03-22.[http://www.midamericon.org/halloffame/ \"Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame\"] . Mid American Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, Inc. Retrieved 2013-04-07. This was the official website of the hall of fame to 2004. In November 2007, he was chosen for a Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at the sixth annual Visual Effects Society Awards in February 2009. He was set to be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the January 2008 Golden Globes; however, the new, watered-down format of the ceremony resulting from conflicts in the 2007–08 writers strike, the HFPA postponed his honor to the 2009 ceremony. In 2008, Spielberg was awarded the Légion d'honneur. \n\nIn June 2008, Spielberg received Arizona State University's Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence. \n\nSpielberg received an honorary degree at Boston University's 136th Annual Commencement on May 17, 2009. In October 2009 Steven Spielberg received the Philadelphia Liberty Medal; presenting him with the medal was former US president and Liberty Medal recipient Bill Clinton. Special guests included Whoopi Goldberg, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.\n\nOn October 22, 2011 he was admitted as a Commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown. He was given the badge on a red neck ribbon by the Belgian Federal Minister of Finance Didier Reynders. The Commander is the third highest rank of the Order of the Crown. He was the president of the jury for the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. \n\nOn November 19, 2013, Spielberg was honored by the National Archives and Records Administration with its Records of Achievement Award. Spielberg was given two facsimiles of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, one passed but not ratified in 1861, as well as a facsimile of the actual 1865 amendment signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The amendment and the process of passing it were the subject of his film Lincoln. \n\nIn November 2015, it was announced that Spielberg would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House. \n\nOn May 26, 2016, Spielberg was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts by Harvard University.\n\nIn July 2016, Spielberg was awarded a gold Blue Peter badge on the BBC children's television programme Blue Peter. \n\nFilmography\n\nPraise and criticism\n\n* In 2005, Steven Spielberg was rated the greatest film director of all time by Empire magazine. In 1997 a Wall Street sell-side analyst said, \"There are only two brand names in the business: Disney and Spielberg\". \n* After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock praised \"young Spielberg,\" for thinking outside of the visual dynamics of the theater, saying \"He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch\". \n* Some of Spielberg's most notable admirers include Robert Aldrich, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, François Truffaut, David Lynch and Zhang Yimou. \n* Spielberg's movies have also influenced many directors that followed, including Adam Green, J. J. Abrams, Paul Thomas Anderson, Neill Blomkamp, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Kal Ng, Robert Rodriguez, John Sayles, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, and Gareth Edwards. \n* British film critic Tom Shone has said of Spielberg, \"If you have to point to any one director of the last twenty-five years in whose work the medium of film was most fully itself – where we found out what it does best when left to its own devices, it has to be that guy.\" Jess Cagle, the managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, called Spielberg \"...arguably (well, who would argue?) the greatest filmmaker in history.\" \n* Spielberg's critics complain that his films are overly sentimental and tritely moralistic. In his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Peter Biskind summarized the views of Spielberg's detractors, accusing the director of \"infantilizing the audience, reconstituting the spectator as child, then overwhelming him and her with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and critical reflection.\" \n* Critics of mainstream film such as Ray Carney and American artist and actor Crispin Glover (who starred in the Spielberg-produced Back to the Future and who sued Spielberg for using his likeness in Back to the Future Part II) claim that Spielberg's films lack depth and do not take risks. \n* French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard stated that he holds Spielberg partly responsible for the lack of artistic merit in mainstream cinema and accused Spielberg of using his film Schindler's List to make a profit off tragedy while Schindler's wife, Emilie Schindler, lived in poverty in Argentina. In defense of Spielberg, critic Roger Ebert said \"Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors?\" Author Thomas Keneally has also disputed claims that Emilie Schindler was never paid for her contributions to the film, \"not least because I had recently sent Emilie a check myself.\" \n* Film critic Pauline Kael, who had championed Spielberg's films in the 1970s, expressed disappointment in his later development, stating that \"he's become, I think, a very bad director.... And I'm a little ashamed for him, because I loved his early work.... [H]e turned to virtuous movies. And he's become so uninteresting now.... I think that he had it in him to become more of a fluid, far-out director. But, instead, he's become a melodramatist.\" \n* Imre Kertész, Hungarian Jewish author, Nazi concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, criticized Spielberg's depiction of the Holocaust in Schindler's List as kitsch, saying \"I regard as kitsch any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life and the very possibility of the Holocaust.\" Veteran documentary filmmaker and professor Claude Lanzmann also labeled Schindler's List \"pernicious in its impact and influence\" and \"very sentimental\". \n* Stephen Rowley wrote an extensive essay about Spielberg and his career in Senses of Cinema. In it he discussed Spielberg's strengths as a filmmaker, saying \"there is a welcome complexity of tone and approach in these later films that defies the lazy stereotypes often bandied about his films\" and that \"Spielberg continues to take risks, with his body of work continuing to grow more impressive and ambitious\", concluding that he has only received \"limited, begrudging recognition\" from critics.\n\nOther\n\n* In 1999, Spielberg, then a co-owner of DreamWorks, was involved in a heated debate in which the studio proposed building on wetlands near Los Angeles, though development was later dropped for economic reasons. \n* In August 2007, Ai Weiwei, artistic consultant for the Beijing Olympic Stadium, known as the \"Bird's Nest\", accused those choreographing the Olympic opening ceremony, including Spielberg, of failing to live up to their responsibility as artists by allowing their work to be used by the Chinese government, which has suppressed human rights in China, including those of Ai's family, for the purpose of \"propaganda\". Ai said, \"It's disgusting. I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment.\"",
"Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, producer, writer, singer and voice artist. Starting as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, he is credited with leading San Francisco's comedy renaissance. After rising to fame as Mork in Mork & Mindy (1978–82), Williams went on to establish a career in both stand-up comedy and feature film acting. He was known for his improvisational skills. \n\nAfter his film debut in Popeye (1980), he starred or co-starred in widely acclaimed films, including The World According to Garp (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Aladdin (1992), Good Will Hunting (1997), and One Hour Photo (2002), as well as financial successes, such as Hook (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Night at the Museum (2006), and World's Greatest Dad (2009).\n\nWilliams won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. He also received two Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards throughout his career.\n\nOn August 11, 2014, Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California.\n\nEarly life\n\nWilliams was born Robin McLaurin Williams at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951. His father Robert Fitzgerald Williams was a senior executive in Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. His mother Laurie McLaurin was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi; her great-grandfather was Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams had two elder half-brothers named Robert and McLaurin. He had English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, German, and French ancestry. While his mother was a practitioner of Christian Science, Williams was raised as an Episcopalian and later authored a comedic list, \"Top Ten Reasons to be an Episcopalian.\" During a TV interview on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, he credited his mother as being an important early influence for his sense of humor, noting also that he tried to make her laugh to gain attention.video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v\n0IDy5GlUuf8&t=12m23s \"Robin Williams – Inside The Actors Studio\"], June 10, 2001\n\nWilliams attended public elementary school at Gorton Elementary School (now Gorton Community Center) and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School (now Deer Path Middle School), both in Lake Forest, Illinois. He described himself as a quiet and shy child who did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high school drama department. Williams' friends recall him as being very funny. In late 1963, when Williams was twelve, his father was transferred to Detroit. They lived in a 40-room farmhouse on 20 acres in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a student at the private Detroit Country Day School. He excelled in school, where he was on the school's soccer team and wrestling team, and became class president. \n\nAs Williams' father was away much of the time and his mother also worked, he was attended to by the family's maid, who was his main companion. When Williams was 16, his father took early retirement and the family moved to Tiburon, California. Following the move, Williams attended Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur. At the time of his graduation in 1969, he was voted \"Most Likely Not to Succeed\" and \"Funniest\" by his classmates. \n\nCollege and Juilliard School\n\nAfter high school graduation, Williams enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California to study political science, then later dropped out to pursue acting. Williams then studied theatre for three years at the College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California. According to Marin drama professor James Dunn, the depth of Williams's talent first became evident when he was cast in the musical Oliver! as Fagin. Williams was known to improvise during his time in Marin's drama program, putting cast members in hysterics. Dunn called his wife after one late rehearsal to tell her that Williams \"was going to be something special.\"\n\nIn 1973, Williams attained a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York City. He was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class and one of only two students to be accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year; the other was Christopher Reeve. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates.Maslon, Laurence, and Kantor, Michael. Make 'em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, Twelve, 2008 pp. 241–244 Reeve remembered his first impression of Williams when they were two new students at Juilliard:\n\nWilliams and Reeve had a class in dialects taught by Edith Skinner, who, Reeve said, was one of the world's leading voice and speech teachers. Skinner had no idea what to make of Williams, adds Reeve, as he [Williams] could instantly perform in many dialects, including Scottish, Irish, English, Russian, and Italian. Their primary acting teacher was Michael Kahn, who was \"equally baffled by this human dynamo,\" notes Reeve. Williams already had a reputation for being funny, but Kahn sometimes criticized his antics as simple stand-up comedy. In a later production, Williams silenced his critics with his convincing role of an old man in The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams. \"He simply was the old man,\" observed Reeve. \"I was astonished by his work and very grateful that fate had thrown us together.\"\n\nWilliams and Reeve remained close friends until Reeve's death in 2004, following his having become a quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident. Zak, Williams' son, said they were like brothers in their friendship. Williams paid many of Reeve's medical bills and gave financial support to his family. \n\nWilliams left Juilliard during his junior year in 1976 at the suggestion of Houseman, who said there was nothing more Juilliard could teach him. His teacher at Juilliard, Gerald Freedman, notes that Williams was a \"genius,\" and the school's conservative and classical style of training did not suit him, therefore no one was surprised that he left. \n\nCareer\n\nStand-up comedy\n\nAfter his family moved to Marin County, Williams began his career doing stand-up comedy shows in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. His first performance took place at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar to getting on stage. In the 1960s, San Francisco was a center for a rock music renaissance, hippies, drugs, and a sexual revolution, and in the 1970s, Williams helped lead its \"comedy renaissance,\" writes critic Gerald Nachman.Nachman, Gerald. Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, Pantheon, N.Y. (2003) Williams says he found out about \"drugs and happiness\" during that period, adding that he saw \"the best brains of my time turned to mud.\"\n\nHe moved to Los Angeles and continued doing stand-up shows at various clubs, including the Comedy Club, in 1977, where TV producer George Schlatter saw him. Schlatter, realizing that Williams would become an important force in show business, asked him to appear on a revival of his Laugh-In show. The show aired in late 1977 and became his debut TV appearance. Williams also performed a show at the LA Improv that same year for Home Box Office. While the Laugh-In revival failed, it led Williams into a career in television, during which period he continued doing stand-up at comedy clubs, such as the Roxy, to help him keep his improvisational skills sharp. \n\nEarly influences\n\nWilliams has credited other comedians with having influenced and inspired him, including Jonathan Winters, Peter Sellers, Nichols and May, and Lenny Bruce. He attributed their influence to their ability to attract a more intellectual audience by using a higher level of wit. He also liked Jay Leno for his quickness in ad-libbing comedy routines, and Sid Caesar, whose acts he felt were \"precious.\"\n\nJonathan Winters became his \"idol\" early in life; Williams first saw him on television at age 8 and paid him homage in interviews throughout his career. Williams was inspired by Winters's ingenuity, realizing, he said, \"that anything is possible, that anything is funny He gave me the idea that it can be free-form, that you can go in and out of things pretty easily.\"\n\nDuring an interview in London in 2002, he told Sir Michael Parkinson that Peter Sellers was an important influence, especially his multi-character roles in Dr. Strangelove: \"It doesn't get better than that.\" Williams owned a rare recording of Sellers's early radio Goon Shows. British comedy actors Dudley Moore and Peter Cook were also among his influences, he told Parkinson. \n\nWilliams was also influenced by Richard Pryor's fearless ability to talk about his personal life on stage, with subjects including his use of drugs and alcohol, and Williams added those kinds of topics during his own performances. By bringing up such personal matters as a form of comedy, he told Parkinson, it was \"cheaper than therapy\" and gave him a way to release his pent up energy and emotions.\n\nTelevised live performances\n\nWilliams won a Grammy Award for the recording of his 1979 live show at the Copacabana in New York, \"Reality...What a Concept\". Some of his later tours, after he became a TV and film star, include An Evening With Robin Williams (1982), Robin Williams: At The Met (1986) and Robin Williams Live on Broadway (2002). The latter broke many long-held records for a comedy show. In some cases, tickets were sold out within thirty minutes of going on sale. In 1986, Williams released A Night at the Met. \n\nAfter a six-year break, in August 2008, Williams announced a new 26-city tour titled \"Weapons of Self-Destruction\". He said that this was his last chance to make jokes at the expense of the Bush administration, but by the time the show was staged, only a few minutes covered that subject. The tour started at the end of September 2009 and concluded in New York on December 3, and was the subject of an HBO special on December 8, 2009. \n\nHardships in performing stand-up\n\nWilliams said that partly due to the stress of doing stand-up, he started using drugs and alcohol early in his career. He further said that he never drank or took drugs while on stage but occasionally performed when ill with a hangover from the previous day. During the period he was using cocaine, he said that it made him paranoid when performing on stage.\n\nWilliams once described the life of stand-up comedians:\n\nSome, such as the critic Vincent Canby, were concerned that Williams' monologues were so intense that it seemed as though at any minute his \"creative process could reverse into a complete meltdown\". Williams felt secure he could not run out of ideas as the constant change in world events would keep him supplied. He also explained that he often used free association of ideas while improvising in order to keep audience interest. Williams noted that the competitive comedy club atmosphere could cause problems. For example, some comedians accused him of intentionally copying their jokes, although Williams strongly denied ever doing so. Whoopi Goldberg explained that it is difficult for comedians to not pick up and reuse another comedian's material, and that it is done \"all the time.\" He later avoided going to performances of other comedians to deter similar accusations.\n\nDuring a Playboy interview in 1992, Williams was asked whether he ever feared losing the ability to speak openly about those kinds of events and subjects, and admitted that he would, \"if I felt like I was becoming not just dull but a rock, that I still couldn't spark, still fire off or talk about things.\" While he attributed the recent suicide of novelist Jerzy Kosiński to his fear of losing his creativity and sharpness, Williams felt he could overcome those risks. For that, he credited his father, who he said gave him self-confidence, telling him to never be afraid of talking about subjects which were important to him.\n\nTelevision\n\nAfter the Laugh-In revival and appearing in the cast of The Richard Pryor Show on NBC, Williams was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in a 1978 episode of the hit TV series Happy Days. Williams impressed the producer with his quirky sense of humor when he sat on his head when asked to take a seat for the audition. As Mork, Williams improvised much of his dialogue and physical comedy, speaking in a high, nasal voice. Mork's appearance was so popular with viewers that it led to the spin-off hit television sitcom Mork & Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982; the show was written to accommodate Williams's improvisations. Although he portrayed the same character as in Happy Days, the series was set in the present in Boulder, Colorado instead of the late 1950s in Milwaukee. Mork & Mindy at its peak had a weekly audience of 60 million and was credited with turning Williams into a \"superstar.\" According to critic James Poniewozik, the series was especially popular among young people as Williams became a \"man and a child, buoyant, rubber-faced, an endless gusher of invention.\"\n\nMork became an extremely popular character, featured on posters, coloring books, lunch-boxes, and other merchandise. Mork & Mindy was such a success in its first season that Williams appeared on the March 12, 1979, cover of Time magazine, then the leading news magazine in the U.S. The cover photo, taken by Michael Dressler in 1979, is said to have \"[captured] his different sides: the funnyman mugging for the camera, and a sweet, more thoughtful pose that appears on a small TV he holds in his hands\" according to Mary Forgione of the Los Angeles Times. This photo was installed in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian Institution shortly after Williams's death to allow visitors to pay their respects. Williams was also on the cover of the August 23, 1979, issue of Rolling Stone magazine, with the cover photograph taken by famed photographer Richard Avedon. \n\nStarting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Williams began to reach a wider audience with his stand-up comedy, including three HBO comedy specials, Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1982) and Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986). Also in 1986, Williams co-hosted the 58th Academy Awards. \n\nWilliams was also a regular guest on various talk shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman, on which he appeared 50 times. Letterman, who knew Williams for nearly 40 years, recalls seeing him first perform as a new comedian at the Comedy Store in Hollywood, where Letterman and other comedians had already been doing stand-up. \"He came in like a hurricane,\" said Letterman, who said he then thought to himself, \"Holy crap, there goes my chance in show business.\" \n\nWilliams's stand-up work was a consistent thread through his career, as seen by the success of his one-man show (and subsequent DVD) Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002). He was voted 13th on Comedy Central's list \"100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time\" in 2004. \n\nWilliams and Billy Crystal were in an unscripted cameo at the beginning of an episode of the third season of Friends. His many TV appearances included an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and he starred in an episode of Law and Order: SVU. In 2010, he appeared in a sketch with Robert De Niro on Saturday Night Live, and in 2012, guest-starred as himself in two FX series, Louie and Wilfred. In May 2013, CBS started a new series, The Crazy Ones, starring Williams, but the show was canceled after one season. \n\nFilm actor\n\nWilliams' first film was the 1977 low-budget comedy Can I Do It 'Till I Need Glasses?. His first major performance was as the title character in Popeye (1980); though the film was a commercial flop, the role allowed Williams to showcase the acting skills previously demonstrated in his television work. He also starred as the leading character in The World According to Garp (1982), which Williams considered \"may have lacked a certain madness onscreen, but it had a great core\". Williams continued with other smaller roles in less successful films, such as The Survivors (1983) and Club Paradise (1986), though he felt these roles did not help advance his film career.\n\nHis first major break came from his starring role in director Barry Levinson's Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which earned Williams a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film takes place in 1965 during the Vietnam War, with Williams playing the role of Adrian Cronauer, a radio \"shock jock\" who keeps the troops entertained with comedy and sarcasm. Williams was allowed to play the role without a script, improvising most of his lines. Over the microphone, he created voice impressions of people, including Walter Cronkite, Gomer Pyle, Elvis Presley, Mr. Ed and Richard Nixon. \"We just let the cameras roll,\" said producer Mark Johnson, and Williams \"managed to create something new for every single take.\" \n\nMany of his later roles were in comedies tinged with pathos. Williams's roles in comedy and dramatic films garnered him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (for his role as a psychologist in Good Will Hunting), as well as two previous Academy Award nominations (for playing an English teacher in Dead Poets Society (1989), and for playing a troubled homeless man in The Fisher King (1991)). In 1991, he played an adult Peter Pan in the movie Hook, although he had said that he would have to lose twenty-five pounds. \n\nOther roles Williams had in acclaimed dramatic films include Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990) and What Dreams May Come (1998). In the 2002 film Insomnia, Williams portrayed a writer/killer on the run from a sleep-deprived Los Angeles policeman (played by Al Pacino) in rural Alaska. Also in 2002, in the psychological thriller One Hour Photo, Williams played an emotionally disturbed photo development technician who becomes obsessed with a family for whom he has developed pictures for a long time. The last Williams movie released during his lifetime was The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, a film addressing the value of life. In it, Williams played Henry Altmann, a terminally ill man who reassesses his life and works to redeem himself.\n\nAmong the actors who helped him during his acting career, he credited Robert De Niro, from whom he learned the power of silence and economy of dialog when acting, to portray the deep-driven man. From Dustin Hoffman, with whom he co-starred in Hook, he learned to take on totally different character types, and to transform his characters by extreme preparation. Mike Medavoy, producer of Hook, told its director, Steven Spielberg, that he intentionally teamed up Hoffman and Williams for the film because he knew they wanted to work together, and that Williams welcomed the opportunity of working with Spielberg. Williams benefited from working with Woody Allen, who directed he and Billy Crystal in Deconstructing Harry (1997), as Allen had knowledge of the fact that Crystal and Williams had often performed together on stage. \n\nWilliams' penetrative acting in the role of a therapist in Good Will Hunting (1997) deeply influenced some real therapists and won him an Academy Award. In Awakenings (1990), Williams played a doctor modeled on Oliver Sacks, who wrote the book on which the film was based. Sacks later said the way Williams's mind worked was a \"form of genius.\" In 1989 Williams played a private school teacher in Dead Poets Society, which included a final, emotional scene which some critics said \"inspired a generation\" and became a part of pop culture. Looking over most of Williams's films, one writer is \"struck by the breadth of Williams' roles,\" and how radically different most were. \n\nTerry Gilliam, who co-founded Monty Python and directed Williams in two of his films, The Fisher King and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), noted in 1992 that Williams had the ability to \"go from manic to mad to tender and vulnerable,\" adding that to him Williams was \"the most unique mind on the planet. There's nobody like him out there.\"\n\nDuring his career, he starred as a voice actor in several animated films. His voice role as the Genie in the animated, musical fantasy film, Aladdin (1992) was written specifically for Williams. The film's directors stated that they took a risk by writing the role, and successfully convinced him to take it. Through approximately 30 hours of tape, Williams was able to improvise much of his dialogue and impersonated dozens of celebrity voices, including Ed Sullivan, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, William F. Buckley, Peter Lorre, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arsenio Hall. At first, Williams refused to take the role since it was a Disney movie, and he did not want the studio profiting by selling toys and novelty items based on the movie. He accepted the role with certain conditions: \"I'm doing it basically because I want to be part of this animation tradition. I want something for my children. One deal is, I just don't want to sell anything — as in Burger King, as in toys, as in stuff.\" The film went on to become one of his most recognized and best loved roles, and was the highest grossing film of 1992, winning numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for Williams; Williams's performance as the Genie led the way for other animated films to incorporate actors with more star power for voice acting roles. \n\nWilliams continued to provide voices in other animated films, including FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), and an uncredited vocal performance in Everyone's Hero (2006). He also voiced the holographic Dr. Know character in the live-action film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). He was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort about a time-traveling robot who encounters Jules Verne and brings him to the future. \n\nIn 2006, he starred in The Night Listener, a thriller about a radio show host who realizes that a child with whom he has developed a friendship may or may not exist; that year, he starred in five movies, including Man of the Year, was the Surprise Guest at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired on January 30, 2006. \n\nAt the time of his death in 2014, Williams had appeared in four movies not yet released: Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, A Merry Friggin' Christmas, Boulevard and Absolutely Anything. \n\nTheatre actor\n\nWilliams appeared opposite Steve Martin at Lincoln Center in an off-Broadway production of Waiting for Godot in 1988. He made his Broadway acting debut in Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on March 31, 2011. He headlined his own one-man show, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, that played at the Broadway theatre in July 2002. \n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriages and children\n\nWilliams married his first wife Valerie Velardi in June 1978, following a live-in relationship with comedian Elayne Boosler. Velardi and Williams met in 1976 while he was working as a bartender at a tavern in San Francisco. Their son Zachary Pym \"Zak\" Williams was born in 1983. Williams and Velardi divorced in 1988. \n\nOn April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, Zachary's nanny, who was pregnant with his child. They had two children, Zelda Rae Williams (born 1989) and Cody Alan Williams (born 1991). In March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was finalized in 2010. Williams married his third wife, graphic designer Susan Schneider, on October 22, 2011, in St. Helena, California. The two lived at Williams' house in Sea Cliff, San Francisco, California.\n\nWilliams stated, \"My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings.\" \n\nOther interests\n\nWilliams was a member of the Episcopal Church. He described his denomination in a comedy routine as \"Catholic Lite—same rituals, half the guilt.\" He has also described himself as an \"honorary Jew,\" and on Israel's 60th Independence Day in 2008, he appeared in Times Square, along with several other celebrities to wish Israel a happy birthday. \n\nWilliams was an enthusiast of both pen-and-paper role-playing games and video games. His daughter Zelda was named based on the title character from The Legend of Zelda, one of Williams' favorite video game series, and he sometimes performed at consumer entertainment trade shows. \n\nHis favorite books were the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov, with his favorite book as a child being The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which he later shared with his children. \n\nWilliams became a devoted cycling enthusiast, having taken up the sport partly as a substitute for drugs. Eventually, he accumulated a large bicycle collection of his own and became a fan of professional road cycling, often traveling to racing events, such as the Tour de France. \n\nPhilanthropy\n\nIn 1986, Williams teamed up with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal to found Comic Relief USA, an annual HBO television benefit devoted to the homeless, which has raised $80 million, as of 2014. Bob Zmuda, creator of Comic Relief, explains that Williams felt blessed because he came from a wealthy home, but wanted to do something to help those less fortunate. Williams made benefit appearances to support literacy and women's rights, along with appearing at benefits for veterans. He was a regular on the USO circuit, where he traveled to 13 countries and performed to approximately 100,000 troops. After his death, the USO thanked him \"for all he did for the men and women of our armed forces.\" \n\nWilliams and his second wife Marsha founded a philanthropic organization called the Windfall Foundation to raise money for many charities. In December 1999, he sang in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrities doing a cover of The Rolling Stones' \"It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)\" for the charity Children's Promise. \n\nIn response to the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, he donated all proceeds of his \"Weapons of Self Destruction\" Christchurch performance to help rebuild the New Zealand city. Half the proceeds were donated to the Red Cross and half to the mayoral building fund. Williams performed with the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. \n\nFor several years, Williams supported St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. \n\nAddiction and health problems\n\nDuring the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had an addiction to cocaine. He was a casual friend of John Belushi, and the sudden death of Belushi, with the birth of his son Zak, prompted him to quit drugs and alcohol: \"Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped, too.\" Williams turned to exercise and cycling to help alleviate his depression shortly after Belushi's death, according to bicycle shop owner Tony Tom, Williams stated, \"cycling saved my life.\" \n\nIn 2003, he started drinking alcohol again while working on a film in Alaska. In 2006, he checked himself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Newberg, Oregon, saying he was an alcoholic. \n\nYears afterward, Williams acknowledged his failure to maintain sobriety, but said he never returned to using cocaine, declaring in a 2010 interview:\n\nNo. Cocaine – paranoid and impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me thinking, ooh, let's go back to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling like a vampire on a day pass. No.\n\nIn March 2009, he was hospitalized due to heart problems. He postponed his one-man tour for surgery to replace his aortic valve. The surgery was completed on March 13, 2009, at the Cleveland Clinic. \n\nIn mid-2014, Williams admitted himself into the Hazelden Foundation Addiction Treatment Center in Lindstrom, Minnesota for treatment related to his alcoholism. \n\nHis publicist Mara Buxbaum commented that he was suffering from severe depression prior to his death. Williams' wife Susan stated that in the period before his death, he had been sober, but was diagnosed with early stage Parkinson's disease, which was something he was \"not yet ready to share publicly.\" \n\nDeath\n\nOn August 11, 2014, Williams committed suicide in his home in Paradise Cay, California at age 63. In the initial report released on August 12, the Marin County Sheriff's Office deputy coroner stated Williams had hanged himself with a belt and died from asphyxiation. The final autopsy report, released in November 2014, affirmed that Williams had committed suicide as initially described; neither alcohol nor illegal drugs were involved, while any prescription drugs present in Williams' body were at \"therapeutic\" levels. The report also noted that Williams had been suffering \"a recent increase in paranoia.\" An examination of his brain tissue revealed the presence of \"diffuse Lewy body dementia,\" which may have been misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease. Williams' doctors reportedly believe that Lewy body dementia \"was the critical factor\" that led to his suicide. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in San Francisco Bay on August 12. \n\nTributes\n\nNews of Williams' death spread quickly worldwide. The entertainment world, friends, and fans responded to his death through social and other media outlets. His wife, Susan Schneider, said: \"I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken.\" Williams' daughter Zelda responded to her father's death by stating that the \"world is forever a little darker, less colorful and less full of laughter in his absence\". U.S. President Barack Obama said of Williams: \"He was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.\" \n\nBroadway theaters in New York dimmed their lights for one minute in his honor. Broadway's Aladdin cast honored Williams by having the audience join them in a sing-along of \"Friend Like Me\", an Oscar-nominated song originally sung by Williams in the 1992 film. Fans of Williams created makeshift memorials at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at locations from his television and film career, such as the bench in Boston's Public Garden featured in Good Will Hunting; the Pacific Heights, San Francisco, home used in Mrs. Doubtfire; and the Boulder, Colorado, home used for Mork & Mindy. It was also reported that a book biography of Williams' life was in the works, to be written by New York Times writer David Itzkoff. In addition, a tunnel on Highway 101 north of the Golden Gate Bridge was officially named the \"Robin Williams Tunnel\" on February 29, 2016. \n\nOn television, during the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 25, 2014, Billy Crystal presented a tribute to Williams, referring to him as \"the brightest star in our comedy galaxy.\" On September 9, 2014, PBS aired a one-hour special devoted to Williams' career, and on September 27, 2014, dozens of leading stars and celebrities held a tribute in San Francisco to celebrate his life and career. \n\nShortly after his death, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior all aired the original Aladdin commercial free over the course of a week, with a dedicated drawing of the genie at the end of each airing before the credits. \n\nLegacy and influence\n\nAlthough Williams was first recognized as a stand-up comedian and television star, he later became known for acting in film roles of substance and serious drama. He was considered a \"national treasure\" by many in the entertainment industry and by the public. \n\nHis on-stage energy and improvisational skill became a model for a new generation of stand-up comedians. Many comedians valued the way he worked highly personal issues into his comedy routines, especially his honesty about drug and alcohol addiction, along with depression.[http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2014/0812/Robin-Williams-His-unscripted-riffs-were-not-merely-funny-but-observant-video \"Robin Williams: His unscripted riffs were not merely funny, but observant\"],(+video), Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 2014 According to media scholar Derek A. Burrill, because of the openness with which Williams spoke about his own life, \"probably the most important contribution he made to pop culture, across so many different media, was as Robin Williams the person.\"\n\nWilliams' unusual free-form style of comedy became so identified with him that new comedians imitated him. Jim Carrey impersonated his Mork character early in his own career. Williams's high-spirited style has been credited with paving the way for the growing comedy scene which developed in San Francisco. Young comedians felt more liberated on stage by seeing Williams's spontaneous style: \"one moment acting as a bright, mischievous child, then as a wise philosopher or alien from outer space.\" According to Judd Apatow, Williams's rapid-fire improvisational style was an inspiration as well as an influence for other comedians, however, his talent was unique enough that no one else tried to copy it. \n\nAs a film actor, Williams' roles often influenced others, both in and out of the film industry. Director Chris Columbus, who directed Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, says that watching him work \"was a magical and special privilege. His performances were unlike anything any of us had ever seen, they came from some spiritual and otherworldly place.\" \n\nLooking over most of Williams' films, Alyssa Rosenberg at The Washington Post was \"struck by the breadth of Williams' roles\", and how radically different most were, writing that \"Williams helped us grow up.\"\n\nFilmography\n\nAt least 106 acting credits were attributed to Williams between 1977 and 2014, including the following:\n\nAwards\n\nWon:\n* 1978 – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, Mork & Mindy[http://www.bustle.com/articles/37093-did-robin-williams-ever-win-an-emmy-of-course-he-did-he-was-ridiculously-talented \"DID ROBIN WILLIAMS EVER WIN AN EMMY? OF COURSE HE DID — HE WAS RIDICULOUSLY TALENTED, AFTER ALL\"], Bustle, August 2014\n* 1980 – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, Mork & Mindy[http://www.grammy.com/news/robin-williams-dies \"Robin Williams Dies\"], Grammy.com, August 11, 2014\n* 1980 – Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, Reality... What a Concept\n* 1987 – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Good Morning, Vietnam\n* 1987 – Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, A Night at the Met\n* 1987 - Emmy Award: Outstanding Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program, \"Carol Burnett Special: Carol, Carl, Whoopi & Robin\"[http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search?search_api_views_fulltextrobin+williams&field_is_winner%5B1%5D\n1&submitSearch&search_api_views_fulltext_1\nrobin+williams&search_api_views_fulltext_3&search_api_views_fulltext_2\n&search_api_views_fulltext_4&field_nominations_year\n1949-01-01+00%3A00%3A00&field_nominations_year_12014-01-01+00%3A00%3A00&field_nomination_category\nAll Robin Williams Emmys], Emmys\n* 1988 - Emmy Award: Outstanding Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program, \"ABC Presents a Royal Gala\"\n* 1989 – Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, Good Morning Vietnam\n* 1991 – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, The Fisher King\n* 1993 – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire\n* 1996 – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, The Birdcage\n* 1997 – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Good Will Hunting\n* 1997 – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, Good Will Hunting[http://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-loss-robin-williams \"SAG-AFTRA Statement on the Loss of Robin Williams\"], SAG-AFTRA, August 11, 2014\n* 2003 – Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, Robin Williams Live - 2002\n* 2005 – Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award[http://guardianlv.com/2014/08/emmy-awards-remember-robin-williams/ \"Emmy Awards Remember Robin Williams\"], Guardianlv, August 27, 2014"
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1998 was the Chinese year of which creature?
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tc_98
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Chinese zodiac () is the classification scheme that assigns an animal to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. The 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac is an approximation to the 11.86-year cycle of Jupiter, the largest planet of the solar system. There is a similar concept in western astrology and means \"circle of animals\". It is a scheme and systematic plan of future action that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes according to a 12-year cycle. It remains popular in several East Asian countries including China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and Taiwan.\n\nName\n\nIdentifying this scheme using the term \"zodiac\" reflects several similarities to the Western zodiac: both have time cycles divided into 12 parts, each labels at least the majority of those parts with names of animals, and each is widely associated with a culture of ascribing a person's personality or events in his or her life to the supposed influence of the person's particular relationship to the cycle. Nevertheless, there are major differences: the Chinese 12-part cycle corresponds to years, rather than months. The Chinese zodiac is represented by 12 animals, whereas some of the signs in the Western zodiac are not animals, despite the implication of the Greek etymology of \"zodiac\". The animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations spanned by the ecliptic plane.\n\nSigns\n\nThe zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat. The following are the twelve zodiac signs (each with its associated Earthly Branch) in order and their characteristics. \n\nJade Emperor\n\n# Rat – 鼠 (子) (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Water)\n# Ox – 牛 (丑) (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Water)\n# Tiger – 虎 (寅) (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Wood)\n# Rabbit – 兔 or 兎 (卯) (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Wood)\n# Dragon – 龍 / 龙 (辰) (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Wood)\n# Snake – 蛇 (巳) (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Fire)\n# Horse – 馬 / 马 (午) (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Fire)\n# Goat – 羊 (未) (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Fire)\n# Monkey – 猴 (申) (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Metal)\n# Rooster – 雞 / 鸡 (酉) (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Metal)\n# Dog – 狗 / 犬 (戌) (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Metal)\n# Pig – 豬 / 猪 (亥) (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Water)\n\nIn Chinese astrology the animal signs assigned by year represent what others perceive you as being or how you present yourself. It is a common misconception that the animals assigned by year are the only signs and many western descriptions of Chinese astrology draw solely on this system. In fact, there are also animal signs assigned by month (called inner animals), by day (called true animals) and hours (called secret animals).\n\nWhile a person might appear to be a Dragon because they were born in the year of the Dragon, they might also be a Snake internally, an Ox truly, and a Goat secretively.\n\nA conflict between a person's zodiac sign and how they live is known as tai sui or kai sui.\n\nChinese calendar\n\nYears\n\nWithin the Four Pillars, the year is the pillar representing information about the person's family background and society or relationship with their grandparents. The person's age can also be easily deduced from the sign of the person, the current sign of the year and the person's perceived age (teens, mid 20's, 40's and so on). For example, a person who is a Tiger is either 12, 24, 36 or 48 years old in 2010, the year of the Tiger. In 2011, the year of the Rabbit, that person is one year older.\n\nThe following table shows the 60-year cycle matched up to the Western calendar for the years 1924–2043 (see Sexagenary cycle article for years 1804–2043). The sexagenary cycle begins at lichun 'about February 4' according to some astrological sources. \n\nArctic Table \n\nMonths and solar terms\n\nWithin the Four Pillars, the month is the pillar representing information about the person's parents or childhood. Many Chinese astrologers consider the month pillar to be the most important one in determining the circumstances of one's adult life.\n\nThe 12 animals are also linked to traditional Chinese agricultural calendar, which runs alongside the better known lunar calendar. Instead of months, this calendar is divided into 24 two week segments known as Solar Terms. Each animal is linked to two of these solar terms for a period similar to the Western month. Unlike the 60 year lunar calendar, which can vary by as much as a month in relation to the Western calendar, the agricultural calendar varies by only one day, beginning on the Western February 3 or 4 every year. Again unlike the cycle of the lunar years, which begins with the Rat, the agricultural calendar begins with the Tiger as it is the first animal of spring. Around summer days are longer than winter days, because it occurs differences of perihelion and aphelion.\n\nAs each sign is linked to a month of the solar year, it is thereby also linked to a season. Each of the elements is also linked to a season (see above), and the element that shares a season with a sign is known as that sign's fixed element. In other words, that element is believed to impart some of its characteristics to the sign concerned. The fixed element of each sign applies also to the year and hour signs, and not just the monthly sign. It is important to note that the fixed element is separate from the cycle of elements which interact with the signs in the 60-year cycle.\n\nHours\n\nThe Chinese zodiac is also used to label times of the day, with each sign corresponding to a \"large-hour\" or shichen (時辰), which is a two-hour period (24 divided by 12 animals). Determining this period depends on knowing an individual's exact time of birth. The secret animal is thought to be a person's truest representation, since this animal is determined by the smallest denominator: a person's birth hour. As this sign is based on the position of the sun in the sky and not the time shown on a local clock, followers of this system believe it to be important to compensate for daylight saving time. However, some on-line systems already compensate for daylight saving time, and astrologers may compensate for this as well, even though a client may already have compensated for it, leading to a theoretically inaccurate reading.\n\nWithin the Four Pillars, the hour is the pillar representing information about one's children and contributions to the world or later life.\n\nLondon & solar time:\n\n* 23:00 – 00:59: 子 Rat\n* 01:00 – 02:59: 丑 Ox\n* 03:00 – 04:59: 寅 Tiger\n* 05:00 – 06:59: 卯 Rabbit\n* 07:00 – 08:59: 辰 Dragon\n* 09:00 – 10:59: 巳 Snake\n* 11:00 – 12:59: 午 Horse\n* 13:00 – 14:59: 未 Goat\n* 15:00 – 16:59: 申 Monkey\n* 17:00 – 18:59: 酉 Rooster\n* 19:00 – 20:59: 戌 Dog\n* 21:00 – 22:59: 亥 Pig\n\nThe times above are based on local solar time, rather than standard time. To convert to standard time, one needs to add or take off up to 30 min or more, depending on one's birth location west or east respectively of the central meridian of the given time zone. London, marking the central meridian of GMT has solar time equivalent to standard time; but for other cities like Cardiff located 3° 11′ W, the times will start at 11 min past the hour, whereas for Norwich, located 1° 17′ E, they will start 5 min earlier.\n\n* standard time for other major cities: \n\nNew York: 22:56 - 00:55 ; Chicago: 22:50 - 00:49; San Francisco: 23:09 - 01:08 ; Los Angeles: 22:53 - 00:52\n\nMumbai: 23:39 - 01:38 ; Lagos: 23:47 - 01:46 ; Cape Town: 23:47 - 01:46 ; Cairo: 22:56 - 00:55 ; Sydney: 23:00 - 00:59 ; Bangkok: 23:19 - 01:18 ; Beijing: 23:15 - 01:14 ; Nairobi: 23:33 - 01:32 ; Buenos Aires: 23:51 - 01:50 ; Moscow: 23:30 - 01:29 ; Paris: 23:51 - 01:50\n\nDay\n\n4 pillars calculator can determine the zodiac animal of the day. \n\nCompatibility\n\nAs the Chinese zodiac is derived according to the ancient Five Elements Theory, every Chinese Sign is composed of five elements with relations, among those elements, of interpolation, interaction, over-action, and counter-action — believed to be the common law of motions and changes of creatures in the universe. Different people born under each animal sign supposedly have different personalities, and practitioners of Chinese astrology consult such traditional details and compatibilities to offer putative guidance in life or for love and marriage. \n\nChinese Zodiac Compatibility Grid \n\n4 Pillars\n\nThe Four Pillars method can be traced back to the Han Dynasty ( AD 220), and is still much used in Feng Shui astrology and general analysis today. The Four Pillars or Columns chart is called such as the Chinese writing causes it to fall into columns. Each pillar or column contains a stem and a branch—and each column relates to the year, month, day and hour of birth. The first column refers to the year animal and element, the second to the month animal and element, the third to the day animal and element, and the last to the hour animal and element.\n\nWithin the 'Four Pillars', the Year column purports to provide information about one's ancestor or early age, and the Month column about one's parents or growing age. The Day column purports to offer information about oneself (upper character) and one's spouse (lower character) or adult age, and the Hour column about children or late age. \n\nFour Animal Trines\n\nSee: Astrological aspect#Trine\n\nFirst Trine\n\nThe first trine consists of the Rat, Dragon and Monkey. These three signs are said to be intense and powerful individuals capable of great good, who make great leaders but are rather unpredictable. The three are said to be intelligent, magnanimous, charismatic, charming, authoritative, confident, eloquent and artistic, but can be manipulative, jealous, selfish, aggressive, vindictive or deceitful.\n\nSecond Trine\n\nThe second trine consists of the Ox, Snake and Rooster. These three signs are said to possess endurance and application, with slow accumulation of energy, meticulous at planning but tending to hold fixed opinions. The three are said to be hard-working, modest, industrious, loyal, philosophical, patient, good-hearted and morally upright, but can also be self-righteous, egotistical, vain, judgmental, narrow-minded or petty.\n\nThird Trine\n\nThe third trine consists of the Tiger, Horse and Dog. These three signs are said to seek true love, to pursue humanitarian causes, to be idealistic and independent but tending to be impulsive. The three are said to be productive, enthusiastic, independent, engaging, dynamic, honourable, loyal and protective, but can also be rash, rebellious, quarrelsome, anxious, disagreeable or stubborn.\n\nFourth Trine\n\nThe fourth trine consists of the Rabbit, Goat and Pig. These three signs are said to have a calm nature and an intellectual approach; they seek aesthetic beauty and are artistic, well-mannered and compassionate, yet detached and resigned to their condition. The three are said to be caring, self-sacrificing, obliging, sensible, creative, empathetic, tactful and prudent, but can also be naïve, pedantic, insecure, cunning, indecisive or pessimistic.\n\nZodiac origin stories\n\nThere are many stories and fables to explain the beginning of the zodiac. Since the Han Dynasty, the 12 Earthly Branches have been used to record the time of day. However, for the sake of entertainment and convenience, they have been replaced by the 12 animals. The 24 hours are divided into 12 periods, and a mnemonic refers to the behaviour of the animals: \n\nA Branch may refer to a double-hour period. In the latter case it is the center of the period; for instance, 马 (the Horse) means noon or a period from 11am to 1pm.\n\n*Rat (Zishi): 23:00 to 00:59. This is the time when Rats are most active in seeking food. Rats also have a different number of digits on front and hind legs, thus earning Rat the symbol of \"turn over\" or \"new start\".\n*Ox (Choushi): 01:00 to 02:59. This is the time when Oxen begin to chew the cud slowly and comfortably.\n*Tiger (Yinshi): 03:00 to 04:59. This is the time when Tigers hunt their prey more and show their ferocity.\n*Rabbit (Maoshi): 05:00 to 06:59. This is the time when the Jade Rabbit is busy pounding herbal medicine on the Moon according to the tale.\n*Dragon (Chenshi): 07:00 to 08:59. This is the time when Dragons are hovering in the sky to give rain.\n*Snake (Sishi): 09:00 to 10:59. This is the time when Snakes are leaving their caves.\n*Horse (Wushi): 11:00 to 12:59. This is the time when the sun is high overhead and while other animals are lying down for a rest, Horses are still standing.\n*Goat (Weishi): 13:00 to 14:59. This is the time when Goats eat grass and urinate frequently.\n*Monkey (Shenshi): 15:00 to 16:59. This is the time when Monkeys are lively.\n*Rooster (Youshi): 17:00 to 18:59. This is the time when Roosters begin to get back to their coops.\n*Dog (Xushi): 19:00 to 20:59. This is the time when Dogs carry out their duty of guarding the houses.\n*Pig (Haishi): 21:00 to 22:59. This is the time when Pigs are sleeping sweetly.\n\nThe Great Race\n\nAn Ancient folk story tells that Cat and Rat were the worst swimmers in the animal kingdom. Although they were poor swimmers, they were both quite intelligent. To get to the meeting called by the Jade Emperor, they had to cross a river to reach the meeting place. The Jade Emperor had also decreed that the years on the calendar would be named for each animal in the order they arrived to the meeting. Cat and Rat decided that the best and fastest way to cross the river was to hop on the back of Ox. Ox, being naïve and good-natured, agreed to carry them both across. Midway across the river, Rat pushed Cat into the water. Then as Ox neared the other side of the river, Rat jumped ahead and reached the shore first. So he claimed first place in the competition and the zodiac. \n\nFollowing closely behind was strong Ox who was named the 2nd animal in the zodiac. After Ox, came Tiger, panting, while explaining to the Jade Emperor how difficult it was to cross the river with the heavy currents pushing it downstream all the time. But with its powerful strength, Tiger made to shore and was named the 3rd animal in the cycle.\n\nSuddenly, from a distance came a thumping sound, and the Rabbit arrived. It explained how it crossed the river: by jumping from one stone to another in a nimble fashion. Halfway through, it almost lost the race, but the Rabbit was lucky enough to grab hold of a floating log that later washed him to shore. For that, it became the 4th animal in the Zodiac cycle. In 5th place was the Flying Dragon. Of course, the Jade Emperor was deeply curious as to why a swift flying creature such as the Dragon should fail to reach first place. The mighty Dragon explained that he had to stop and make rain to help all the people and creatures of the earth, and therefore he was held back. Then, on his way to the finish, he saw a little helpless Rabbit clinging onto a log so he did a good deed and gave a puff of breath to the poor creature so that it could land on the shore. The Jade Emperor was very pleased with the actions of the Dragon, and he was added into the zodiac cycle. As soon as he had done so, a galloping sound was heard, and the Horse appeared. Hidden on the Horse's hoof was the Snake, whose sudden appearance gave the Horse a fright, thus making it fall back and giving the Snake the 6th spot, while the Horse placed 7th.\n\nNot long after that, a little distance away, the Goat, Monkey, and Rooster came to the shore. These three creatures helped each other to get to where they are. The Rooster spotted a raft, and took the other two animals with it. Together, the Goat and the Monkey cleared the weeds, tugged and pulled and finally got the raft to the shore. Because of their combined efforts, the Emperor was very pleased and promptly named the Goat as the 8th creature, the Monkey as the 9th, and the Rooster the 10th.\n\nThe 11th animal was the Dog. Although he was supposed to be the best swimmer, he could not resist the temptation to play a little longer in the river. Though his explanation for being late was because he needed a good bath after a long spell. For that, he almost didn't make it to the finish line. Just as the Jade Emperor was about to call it a day, an oink and squeal was heard from a little Pig. The Pig got hungry during the race, promptly stopped for a feast and then fell asleep. After the nap, the Pig continued the race and was named the 12th animal of the zodiac cycle. The cat drowned in 13th place and did not make it in the zodiac. It is said that is the reason why cats always chase Rats; to get back at them for what they have done.\n\nAnother folk story tells that on registration day, the Rat met up with the Ox. He thought to himself \"Ox is the fastest, strongest animal!\" So the little Rat played a trick on the Ox. He asked the Ox if he would like to listen to him sing. The Rat opened his mouth but said nothing. \"How was that?\" he asked the Ox and of course he replied \"Sorry little Rat, I didn't hear you.\" The Rat told the Ox to let him jump onto his back so that he could sing it more clearly, and the Ox agreed. Soon without knowing, the Ox was walking to the signing post, forgetting the Rat on his back. When they reached there, the Rat jumped off and claimed first place. The Ox following and the rest.\n\nIn Buddhism, legend has it that Buddha summoned all of the animals of the earth to come before him before his departure from this earth, but only 12 animals actually came to bid him farewell. To reward the animals who came to him, he named a year after each of them. The years were given to them in the order they had arrived.\n\nThe 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac must have been developed in the early stages of Chinese civilization over hundreds of years before it became the current edition; and it's very hard to investigate the real origin. Most historians agree that Cat is not in the list since the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac were formed before cats were introduced to China from India with Buddhism.\n\nAnother story tells that God called the animals to a banquet that night. The Rat, who loved to play tricks on his neighbor, told the cat that the banquet was on the day after tomorrow. The cat believed his neighbour the Rat and slept whilst dreaming of the banquet. The next day, the Rat arrived first followed by the Ox, the Tiger and the rest of the animals. The order of the animals was decided by the order that they arrived. The cat was devastated and vowed that he would always hate the Rat. This is why cats chase Rats in folklore.\n\nProblems with English translation\n\nDue to confusion with synonyms during translation, some of the animals depicted by the English words did not exist in ancient China. For example, 羊 can mean ram, sheep or Goat. Similarly, 鼠 (Rat) can also be translated as mouse, as there are no distinctive words for the two genera in Chinese. Further, 豬 (Pig) is sometimes translated to boar after its Japanese name, and 牛 plainly means cow or Ox, and not water buffalo, 水牛. 雞 (Rooster) may mean chicken or cock. However, Rooster is the most commonly used one among all the synonyms, same for 羊, 鼠, etc.\n\nChinese zodiac in other countries\n\nThe Chinese zodiac signs are also used by cultures other than Chinese. For one example, they usually appear on Korean New Year and Japanese New Year's cards and stamps. The United States Postal Service and those of several other countries issue a \"Year of the ____\" postage stamp each year to honor this Chinese heritage.\n\nThe Chinese lunar coins, depicting the zodiac animals, inspired the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coins, as well as varieties from Australia, Korea, and Mongolia. The Chinese zodiac is an internationally popular theme, available from many of the world's government and private mints.\n\nThe Chinese zodiac is also used in some other Asian countries that have been under the cultural influence of China. However, some of the animals in the zodiac may differ by country.\n\nEast Asia \n\nThe Korean zodiac is almost identical to the Chinese zodiac except it includes the Sheep instead of the Goat. The Vietnamese zodiac is almost identical to the Chinese zodiac except the second animal is the Water Buffalo instead of the Ox, and the fourth animal is the Cat instead of the Rabbit. The Japanese zodiac includes the Sheep instead of the Goat, and the Wild Boar instead of the Pig. The Japanese have since 1873 celebrated the beginning of the new year on 1 January as per the Gregorian Calendar. The Thai zodiac includes a nāga in place of the Dragon and begins, not at Chinese New Year, but either on the first day of fifth month in Thai lunar calendar, or during the Songkran festival (now celebrated every 13–15 April), depending on the purpose of the use. \n\nBulgars, Huns and Turkic people \n\nThe European Huns used the Chinese zodiac complete with \"Dragon\" \"Pig\". This common Chinese-Turkic Zodiac was in use in Balkan Bulgaria well into the Bulgars' adoption of Slavic language and Orthodox Christianity .\nFollowing is the Hunnish or Bulgarian Pagan zodiac calendar, distinctive from the Greek zodiac but much in conformity with the Chinese one:\n\nTorè calendar\n\nNames of years\n# Kuzgé – [Year of] Saravana - Rat\n# Shiger (Syger) – Ox\n# Kuman (Imén)\n# Ügur – Tiger, Myachè Ügur – Tiger\n# Taushan – Rabbit\n# Samar – Dragon Birgün (Bergen, Birig, Baradj) – Dragon\n# Dilan – Snake\n# Tykha – Horse\n# Téké – Goat\n# Bichin, Michin – Monkey\n# Tavuk – Rooster (also written tağuk—ğ is pronounced as v in Turk. verbs döğmek and öğmek)\n# It – Dog\n# Shushma – Pig (many mistake it as boar though)(Turk., Russ. \"Kaban\"—Translator's Note, also cognate of Turkish şişman, \"fat\")\n\nIn Kazakhstan, an animal cycle similar to the Chinese is used, but the Dragon is substituted by a snail (), and Tiger appears as a leopard ().\n\nIn Mongolia 12 year beasts are called \"Арван хоёр жил\" meaning \"12 years\"\n# Hulgana - Хулгана - Rat\n# Ukher - Үхэр - Ox\n# Bar - Бар - Tiger\n# Tuulai - Туулай - Rabbit\n# Luu - Луу - Dragon\n# Mogoi - Могой - Snake\n# Mori - Морь - Horse\n# Honi - Хонь - Goat\n# Bichin, Michin, Mechin - Бич/Мич, Бичин, Мичин, Мэчин - Monkey\n# Tahiya - Тахиа - Rooster\n# Nohoi - Нохой - Dog\n# Gahai - Гахай - Pig"
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Which country does musician Alfred Brendel come from?
|
tc_99
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
"TagMe"
],
"filename": [
"Alfred_Brendel.txt"
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"Alfred Brendel"
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"Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian pianist, poet and author. \n\nBiography\n\nBrendel was born in Wiesenberg, Czechoslovakia (now Loučná nad Desnou, Czech Republic) to a non-musical family. They moved to Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), when Brendel was six where he began piano lessons with Sofija Deželić. He later to moved to Graz, Austria, and studied piano with Ludovica von Kaan at the Graz Conservatory and composition with Artur Michel. Towards the end of World War II, the 14-year-old Brendel was sent back to Yugoslavia to dig trenches.\n\nAfter the war, Brendel composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano, to write and to paint. However, he never had more formal piano lessons and, although he attended master classes with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann, he was largely self-taught after the age of sixteen. \n\nBrendel gave his first public recital in Graz at the age of 17. He called it \"The Fugue in Piano Literature\", and as well as fugal works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt, it included a sonata of Brendel's own composition.Francis Merson, \"Alfred Brendel: Notes on a Musical Life\", LImelight, April 2016, p. 40 \n\nAt the age of 21, in 1952, he made his solo first recording, Franz Liszt's Weihnachtsbaum, the work's world premiere recording. His first concerto recording, Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 5 had been made a couple of years earlier. He went on to make a string of other records, including three complete sets of the Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonatas (one on Vox Records and two on Philips Records). He was the first performer to record the complete solo piano works of Beethoven. He has recorded or performed little of the music of Frédéric Chopin, but not because of any lack of admiration for the composer. He considers Chopin's Preludes \"the most glorious achievement in piano music after Beethoven and Schubert\".\n\nBrendel recorded extensively for the Vox label, providing them his first of three sets of the complete Beethoven sonatas. His breakthrough came after a recital of Beethoven at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the day after which three major record labels called his agent. Around this time he moved to Hampstead, London, where he still resides. Since the 1970s, Brendel has recorded for Philips Classics Records. He is only the third pianist (after Emil von Sauer and Wilhelm Backhaus) to have been awarded honorary membership of the Vienna Philharmonic, and he was awarded the Hans von Bülow Medal by the Berlin Philharmonic.\n\nIn April 2007 Brendel was one of the initial signatories of the \"Appeal for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations\". \n\nIn 2009 Brendel was featured in the award-winning German-Austrian documentary Pianomania, about a Steinway & Sons piano tuner, which was directed by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis. The film premiered theatrically in North America, where it was met with positive reviews by The New York Times, as well as in Asia and throughout Europe, and is a part of the Goethe-Institut catalogue.\n\nIn November 2013 Brendel was the guest for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. His choices were Handel's \" (from Giulio Cesare), Bach's Piano Concerto No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056 (2nd movement), Mozart's \"\" (from Idomeneo), Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in D major, (Op. 20/4) (4th movement), Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 (1st movement), Franz Schubert's String Quartet No. 13 in A minor (3rd movement), Mahler's \"\" (from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) and Schoenberg's String Trio, Op.45. \n\nWork\n\nBrendel is regarded as one of the major interpreters of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart. He has played relatively few 20th century works but is closely associated with Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. Toward the end of his concert career he stopped playing some of the most physically demanding pieces in the repertoire, such as the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, owing to problems with arthritis.\n\nCritical reaction to Brendel's playing has been mixed, though generally very positive. While he has been lauded by Michael Steinberg as \"the new Schnabel\", critic Harold C. Schonberg noted that some critics and specialists accused the pianist of \"pedanticism\". Brendel's playing is sometimes described as being \"cerebral\", and he has said that he believes the primary job of the pianist is to respect the composer's wishes without showing off himself, or adding his own spin on the music: \"I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece\". As well as his former mentor and teacher, Edwin Fischer, he cites Alfred Cortot, Wilhelm Kempff, and the conductors Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler as particular influences.\n\nBrendel has worked with younger pianists such as Paul Lewis, Till Fellner and, most recently, Kit Armstrong. He has also performed in concert and recorded with his son Adrian and has appeared in many Lieder recitals with Hermann Prey, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Matthias Goerne.\n\nIn November 2007 Brendel announced that he would retire from the concert platform after his concert of 18 December 2008 in Vienna, which featured him as soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat; the orchestra (the Vienna Philharmonic) was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. His final concert in New York was at Carnegie Hall on 20 February 2008, with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Since his debut at Carnegie Hall on 21 January 1973 he had appeared there 81 times, often in his own recital series, and in 1983 he became only the second pianist to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas at the Hall, a feat he repeated in 1993 (Artur Schnabel was the first in 1936; after Brendel, Maurizio Pollini performed the cycle in 1995/1996, and Daniel Barenboim did so in 2003).\n\nPersonal life\n\nBrendel has been married twice. His first marriage, from 1960 to 1972, was to Iris Heymann-Gonzala, and they had a daughter, Doris. In 1975, Brendel married Irene Semler, and the couple have three children; a son, Adrian, who is a cellist, and two daughters, Katharina and Sophie. \n\nPublications\n\nNext to music, literature is Brendel's second life and occupation. His writings have appeared in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, and other languages. For several years, he has been a contributor to The New York Review of Books. His books include:\n* Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts (essays) (1976)\n* Music Sounded Out (1990) – essays, including \"Must Classical Music be Entirely Serious?\"\n* One Finger Too Many (poetry) (1998)\n* Alfred Brendel on Music (collected essays) (2001)\n* Me, of All People: Alfred Brendel in Conversation with Martin Meyer (2002) (UK edition: The Veil of Order)\n* Cursing Bagels (poetry) (2004)\n* Playing the Human Game (collected poems) (2010) Phaidon Press\n* \n\nAwards and accolades\n\n* Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE; 1989)\n* Hans von Bülow Medal of the Berlin Philharmonic (1992)\n* Beethoven-Ring of the Vienna Music University (2001)\n* Léonie Sonning Music Prize (2002; Denmark)\n* Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2004)\n* Prix Venenia: Premio Artur Rubinstein (2007)\n* Praemium Imperiale (2008) \n* Herbert von Karajan Prize (2008)\n* Franz Liszt-Ehrenpreis (2011)\n* Juilliard Medal (2011)\n* Voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame (2012) \n* Golden Mozart Medal of the Salzburg Mozarteum (2014)\n\nBrendel has been awarded honorary doctorates from universities including London (1978), Oxford (1983), Yale (1992), McGill Montreal (2011), and Cambridge (2012) and holds other honorary degrees from the Royal College of Music, London (1999), Boston New England Conservatory (2009), Hochschule Franz Liszt Weimar (2009) and The Juilliard School (2011). He is an honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards by Edison, Midem Classical Awards, Deutscher Schallplattenpreis and Gramophone.\n\nA 2012 survey of pianists by the magazine Limelight ranked Brendel as the 8th greatest pianist of all time. A survey of UK's Classic FM presenters included Brendel in its 25 greatest pianists of all time. He was included in Peter Donohoe's \"Fifty Great Pianists\" series for BBC Radio 3. \n\nRecordings\n\n* Alfred Brendel – Unpublished Live and Radio Performances 1968–2001\n* Great Pianists of the 20th Century – Alfred Brendel III"
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|
Theodore Francis international airport is in which US state?
|
tc_100
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
"TagMe"
],
"filename": [
"U.S._state.txt"
],
"title": [
"U.S. state"
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"A state of the United States of America is one of the 50 constituent political entities that shares its sovereignty with the United States federal government. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders (e.g., paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who are sharing custody).\n\nStates range in population from just under 600,000 (Wyoming) to over 38 million (California), and in area from (Rhode Island) to (Alaska). Four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.\n\nStates are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local governmental authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state. State governments are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in republican principles, and each provides for a government, consisting of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. \n\nStates possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution; among them ratifying constitutional amendments. Historically, the tasks of local law enforcement, public education, public health, regulating intrastate commerce, and local transportation and infrastructure have generally been considered primarily state responsibilities, although all of these now have significant federal funding and regulation as well. Over time, the U.S. Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the federal government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a continuing debate over states' rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states' powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government and the rights of individuals.\n\nStates and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state is represented by two Senators, and at least one Representative, while additional representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census. Each state is also entitled to select a number of electors to vote in the Electoral College, the body that elects the President of the United States, equal to the total of Representatives and Senators from that state. \n\nThe Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50. Alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959.\n\nThe Constitution is silent on the question of whether states have the power to secede (withdraw from) from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, held that a state cannot unilaterally do so. \n\nStates of the United States\n\nThe 50 U.S. states (in alphabetical order), along with state flag and date each joined the union:\n\nGovernments\n\nAs each state is itself a sovereign entity, it reserves the right to organize its individual government in any way (within the broad parameters set by the U.S. Constitution) deemed appropriate by its people. As a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance. No two state governments are identical.\n\nConstitutions\n\nThe government of each state is structured in accordance with its individual constitution. Many of these documents are more detailed and more elaborate than their federal counterpart. The Constitution of Alabama, for example, contains 310,296 words — more than 40 times as many as the U.S. Constitution. In practice, each state has adopted a three-branch system of government, modeled after the federal government, and consisting of three branches (although the three-branch structure is not required): executive, legislative, and judicial. \n\nExecutive\n\nIn each state, the chief executive is called the governor, who serves as both head of state and head of government. The governor may approve or veto bills passed by the state legislature, as well as push for the passage of bills supported by the party of the Governor. In 43 states, governors have line item veto power. \n\nMost states have a \"plural executive\" in which two or more members of the executive branch are elected directly by the people. Such additional elected officials serve as members of the executive branch, but are not beholden to the governor and the governor cannot dismiss them. For example, the attorney general is elected, rather than appointed, in 43 of the 50 U.S. states.\n\nLegislative\n\nThe legislatures of 49 of the 50 states are made up of two chambers: a lower house (termed the House of Representatives, State Assembly, General Assembly or House of Delegates) and a smaller upper house, always termed the Senate. The exception is the unicameral Nebraska Legislature, which is composed of only a single chamber.\n\nMost states have part-time legislatures, while six of the most populated states have full-time legislatures. However, several states with high population have short legislative sessions, including Texas and Florida. \n\nIn Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court held that all states are required to elect their legislatures in such a way as to afford each citizen the same degree of representation (the one person, one vote standard). In practice, most states choose to elect legislators from single-member districts, each of which has approximately the same population. Some states, such as Maryland and Vermont, divide the state into single- and multi-member districts, in which case multi-member districts must have proportionately larger populations, e.g., a district electing two representatives must have approximately twice the population of a district electing just one. If the governor vetoes legislation, all legislatures may override it, usually, but not always, requiring a two-thirds majority.\n\nIn 2013, there were a total of 7,383 legislators in the 50 state legislative bodies. They earned from $0 annually (New Mexico) to $90,526 (California). There were various per diem and mileage compensation. \n\nJudicial\n\nStates can also organize their judicial systems differently from the federal judiciary, as long as they protect the federal constitutional right of their citizens to procedural due process. Most have a trial level court, generally called a District Court or Superior Court, a first-level appellate court, generally called a Court of Appeal (or Appeals), and a Supreme Court. However, Oklahoma and Texas have separate highest courts for criminal appeals. In New York State the trial court is called the Supreme Court; appeals are then taken to the Supreme Court's Appellate Division, and from there to the Court of Appeals.\n\nMost states base their legal system on English common law (with substantial indigenous changes and incorporation of certain civil law innovations), with the notable exception of Louisiana, a former French colony, which draws large parts of its legal system from French civil law.\n\nOnly a few states choose to have the judges on the state's courts serve for life terms. In most of the states the judges, including the justices of the highest court in the state, are either elected or appointed for terms of a limited number of years, and are usually eligible for re-election or reappointment.\n\nRelationships\n\nAmong states\n\nEach state admitted to the Union by Congress since 1789 has entered it on an equal footing with the original States in all respects. With the growth of states' rights advocacy during the antebellum period, the Supreme Court asserted, in Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan (1845), that the Constitution mandated admission of new states on the basis of equality.\n\nUnder Article Four of the United States Constitution, which outlines the relationship between the states, each state is required to give full faith and credit to the acts of each other's legislatures and courts, which is generally held to include the recognition of legal contracts and criminal judgments, and before 1865, slavery status. Regardless of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, some legal arrangements, such as professional licensure and marriages, may be state-specific, and until recently states have not been found by the courts to be required to honor such arrangements from other states. \n\nSuch legal acts are nevertheless often recognized state-to-state according to the common practice of comity. States are prohibited from discriminating against citizens of other states with respect to their basic rights, under the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Under the Extradition Clause, a state must extradite people located there who have fled charges of \"treason, felony, or other crimes\" in another state if the other state so demands. The principle of hot pursuit of a presumed felon and arrest by the law officers of one state in another state are often permitted by a state. \n\nWith the consent of Congress, states may enter into interstate compacts, agreements between two or more states. Compacts are frequently used to manage a shared resource, such as transportation infrastructure or water rights. \n\nWith the federal government\n\nEvery state is guaranteed a form of government that is grounded in republican principles, such as the consent of the governed. This guarantee has long been at the fore-front of the debate about the rights of citizens vis-à-vis the government. States are also guaranteed protection from invasion, and, upon the application of the state legislature (or executive, if the legislature cannot be convened), from domestic violence. This provision was discussed during the 1967 Detroit riot, but was not invoked.\n\nSince the early 20th century, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States to allow greatly expanded scope of federal power over time, at the expense of powers formerly considered purely states' matters. The Cambridge Economic History of the United States says, \"On the whole, especially after the mid-1880s, the Court construed the Commerce Clause in favor of increased federal power.\" In Wickard v. Filburn , the court expanded federal power to regulate the economy by holding that federal authority under the commerce clause extends to activities which may appear to be local in nature but in reality effect the entire national economy and are therefore of national concern. \n\nFor example, Congress can regulate railway traffic across state lines, but it may also regulate rail traffic solely within a state, based on the reality that intrastate traffic still affects interstate commerce. In recent years, the Court has tried to place limits on the Commerce Clause in such cases as United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison.\n\nAnother example of congressional power is its spending power—the ability of Congress to impose taxes and distribute the resulting revenue back to the states (subject to conditions set by Congress). An example of this is the system of federal aid for highways, which include the Interstate Highway System. The system is mandated and largely funded by the federal government, and also serves the interests of the states. By threatening to withhold federal highway funds, Congress has been able to pressure state legislatures to pass a variety of laws. An example is the nationwide legal drinking age of 21, enacted by each state, brought about by the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Although some objected that this infringes on states' rights, the Supreme Court upheld the practice as a permissible use of the Constitution's Spending Clause in South Dakota v. Dole .\n\nAdmission into the Union\n\nArticle IV, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50. Each new state has been admitted on an equal footing with the existing states. It also forbids the creation of new states from parts of existing states without the consent of both the affected states and Congress. This caveat was designed to give Eastern states that still had Western land claims (there were 4 in 1787), to have a veto over whether their western counties could become states, and has served this same function since, whenever a proposal to partition an existing state or states in order that a region within might either join another state or to create a new state has come before Congress.\n\nMost of the states admitted to the Union after the original 13 have been created from organized territories established and governed by Congress in accord with its plenary power under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2. The outline for this process was established by the Northwest Ordinance (1787), which predates the ratification of the Constitution. In some cases, an entire territory has become a state; in others some part of a territory has.\n\nWhen the people of a territory make their desire for statehood known to the federal government, Congress may pass an enabling act authorizing the people of that territory to organize a constitutional convention to write a state constitution as a step towards admission to the Union. Each act details the mechanism by which the territory will be admitted as a state following ratification of their constitution and election of state officers. Although the use of an enabling act is a traditional historic practice, a number of territories have drafted constitutions for submission to Congress absent an enabling act and were subsequently admitted. Upon acceptance of that constitution, and upon meeting any additional Congressional stipulations, Congress has always admitted that territory as a state.\n\nIn addition to the original 13, six subsequent states were never an organized territory of the federal government, or part of one, before being admitted to the Union. Three were set off from an already existing state, two entered the Union after having been sovereign states, and one was established from unorganized territory:\n*California, 1850, from land ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848 under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. \n*Kentucky, 1792, from Virginia (District of Kentucky: Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln counties)Michael P. Riccards, \"Lincoln and the Political Question: The Creation of the State of West Virginia\" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1997 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a\no&d=5000522904 online edition]\n*Maine, 1820, from Massachusetts (District of Maine)\n*Texas, 1845, previously the Republic of Texas \n*Vermont, 1791, previously the Vermont Republic (also known as the New Hampshire Grants and claimed by New York) \n*West Virginia, 1863, from Virginia (Trans-Allegheny region counties) during the Civil War \n\nCongress is under no obligation to admit states, even in those areas whose population expresses a desire for statehood. Such has been the case numerous times during the nation's history. In one instance, Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake City sought to establish the state of Deseret in 1849. It existed for slightly over two years and was never approved by the United States Congress. In another, leaders of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) in Indian Territory proposed to establish the state of Sequoyah in 1905, as a means to retain control of their lands. The proposed constitution ultimately failed in the U.S. Congress. Instead, the Indian Territory, along with Oklahoma Territory were both incorporated into the new state of Oklahoma in 1907. The first instance occurred while the nation still operated under the Articles of Confederation. The State of Franklin existed for several years, not long after the end of the American Revolution, but was never recognized by the Confederation Congress, which ultimately recognized North Carolina's claim of sovereignty over the area. The territory comprising Franklin later became part of the Southwest Territory, and ultimately the state of Tennessee.\n\nAdditionally, the entry of several states into the Union was delayed due to distinctive complicating factors. Among them, Michigan Territory, which petitioned Congress for statehood in 1835, was not admitted to the Union until 1837, due to a boundary dispute the adjoining state of Ohio. The Republic of Texas requested annexation to the United States in 1837, but fears about potential conflict with Mexico delayed the admission of Texas for nine years. Also, statehood for Kansas Territory was held up for several years (1854–61) due to a series of internal violent conflicts involving anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions.\n\nPossible new states\n\nPuerto Rico\n\nPuerto Rico referred to itself as the \"Commonwealth of Puerto Rico\" in the English version of its constitution, and as \"Estado Libre Asociado\" (literally, Associated Free State) in the Spanish version.\n\nAs with any non-state territory of the United States, its residents do not have voting representation in the federal government. Puerto Rico has limited representation in the U.S. Congress in the form of a Resident Commissioner, a delegate with limited voting rights in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and no voting rights otherwise. \n\nA non-binding referendum on statehood, independence, or a new option for an associated territory (different from the current status) was held on November 6, 2012. Sixty one percent (61%) of voters chose the statehood option, while one third of the ballots were submitted blank. \n\nOn December 11, 2012, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico enacted a concurrent resolution requesting the President and the Congress of the United States to respond to the referendum of the people of Puerto Rico, held on November 6, 2012, to end its current form of territorial status and to begin the process to admit Puerto Rico as a State. \n\nWashington, D.C.\n\nThe intention of the Founding Fathers was that the United States capital should be at a neutral site, not giving favor to any existing state; as a result, the District of Columbia was created in 1800 to serve as the seat of government. The inhabitants of the District do not have full representation in Congress or a sovereign elected government (they were allotted presidential electors by the 23rd amendment, and have a non-voting delegate in Congress).\n\nSome residents of the District support statehood of some form for that jurisdiction—either statehood for the whole district or for the inhabited part, with the remainder remaining under federal jurisdiction.\n\nOthers\n\nVarious proposals to divide California, usually involving splitting the south half from the north or the urban coastline from the rest of the state, have been advanced since the 1850s. Similarly, numerous proposals to divide New York, all of which involve to some degree the separation of New York City from the rest of the state, have been promoted over the past several decades. The partitioning of either state is, at the present, highly unlikely.\n\nOther even less likely possible new states are Guam and the Virgin Islands, both of which are unincorporated organized territories of the United States. Also, either the Northern Mariana Islands or American Samoa, an unorganized, unincorporated territory, could seek statehood.\n\nSecession from the Union\n\nThe Constitution is silent on the issue of the secession of a state from the union. However, its predecessor document, the Articles of Confederation, stated that the United States \"shall be perpetual.\" The question of whether or not individual states held the right to unilateral secession remained a difficult and divisive one until the American Civil War. In 1860 and 1861, eleven southern states seceded, but following their defeat in the American Civil War were brought back into the Union during the Reconstruction Era. The federal government never recognized the secession of any of the rebellious states. \n\nFollowing the Civil War, the United States Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, held that states did not have the right to secede and that any act of secession was legally void. Drawing on the Preamble to the Constitution, which states that the Constitution was intended to \"form a more perfect union\" and speaks of the people of the United States in effect as a single body politic, as well as the language of the Articles of Confederation, the Supreme Court maintained that states did not have a right to secede. However, the court's reference in the same decision to the possibility of such changes occurring \"through revolution, or through consent of the States,\" essentially means that this decision holds that no state has a right to unilaterally decide to leave the Union.\n\nCommonwealths\n\nFour states—Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia —adopted Constitutions early in their post-colonial existence identifying themselves as commonwealths, rather than states. These commonwealths are states, but legally, each is a commonwealth because the term is contained in its constitution. As a result, \"commonwealth\" is used in all public and other state writings, actions or activities within their bounds.\n\nThe term, which refers to a state in which the supreme power is vested in the people, was first used in Virginia during the Interregnum, the 1649–60 period between the reigns of Charles I and Charles II during which parliament's Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector established a republican government known as the Commonwealth of England. Virginia became a royal colony again in 1660, and the word was dropped from the full title. When Virginia adopted its first constitution on June 29, 1776, it was reintroduced. Pennsylvania followed suit when it drew up a constitution later that year, as did Massachusetts, in 1780, and Kentucky, in 1792.\n\nThe U.S. territories of the Northern Marianas and Puerto Rico are also referred to as commonwealths. This designation does have a legal status different from that of the 50 states. Both of these commonwealths are unincorporated territories of the United States.\n\nOrigins of states' names\n\nThe 50 states have taken their names from a wide variety of languages. Twenty-four state names originate from Native American languages. Of these, eight are from Algonquian languages, seven are from Siouan languages, three are from Iroquoian languages, one is from Uto-Aztecan languages and five others are from other indigenous languages. Hawaii's name is derived from the Polynesian Hawaiian language.\n\nOf the remaining names, 22 are from European languages: Seven from Latin (mainly Latinized forms of English names), the rest are from English, Spanish and French. Eleven states are named after individual people, including seven named for royalty and one named after an American president. The origins of six state names are unknown or disputed. Several of the states that derive their names from (corrupted) names used for Native peoples, have retained the plural ending of \"s\".\n\nGeography\n\nBorders\n\nThe borders of the 13 original states were largely determined by colonial charters. Their western boundaries were subsequently modified as the states ceded their western land claims to the Federal government during the 1780s and 1790s. Many state borders beyond those of the original 13 were set by Congress as it created territories, divided them, and over time, created states within them. Territorial and new state lines often followed various geographic features (such as rivers or mountain range peaks), and were influenced by settlement or transportation patterns. At various times, national borders with territories formerly controlled by other countries (British North America, New France, New Spain including Spanish Florida, and Russian America) became institutionalized as the borders of U.S. states. In the West, relatively arbitrary straight lines following latitude and longitude often prevail, due to the sparseness of settlement west of the Mississippi River.\n\nOnce established, most state borders have, with few exceptions, been generally stable. Only two states, Missouri (Platte Purchase) and Nevada, grew appreciably after statehood. Several of the original states ceded land, over a several year period, to the Federal government, which in turn became the Northwest Territory, Southwest Territory, and Mississippi Territory. In 1791 Maryland and Virginia ceded land to create the District of Columbia (Virginia's portion was returned in 1847). In 1850, Texas ceded a large swath of land to the federal government. Additionally, Massachusetts and Virginia (on two occasions), have lost land, in each instance to form a new state.\n\nThere have been numerous other minor adjustments to state boundaries over the years due to improved surveys, resolution of ambiguous or disputed boundary definitions, or minor mutually agreed boundary adjustments for administrative convenience or other purposes. Occasionally the United States Congress or the United States Supreme Court have settled state border disputes. One notable example is the case New Jersey v. New York, in which New Jersey won roughly 90% of Ellis Island from New York in 1998. \n\nRegional grouping\n\nStates may be grouped in regions; there are endless variations and possible groupings. Many are defined in law or regulations by the federal government. For example, the United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. The Census Bureau region definition is \"widely used … for data collection and analysis,\"\"The National Energy Modeling System: An Overview 2003\" (Report #:DOE/EIA-0581, October 2009). United States Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration. and is the most commonly used classification system. Other multi-state regions are unofficial, and defined by geography or cultural affinity rather than by state lines."
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In which soap did Demi Moore find fame?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Demi Gene Guynes ( ; born November 11, 1962), professionally known as Demi Moore, is an American actress, filmmaker, former songwriter, and model. Moore dropped out of high school at age 16 to pursue an acting career, and appeared in a nude pictorial in Oui magazine in 1981. After making her film debut later that year, she appeared on the soap opera General Hospital and subsequently gained recognition for her work in Blame It on Rio (1984) and St. Elmo's Fire (1985). Her first film to become both a critical and commercial hit was About Last Night... (1986), which established her as a Hollywood star.\n\nIn 1990, Moore starred in Ghost, the highest-grossing film of that year, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. She had a string of additional box-office successes in the early 1990s, including A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Disclosure (1994). In 1996, Moore became the highest-paid actress in film history when she was paid a then-unprecedented fee of $12.5 million to star in Striptease, a film that was a high-profile disappointment. Her next major role, G.I. Jane (1997), for which she famously shaved her head, was followed by a lengthy break and significant downturn in Moore's career, although she has remained a subject of substantial media interest during the years since.\n\nEarly life\n\nMoore was born on November 11, 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Her biological father, Air Force airman Charles Harmon, Sr., left her mother, Virginia (née King), after a two-month marriage, before Moore was born. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved many times. Moore said in 1991, \"My dad was Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don't really have a relationship with.\" Moore learned of him at age 13, when she found her mother and stepfather's marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since \"I saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in '62.\" Dan Guynes committed suicide in October 1980 at age 37, two years after he separated from Moore's mother. Charles Harmon appeared on Inside Edition in 1995, making an appeal to see his grandchildren. Virginia Guynes had a long record of arrests for crimes, including drunk driving and arson. Moore broke off contact with her in 1990, when Guynes walked away from a rehab stay Moore had paid for at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. Guynes posed nude for the magazine High Society in 1993, where she spoofed Moore's Vanity Fair pregnancy and bodypaint covers, and parodied her love scene from the film Ghost. Moore and Guynes briefly reconciled shortly before Guynes died of cancer in July 1998 at age 54. \n\nMoore was cross-eyed as a child; this was ultimately corrected by two operations. She also suffered from kidney dysfunction. At age 15, Moore moved to West Hollywood, California, where her mother worked for a magazine-distribution company. Moore attended Fairfax High School there, and recalled, \"I moved out of my family's house when I was 16 and left high school in my junior year.\" She signed with the Elite Modeling Agency and went to Europe to work as a pin-up girl, then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her next-door neighbor, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski.Collins, p. 145 In August 1979, three months before her 17th birthday, Moore met musician Freddy Moore who was married and at the time leader of the band Boy, at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. They lived in an apartment in West Hollywood.\n\nCareer\n\nDemi Moore co-wrote three songs with Freddy Moore and appeared in the music video for their \"It's Not a Rumor,\" performed by his band The Nu Kats. She continues to receive royalty checks from her brief songwriting career (1980-1981). \n\nMoore also appeared on the cover of the January 1981 issue of the adult magazine Oui, in which she posed for a series of photographs containing full frontal nudity. In a 1988 interview, Moore claimed she \"only posed for the cover of Oui—I was 16; I told them I was 18\" and that the photos inside \"were for a European fashion magazine.\" In 1990, she told another interviewer, \"I was 17 years old. I was underage. It was just the cover.\" \n\nMoore made her film debut with a small supporting role in the deaf-teen drama Choices (1981), directed by Silvio Narizzano. Her second feature was the 1982 3-D science fiction/horror film Parasite, for which director Charles Band had instructed casting director Johanna Ray to \"find me the next Karen Allen.\" Moore then joined the cast of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, playing the role of investigative reporter Jackie Templeton from December 1981 to March 1984. During her tenure on the series, she made an uncredited cameo appearance in the 1982 spoof Young Doctors in Love.\n\nMoore's film career took off in 1984 following her appearance in the romantic comedy Blame It on Rio. That same year, she played the lead role in No Small Affair. Her commercial breakthrough came in Joel Schumacher's yuppie drama St. Elmo's Fire (1985), which received negative reviews, but was a box office success and brought Moore to international recognition. Because of her association with that film, Moore was often listed as part of the Brat Pack, a label she felt was \"demeaning\". She progressed to more serious material with About Last Night... (1986), co-starring Rob Lowe, which marked a positive turning point in her career, as Moore noted that, following its release, she began seeing better scripts. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and praised her performance, writing, \"There isn't a romantic note she isn't required to play in this movie, and she plays them all flawlessly.\" The success of About Last Night... was unrivaled by Moore's other two 1986 releases, One Crazy Summer and Wisdom, the last youth-oriented films in which she would star. \n\nMoore made her professional stage debut in an off-Broadway production of The Early Girl, which ran at the Circle Repertory Company in fall 1986. In 1988, Moore starred as a prophecy-bearing mother in the apocalyptic drama The Seventh Sign—her first outing as a solo film star. The following year, she played the quick-witted local laundress and prostitute in Neil Jordan's Depression-era allegory We're No Angels (1989) opposite Robert De Niro.\n\nHer most successful film to date was the supernatural romantic melodrama Ghost, a sleeper hit that grossed over $505 million at the box office and was the highest-grossing film of 1990. The love scene between Moore and Patrick Swayze that starts in front of a potter's wheel while the song \"Unchained Melody\" plays in the background has become an iconic moment in cinema history. Ghost was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Moore's performance as Molly Jensen earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. \n\nIn 1991, Moore had a supporting role in the comedy Nothing but Trouble. It was one of the biggest box office disasters of the year, but most of the blame went to Dan Aykroyd, who wrote and directed the film, as well as starring in it. That same year, she co-produced and starred in the mystery thriller Mortal Thoughts, and appeared as a blonde for the first time in the romantic comedy The Butcher's Wife, with Roger Ebert's review describing her as \"warm and cuddly\". Both films were box-office disappointments, but Moore sustained her A-list status with her starring roles in Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992), Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal (1993), and Barry Levinson's Disclosure (1994)—all of which opened at #1 at the box office and were blockbuster hits. \n\nBy 1995, Moore was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. However, she subsequently had a string of unsuccessful films starting with The Scarlet Letter, a \"freely adapted\" version of the historical romance novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which her portrayal of Hester Prynne was met with harsh criticism. Her follow-up releases, Now and Then and The Juror, were not box-office successes. Moore was paid a record-breaking salary of $12.5 million in 1996 to star in Striptease. Much hype was made about Moore's willingness to dance topless for the part, though this was the sixth time she had shown her breasts on film. Although the film was actually a financial success—grossing over $113 million worldwide —it failed to reach expectations and was widely considered a flop. That same year she provided the speaking voice of the beautiful Esmeralda in Disney's animated adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Meanwhile, she also produced and starred in a controversial miniseries for HBO called If These Walls Could Talk, a three-part anthology about abortion. Its screenwriter, Nancy Savoca, directed two segments, including one in which Moore played a widowed nurse in the early 1950s seeking a back-alley abortion. For that role, Moore received a second Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress.Moore famously shaved her head to play a Navy SEAL recruit in Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (1997). The film was a moderate box-office success, but its domestic gross was only slightly more than it cost to make. During the film's production, it was reported that Moore had ordered studio chiefs to charter two planes for her entourage and her, which reinforced her negative reputation for being a diva —she had previously turned down the Sandra Bullock role in While You Were Sleeping because the studio refused to meet her salary demands, and was dubbed \"Gimme Moore\" by the media.\nAfter G.I. Jane, Moore took the role of an ultrapious psychiatrist in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, then retreated from the spotlight and moved to Hailey, Idaho, on a full-time basis to devote herself to raising her three daughters. She was off screen for three years before re-emerging in the arthouse drama Passion of Mind (2000), the first English-language film from Belgian director Alain Berliner. Her performance was well received, but the film itself garnered mixed reviews and was deemed \"naggingly slow\" by some critics. Moore then resumed her self-imposed career hiatus and continued to turn down film offers. Producer Irwin Winkler said in 2001, \"I had a project about a year and a half ago, and we made an inquiry about her—a real good commercial picture. She wasn't interested.\"\n\nAnother three years passed before Moore acted again. She returned to the screen, playing a villain in the 2003 film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but that was followed by yet another three-year absence. In the interim, Moore signed on as the face of the Versace fashion brand and the Helena Rubinstein brand of cosmetics. In 2006, she appeared in Bobby, which featured an all-star cast, including her husband Ashton Kutcher, although they did not appear in any scenes together.\n\nMoore reunited with Blame It on Rio co-star Michael Caine for the British crime drama Flawless, which came out in a limited release in 2008 with generally positive reviews. As of 2014, her last appearance in a widely released film was in 2007's Mr. Brooks with Kevin Costner. Moore has since acted in a number of independent films, the most notable of which have been The Joneses (2010) with David Duchovny and the critically acclaimed corporate drama Margin Call (2011), where she was part of an ensemble cast that included Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, and Paul Bettany.\n\nMoore had been cast to play feminist activist Gloria Steinem in the Linda Lovelace biographical film Lovelace, but within a month of being announced for the role, she dropped out of the production in the wake of a January 23, 2012, hospitalization and what her representative called \"professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health.\" Sarah Jessica Parker took over the role. \n\nVanity Fair cover\n\nIn August 1991, Moore appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair under the title More Demi Moore. Annie Leibovitz shot the picture while Moore was seven months pregnant with her daughter Scout LaRue, intending to portray \"anti-Hollywood, anti-glitz\" attitude. The cover drew a lot of attention, being discussed on television, radio, and in newspaper articles. The frankness of Leibovitz's portrayal of a pregnant sex symbol led to divided opinions, ranging from suggestions of sexual objectification to celebrations of the photograph as a symbol of empowerment. \n\nThe photograph was subject to numerous parodies, including the Spy magazine version which placed Moore's then-husband Bruce Willis' head on her body. In Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., Leibovitz sued over one parody featuring Leslie Nielsen, made to promote the 1994 film Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult. In the parody, the model's body was attached to what is described as \"the guilty and smirking face\" of Nielsen. The teaser said \"Due this March\". The case was dismissed in 1996 because the parody relied \"for its comic effect on the contrast between the original\". In November 2009, the Moroccan magazine Femmes du Maroc emulated the infamous pose with Moroccan news reporter Nadia Larguet, causing controversy in the majority Muslim nation. \n\nIn August 1992, Moore again appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair, modeling for body painting artist Joanne Gair in Demi's Birthday Suit. \n\nBusiness ventures\n\nMoore was an investor in the Planet Hollywood chain of theme restaurants, along with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former husband Bruce Willis. She was an executive producer of all three films in the Austin Powers franchise, as well as the interview series The Conversation for the Lifetime network. \n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriages and relationships\n\nOn February 8, 1980, at the age of 17, she married singer Freddy Moore, 12 years her senior and recently divorced from his first wife, Lucy. During their marriage, Demi began using Freddy's surname as her stage name. She filed for divorce in September 1984; it was finalized on August 7, 1985.\n\nNext, Moore was engaged to actor Emilio Estevez. The pair planned to marry in December 1986, but called off the engagement. \n\nOn November 21, 1987, Moore married her second husband, actor Bruce Willis. Willis and she have three daughters together: Rumer (born August 16, 1988), Scout (born July 20, 1991), and Tallulah (born February 3, 1994). They announced their separation on June 24, 1998, and filed for divorce on October 18, 2000. \n\nMoore had a longstanding relationship with martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb, whom she dated from 1999 to 2002. \n\nIn 2003, Moore began dating actor Ashton Kutcher, who is 15 years younger. They married on September 24, 2005. The wedding was attended by about 150 close friends and family of the couple, including Willis. In November 2011, after months of media speculation about the state of the couple's marriage, Moore announced her decision to end her marriage to Kutcher. After over a year of separation, Kutcher filed for divorce from Moore on December 21, 2012, in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. Moore filed her response papers in March 2013, requesting spousal support and payment of legal fees from Kutcher. On November 27, 2013, their divorce was finalized. \n\nInterests\n\nShe is a follower of Philip Berg's Kabbalah Centre religion, and initiated Kutcher into the faith, having said that she \"didn't grow up Jewish, but ... would say that [she has] been more exposed to the deeper meanings of particular rituals than any of [her] friends that did.\" \n\nAccording to The New York Times, Moore is \"the world's most high-profile doll collector,\" and among her favorites is the Gene Marshall fashion doll. At one point, Moore kept a separate residence to house her 2,000 dolls. \n\nWhile she landed on PETA's Worst-Dressed List in 2009 for wearing fur, two years later she supported the group's efforts to ban circus workers' use of bullhooks on elephants. \n\nCharity work\n\nIn 2009, Moore and Kutcher launched The Demi and Ashton Foundation (DNA), a nonprofit, non-governmental organization directed towards fighting child sexual slavery. Its first campaign was \"Real Men Don't Buy Girls.\" In November 2012, the foundation said it was announcing \"a new name and refined mission\" as Thorn, which aimed \"to disrupt and deflate the predatory behavior of those who abuse and traffic children, solicit sex with children or create and share child pornography\".\n\nFilmography\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nFootnotes"
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To the nearest million, what is the population of London, England?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"London is the capital and most populous city of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. On the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. It was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its medieval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, \"London\" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, which now forms the county of Greater London See also: Independent city § National capitals. governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly, The London Mayor is not to be confused with the Lord Mayor of London who heads the City of London Corporation, which administers the City of London. historically split between Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire. \n\nLondon is a leading global city, in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism, and transport. It is one of the world's leading financial centres and has the fifth-or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world.Rankings of cities by metropolitan area GDP can vary as a result of differences in the definition of the boundaries and population sizes of the areas compared, exchange rate fluctuations and the method used to calculate output. London and Paris are of broadly similar size in terms of total economic output which can result in third party sources varying as to which is defined as having the fifth- and sixth-largest city GDP in the world. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute published in 2012 estimated that London had a city GDP of US$751.8 billion in 2010, compared to US$764.2 billion for Paris, making them respectively the sixth- and fifth-largest in the world. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers published in November 2009 estimated that London had a city GDP measured in purchasing power parity of US$565 billion in 2008, compared to US$564 billion for Paris, making them respectively the fifth- and sixth-largest in the world. The McKinsey Global Institute study used a metropolitan area with a population of 14.9 million for London compared to 11.8 million for Paris, whilst the PricewaterhouseCoopers study used a metropolitan area with a population of 8.59 million for London compared to 9.92 million for Paris. London is a world cultural capital. It is the world's most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the world's largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic. London is one of the world's leading investment destinations, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe, and a 2014 report placed it first in the world university rankings. According to the report London also ranks first in the world in software, multimedia development and design, and shares first position in technology readiness. In 2012, London became the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.\n\nLondon has a diverse range of peoples and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken within Greater London. Its estimated mid-2015 population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, and accounting for 12.5 per cent of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The city's metropolitan area is one of the most populous in Europe with 13,879,757 inhabitants, while the Greater London Authority states the population of the city-region (covering a large part of the south east) as 22.7 million.\nLondon was the world's most populous city from around 1831 to 1925.\n\nLondon contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London; Kew Gardens; the site comprising the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, and St Margaret's Church; and the historic settlement of Greenwich (in which the Royal Observatory, Greenwich marks the Prime Meridian, 0° longitude, and GMT). Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. London is home to numerous museums, galleries, libraries, sporting events and other cultural institutions, including the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. \n\nHistory\n\nToponymy\n\nThe etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century. It is recorded 121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city from AD65/70-80 include the word Londinio (\"in London\"). The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.\n\nFrom 1898, it was commonly accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos; this explanation has since been rejected. Richard Coates put forward an explanation in 1998 that it is derived from the pre-Celtic Old European *(p)lowonida, meaning 'river too wide to ford', and suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London; from this, the settlement gained the Celtic form of its name, *Lowonidonjon; this requires quite a serious amendment however. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *(h)lōndinion (as opposed to *londīnion), from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name.\n\nUntil 1889, the name \"London\" officially applied only to the City of London, but since then it has also referred to the County of London and now Greater London.\n\nPrehistory\n\nTwo recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area. In 1999, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the foreshore north of Vauxhall Bridge. This bridge either crossed the Thames, or went to a now lost island in the river. Dendrology dated the timbers to 1500 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to 4500 BC, were found on the Thames foreshore, south of Vauxhall Bridge. The function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on South Bank, at a natural crossing point where the River Effra flows into the River Thames.\n\nRoman London\n\nAlthough there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans after the invasion of 43 AD. This lasted only until around 61, when the Iceni tribe led by Queen Boudica stormed it, burning it to the ground. The next, heavily planned, incarnation of Londinium prospered, and it superseded Colchester as the capital of the Roman province of Britannia in 100. At its height in the 2nd century, Roman London had a population of around 60,000.\n\nAnglo-Saxon London (and Viking period)\n\nWith the collapse of Roman rule in the early 5th century, London ceased to be a capital and the walled city of Londinium was effectively abandoned, although Roman civilisation continued in the St Martin-in-the-Fields area until around 450. From around 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed in the same area, slightly to the west of the old Roman city. By about 680, it had revived sufficiently to become a major port, although there is little evidence of large-scale production of goods. From the 820s the town declined because of repeated Viking invasions. There are three recorded Viking assaults on London; two of which were successful in 851 and 886 AD, although they were defeated during the attack of 994 AD. \n\nThe Vikings established Danelaw over much of the eastern and northern part of England with its boundary roughly stretching from London to Chester. It was an area of political and geographical control imposed by the Viking incursions which was formally agreed to by the Danish warlord, Guthrum and west-Saxon king, Alfred the Great in 886 AD. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that London was \"refounded\" by Alfred the Great in 886. Archaeological research shows that this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. London then grew slowly until about 950, after which activity increased dramatically. \n\nBy the 11th century, London was beyond all comparison the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt in the Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor, was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had previously been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, but from this time on, London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton: \"It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital.\" \n\nMiddle Ages\n\nFollowing his victory in the Battle of Hastings, William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England in the newly finished Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. William constructed the Tower of London, the first of the many Norman castles in England to be rebuilt in stone, in the southeastern corner of the city, to intimidate the native inhabitants. In 1097, William II began the building of Westminster Hall, close by the abbey of the same name. The hall became the basis of a new Palace of Westminster.\n\nIn the 12th century, the institutions of central government, which had hitherto accompanied the royal English court as it moved around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed in one place. In most cases this was Westminster, although the royal treasury, having been moved from Winchester, came to rest in the Tower. While the City of Westminster developed into a true capital in governmental terms, its distinct neighbour, the City of London, remained England's largest city and principal commercial centre, and it flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London. In 1100, its population was around 18,000; by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000. Disaster struck during the Black Death in the mid-14th century, when London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.\n\nEarly modern\n\nDuring the Tudor period the Reformation produced a gradual shift to Protestantism, much of London passing from church to private ownership.Pevsner, Nikolaus. London I: The Cities of London and Westminster rev. edition, 1962. Introduction p. 48. The traffic in woollen cloths shipped undyed and undressed from London to the nearby shores of the Low Countries, where it was considered indispensable. But the tentacles of English maritime enterprise hardly extended beyond the seas of north-west Europe. The commercial route to Italy and the Mediterranean Sea normally lay through Antwerp and over the Alps; any ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to or from England were likely to be Italian or Ragusan. Upon the re-opening of the Netherlands to English shipping in January 1565, there ensued a strong outburst of commercial activity. The Royal Exchange was founded. Mercantilism grew, and monopoly trading companies such as the East India Company were established, with trade expanding to the New World. London became the principal North Sea port, with migrants arriving from England and abroad. The population rose from an estimated 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605.\n\nIn the 16th century William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived in London at a time of hostility to the development of the theatre. By the end of the Tudor period in 1603, London was still very compact. There was an assassination attempt on James I in Westminster, through the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605.\n\nDuring the English Civil War the majority of Londoners supported the Parliamentary cause. After an initial advance by the Royalists in 1642 culminating in the battles of Brentford and Turnham Green, London was surrounded by defensive perimeter wall known as the Lines of Communication. The lines were built by an up to 20,000 people, and were completed in under two months. \nThe fortifications failed their only test when the New Model Army entered London in 1647, and they were levelled by Parliament the same year. \n\nLondon was plagued by disease in the early 17th century, culminating in the Great Plague of 1665–1666, which killed up to 100,000 people, or a fifth of the population.\n\nThe Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings. Rebuilding took over ten years and was supervised by Robert Hooke as Surveyor of London.The curious life of Robert Hooke, the man who measured London by Lisa Jardine In 1708 Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral was completed. During the Georgian era, new districts such as Mayfair were formed in the west; new bridges over the Thames encouraged development in South London. In the east, the Port of London expanded downstream.\n\nIn 1762, George III acquired Buckingham House and it was enlarged over the next 75 years. During the 18th century, London was dogged by crime, and the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as a professional police force. In total, more than 200 offences were punishable by death, including petty theft. Most children born in the city died before reaching their third birthday. The coffeehouse became a popular place to debate ideas, with growing literacy and the development of the printing press making news widely available; and Fleet Street became the centre of the British press.\n\nAccording to Samuel Johnson:\n\nLate modern and contemporary\n\nLondon was the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925. London's overcrowded conditions led to cholera epidemics, claiming 14,000 lives in 1848, and 6,000 in 1866. Rising traffic congestion led to the creation of the world's first local urban rail network. The Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion in the capital and some of the surrounding counties; it was abolished in 1889 when the London County Council was created out of those areas of the counties surrounding the capital. London was bombed by the Germans during the First World War, and during the Second World War, the Blitz and other bombings by the German Luftwaffe killed over 30,000 Londoners, destroying large tracts of housing and other buildings across the city. Immediately after the war, the 1948 Summer Olympics were held at the original Wembley Stadium, at a time when London had barely recovered from the war.\n\nIn 1951, the Festival of Britain was held on the South Bank. The Great Smog of 1952 led to the Clean Air Act 1956, which ended the \"pea soup fogs\" for which London had been notorious. From the 1940s onwards, London became home to a large number of immigrants, largely from Commonwealth countries such as Jamaica, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, making London one of the most diverse cities in Europe.\n\nPrimarily starting in the mid-1960s, London became a centre for the worldwide youth culture, exemplified by the Swinging London subculture associated with the King's Road, Chelsea and Carnaby Street. The role of trendsetter was revived during the punk era. In 1965 London's political boundaries were expanded to take into account the growth of the urban area and a new Greater London Council was created. During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, London was subjected to bombing attacks by the Provisional IRA. Racial inequality was highlighted by the 1981 Brixton riot.\n\nGreater London's population declined steadily in the decades after the Second World War, from an estimated peak of 8.6 million in 1939 to around 6.8 million in the 1980s. The principal ports for London moved downstream to Felixstowe and Tilbury, with the London Docklands area becoming a focus for regeneration, including the Canary Wharf development. This was borne out of London's ever-increasing role as a major international financial centre during the 1980s. The Thames Barrier was completed in the 1980s to protect London against tidal surges from the North Sea.\n\nThe Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, which left London as the only large metropolis in the world without a central administration. In 2000, London-wide government was restored, with the creation of the Greater London Authority. To celebrate the start of the 21st century, the Millennium Dome, London Eye and Millennium Bridge were constructed. On 6 July 2005 London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics, making London the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times. On 7 July 2005, three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus were bombed in a series of terrorist attacks. In January 2015, Greater London's population was estimated to be 8.63 million, the highest level since 1939.\n\nDuring the Brexit referendum in 2016, UK as a whole decided to leave the European Union, but London voted to remain in the EU. This led to over a hundred thousands of Londoners petitioning Mayor Sadiq Khan to declare London's independence from the UK and rejoin the EU. Supporters cite London's status as a \"world city\" and its demographic and economic differences from the rest of the United Kingdom, and argue that it should become a city-state based on the model of Singapore, while remaining an EU member state. \n\nGovernment\n\nLocal government\n\nThe administration of London is formed of two tiers—a city-wide, strategic tier and a local tier. City-wide administration is coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA), while local administration is carried out by 33 smaller authorities. The GLA consists of two elected components; the Mayor of London, who has executive powers, and the London Assembly, which scrutinises the mayor's decisions and can accept or reject the mayor's budget proposals each year.\nThe headquarters of the GLA is City Hall, Southwark; the mayor is Sadiq Khan. The mayor's statutory planning strategy is published as the London Plan, which was most recently revised in 2011. The local authorities are the councils of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. They are responsible for most local services, such as local planning, schools, social services, local roads and refuse collection. Certain functions, such as waste management, are provided through joint arrangements. In 2009–2010 the combined revenue expenditure by London councils and the GLA amounted to just over £22 billion (£14.7 billion for the boroughs and £7.4 billion for the GLA). \n\nThe London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for Greater London. It is run by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and is the third largest fire service in the world. National Health Service ambulance services are provided by the London Ambulance Service (LAS) NHS Trust, the largest free-at-the-point-of-use emergency ambulance service in the world. The London Air Ambulance charity operates in conjunction with the LAS where required. Her Majesty's Coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution operate on the River Thames, which is under the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority from Teddington Lock to the sea. \n\nNational government\n\nLondon is the seat of the Government of the United Kingdom. Many government departments are based close to the Palace of Westminster, particularly along Whitehall, including the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. The British Parliament is often referred to as the \"Mother of Parliaments\" (although this sobriquet was first applied to England itself by John Bright) because it has been the model for most other parliamentary systems. There are 73 Members of Parliament (MPs) from London, who correspond to local parliamentary constituencies in the national Parliament. As of May 2015, 45 are from the Labour Party, 27 are Conservatives, and one is a Liberal Democrat. \n\nPolicing and crime\n\nPolicing in Greater London, with the exception of the City of London, is provided by the Metropolitan Police Service, overseen by the Mayor through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The City of London has its own police force – the City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for police services on National Rail, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway and Tramlink services. \nA fourth police force in London, the Ministry of Defence Police, do not generally become involved with policing the general public.\n\nCrime rates vary widely by area, ranging from parts with serious issues to parts considered very safe. Today crime figures are made available nationally at Local Authority and Ward level. In 2015 there were 118 homicides, a 25.5% increase over 2014. The Metropolitan Police have made detailed crime figures, broken down by category at borough and ward level, available on their website since 2000. \n\nGeography\n\nScope\n\nLondon, also referred to as Greater London, is one of 9 regions of England and the top-level subdivision covering most of the city's metropolis.London is not a city in the sense that the word applies in the United Kingdom, that of having city status granted by the Crown. The small ancient City of London at its core once comprised the whole settlement, but as its urban area grew, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to amalgamate the city with its suburbs, causing \"London\" to be defined in a number ways for different purposes. \n\nForty per cent of Greater London is covered by the London post town, within which 'LONDON' forms part of postal addresses. The London telephone area code (020) covers a larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are omitted and some places just outside are included. The Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 motorway in places.\n\nOutward urban expansion is now prevented by the Metropolitan Green Belt, although the built-up area extends beyond the boundary in places, resulting in a separately defined Greater London Urban Area. Beyond this is the vast London commuter belt. Greater London is split for some purposes into Inner London and Outer London. The city is split by the River Thames into North and South, with an informal central London area in its interior. The coordinates of the nominal centre of London, traditionally considered to be the original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross near the junction of Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, are approximately . However the actual Geographical centre of London is in the London Borough of Lambeth, just 0.1 miles to the northeast of Lambeth North tube station. \n\nStatus\n\nWithin London, both the City of London and the City of Westminster have city status and both the City of London and the remainder of Greater London are counties for the purposes of lieutenancies. The area of Greater London has incorporated areas that were once part of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. London's status as the capital of England, and later the United Kingdom, has never been granted or confirmed officially—by statute or in written form.\n\nIts position was formed through constitutional convention, making its status as de facto capital a part of the UK's unwritten constitution. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court, and thus the political capital of the nation. More recently, Greater London has been defined as a region of England and in this context is known as London.\n\nTopography\n\nGreater London encompasses a total area of 1583 km2, an area which had a population of 7,172,036 in 2001 and a population density of 4542 PD/km2. The extended area known as the London Metropolitan Region or the London Metropolitan Agglomeration, comprises a total area of 8382 km2 has a population of 13,709,000 and a population density of 1510 PD/km2. Modern London stands on the Thames, its primary geographical feature, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a floodplain surrounded by gently rolling hills including Parliament Hill, Addington Hills, and Primrose Hill. The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width.\n\nSince the Victorian era the Thames has been extensively embanked, and many of its London tributaries now flow underground. The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding. The threat has increased over time because of a slow but continuous rise in high water level by the slow 'tilting' of Britain (up in the north and down in the south) caused by post-glacial rebound.\n\nIn 1974, a decade of work began on the construction of the Thames Barrier across the Thames at Woolwich to deal with this threat. While the barrier is expected to function as designed until roughly 2070, concepts for its future enlargement or redesign are already being discussed. \n\nClimate\n\nLondon has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb ), similar to all of southern Britain. Despite its reputation as being a rainy city, London receives less precipitation (601 mm in a year), than Rome, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Naples, Sydney and New York, however, there are many more days with light rain. Temperature extremes for all sites in the London area range from at Kew during August 2003 down to at Northolt during January 1962. \n\nWinters are generally cool and damp with little temperature variation and frequent overcast skies. Daytime highs range from 8 °C, while overnight lows are near . Snowfall occurs occasionally and can cause travel disruption when this happens. Snowfall is more common in Outer London. Spring and autumn are mixed seasons and can be both cool and overcast and pleasantly mild. As a large city, London has a considerable urban heat island effect, making the centre of London at times 5 C-change warmer than the suburbs and outskirts. The effect of this can be seen below when comparing London Heathrow, 15 miles west of London, with the London Weather Centre, in the city centre. \n\nSummers are generally cool but can be warm on occasion. London's average July high is 24 °C. On average London will see 31 days above 25 °C each year, and 4.2 days above every year. Skies are much less overcast in summer in London than during the winter and early spring months. \n\nDistricts\n\nLondon's vast urban area is often described using a set of district names, such as Bloomsbury, Mayfair, Wembley and Whitechapel. These are either informal designations, reflect the names of villages that have been absorbed by sprawl, or are superseded administrative units such as parishes or former boroughs.\n\nSuch names have remained in use through tradition, each referring to a local area with its own distinctive character, but without official boundaries. Since 1965 Greater London has been divided into 32 London boroughs in addition to the ancient City of London. The City of London is the main financial district, and Canary Wharf has recently developed into a new financial and commercial hub in the Docklands to the east.\n\nThe West End is London's main entertainment and shopping district, attracting tourists. West London includes expensive residential areas where properties can sell for tens of millions of pounds. The average price for properties in Kensington and Chelsea is over £2 million with a similarly high outlay in most of central London. \n\nThe East End is the area closest to the original Port of London, known for its high immigrant population, as well as for being one of the poorest areas in London. The surrounding East London area saw much of London's early industrial development; now, brownfield sites throughout the area are being redeveloped as part of the Thames Gateway including the London Riverside and Lower Lea Valley, which was developed into the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.\n\nArchitecture\n\nLondon's buildings are too diverse to be characterised by any particular architectural style, partly because of their varying ages. Many grand houses and public buildings, such as the National Gallery, are constructed from Portland stone. Some areas of the city, particularly those just west of the centre, are characterised by white stucco or whitewashed buildings. Few structures in central London pre-date the Great Fire of 1666, these being a few trace Roman remains, the Tower of London and a few scattered Tudor survivors in the City. Further out is, for example, the Tudor period Hampton Court Palace, England's oldest surviving Tudor palace, built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey 1515. \n\nWren's late 17th-century churches and the financial institutions of the 18th and 19th centuries such as the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England, to the early 20th century Old Bailey and the 1960s Barbican Estate form part of the varied architectural heritage.\n\nThe disused, but soon to be rejuvenated, 1939 Battersea Power Station by the river in the south-west is a local landmark, while some railway termini are excellent examples of Victorian architecture, most notably St. Pancras and Paddington. The density of London varies, with high employment density in the central area, high residential densities in inner London and lower densities in Outer London.\n\nThe Monument in the City of London provides views of the surrounding area while commemorating the Great Fire of London, which originated nearby. Marble Arch and Wellington Arch, at the north and south ends of Park Lane respectively, have royal connections, as do the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. Nelson's Column is a nationally recognised monument in Trafalgar Square, one of the focal points of central London. Older buildings are mainly brick built, most commonly the yellow London stock brick or a warm orange-red variety, often decorated with carvings and white plaster mouldings.\n\nIn the dense areas, most of the concentration is via medium- and high-rise buildings. London's skyscrapers such as 30 St Mary Axe, Tower 42, the Broadgate Tower and One Canada Square are mostly in the two financial districts, the City of London and Canary Wharf. High-rise development is restricted at certain sites if it would obstruct protected views of St Paul's Cathedral and other historic buildings. Nevertheless, there are a number of very tall skyscrapers in central London (see Tall buildings in London), including the 95-storey Shard London Bridge, the tallest building in the European Union.\n\nOther notable modern buildings include City Hall in Southwark with its distinctive oval shape, and the British Library in Somers Town/Kings Cross. What was formerly the Millennium Dome, by the Thames to the east of Canary Wharf, is now an entertainment venue called The O2 Arena.\n\nNatural history\n\nThe London Natural History Society suggest that London is \"one of the World's Greenest Cities\" with more than 40 percent green space or open water. They indicate that 2000 species of flowering plant have been found growing there and that the tidal Thames supports 120 species of fish. They also state that over 60 species of bird nest in central London and that their members have recorded 47 species of butterfly, 1173 moths and more than 270 kinds of spider around London. London's wetland areas support nationally important populations of many water birds. London has 38 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), two National Nature Reserves and 76 Local Nature Reserves. \n\nAmphibians are common in the capital, including smooth newts living by the Tate Modern, and common frogs, common toads, palmate newts and great crested newts. On the other hand, native reptiles such as slow-worms, common lizards, grass snakes and adders, are mostly only seen in Outer London. \n\nAmong other inhabitants of London are 10,000 foxes, so that there are now 16 foxes for every square mile (2.6 square kilometres) of London. These urban foxes are noticeably bolder than their country cousins, sharing the pavement with pedestrians and raising cubs in people's backyards. Foxes have even sneaked into the Houses of Parliament, where one was found asleep on a filing cabinet. Another broke into the grounds of Buckingham Palace, reportedly killing some of Queen ElizabethII's prized pink flamingos. Generally, however, foxes and city folk appear to get along. A survey in 2001 by the London-based Mammal Society found that 80 percent of 3,779 respondents who volunteered to keep a diary of garden mammal visits liked having them around. This sample cannot be taken to represent Londoners as a whole. \n\nOther mammals found in Greater London are hedgehogs, rats, mice, rabbit, shrew, vole, and squirrels, In wilder areas of Outer London, such as Epping Forest, a wide variety of mammals are found including hare, badger, field, bank and water vole, wood mouse, yellow-necked mouse, mole, shrew, and weasel, in addition to fox, squirrel and hedgehog. A dead otter was found at The Highway, in Wapping, about a mile from the Tower Bridge, which would suggest that they have begun to move back after being absent a hundred years from the city. Ten of England's eighteen species of bats have been recorded in Epping Forest: soprano, nathusius and common pipistrelles, noctule, serotine, barbastelle, daubenton's, brown Long-eared, natterer's and leisler's. \n\nAmong the strange sights seen in London have been a whale in the Thames, while the BBC Two programme \"Natural World: Unnatural History of London\" shows pigeons using the London Underground to get around the city, a seal that takes fish from fishmongers outside Billingsgate Fish Market, and foxes that will \"sit\" if given sausages. \n\nHerds of red and fallow deer also roam freely within much of Richmond and Bushy Park. A cull takes place each November and February to ensure numbers can be sustained. Epping Forest is also known for its fallow deer, which can frequently be seen in herds to the north of the Forest. A rare population of melanistic, black fallow deer is also maintained at the Deer Sanctuary near Theydon Bois. Muntjac deer, which escaped from deer parks at the turn of the twentieth century, are also found in the forest. While Londoners are accustomed to wildlife such as birds and foxes sharing the city, more recently urban deer have started becoming a regular feature, and whole herds of fallow and white-tailed deer come into residential areas at night to take advantage of the London's green spaces. \n\nDemography\n\nThe 2011 census recorded that 2,998,264 people or 36.7% of London's population are foreign-born making London the city with the second largest immigrant population, behind New York City, in terms of absolute numbers. The table to the right shows the most common countries of birth of London residents. Note that some of the German-born population, in 18th position, are British citizens from birth born to parents serving in the British Armed Forces in Germany. \nWith increasing industrialisation, London's population grew rapidly throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was for some time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the most populous city in the world. Its population peaked at 8,615,245 in 1939 immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War, but had declined to 7,192,091 at the 2001 Census. However, the population then grew by just over a million between the 2001 and 2011 Censuses, to reach 8,173,941 in the latter enumeration. \n\nHowever, London's continuous urban area extends beyond the borders of Greater London and was home to 9,787,426 people in 2011, while its wider metropolitan area has a population of between 12 and 14 million depending on the definition used. According to Eurostat, London is the most populous city and metropolitan area of the European Union and the second most populous in Europe (or third if Istanbul is included). During the period 1991–2001 a net 726,000 immigrants arrived in London. \n\nThe region covers an area of 1579 km2. The population density is 5177 PD/km2, more than ten times that of any other British region. In terms of population, London is the 19th largest city and the 18th largest metropolitan region in the world. , London has the largest number of billionaires (British Pound Sterling) in the world, with 72 residing in the city. London ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the world, alongside Tokyo and Moscow.\n\nEthnic groups\n\nAccording to the Office for National Statistics, based on the 2011 Census estimates, 59.8 per cent of the 8,173,941 inhabitants of London were White, with 44.9 per cent White British, 2.2 per cent White Irish, 0.1 per cent gypsy/Irish traveller and 12.1 per cent classified as Other White.\n\n20.9 per cent of Londoners are of Asian and mixed-Asian descent. 19.7 per cent are of full Asian descent, with those of mixed-Asian heritage comprising 1.2 of the population. Indians account for 6.6 per cent of the population, followed by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis at 2.7 per cent each. Chinese peoples account for 1.5 per cent of the population, with Arabs comprising 1.3 per cent. A further 4.9 per cent are classified as \"Other Asian\".\n\n15.6 per cent of London's population are of Black and mixed-Black descent. 13.3 per cent are of full Black descent, with those of mixed-Black heritage comprising 2.3 per cent. Black Africans account for 7.0 per cent of London's population, with 4.2 per cent as Black Caribbean and 2.1 per cent as \"Other Black\". 5.0 per cent are of mixed race.\n\nAcross London, Black and Asian children outnumber White British children by about six to four in state schools. Altogether at the 2011 census, of London's 1,624,768 population aged 0 to 15, 46.4 per cent were White, 19.8 per cent were Asian, 19 per cent were Black, 10.8 per cent were Mixed and 4 per cent represented another ethnic group. In January 2005, a survey of London's ethnic and religious diversity claimed that there were more than 300 languages spoken in London and more than 50 non-indigenous communities with a population of more than 10,000. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, , London's foreign-born population was 2,650,000 (33 per cent), up from 1,630,000 in 1997.\n\nThe 2011 census showed that 36.7 per cent of Greater London's population were born outside the UK. A portion of the German-born population are likely to be British nationals born to parents serving in the British Armed Forces in Germany. Estimates produced by the Office for National Statistics indicate that the five largest foreign-born groups living in London in the period July 2009 to June 2010 were those born in India, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Figure given is the central estimate. See the source for 95 per cent confidence intervals.\n\nReligion\n\nAccording to the 2011 Census, the largest religious groupings are Christians (48.4 per cent), followed by those of no religion (20.7 per cent), Muslims (12.4 per cent), no response (8.5 per cent), Hindus (5.0 per cent), Jews (1.8 per cent), Sikhs (1.5 per cent), Buddhists (1.0 per cent) and other (0.6 per cent).\n\nLondon has traditionally been Christian, and has a large number of churches, particularly in the City of London. The well-known St Paul's Cathedral in the City and Southwark Cathedral south of the river are Anglican administrative centres, while the Archbishop of Canterbury, principal bishop of the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion, has his main residence at Lambeth Palace in the London Borough of Lambeth.\n\nImportant national and royal ceremonies are shared between St Paul's and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is not to be confused with nearby Westminster Cathedral, which is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in England and Wales. Despite the prevalence of Anglican churches, observance is very low within the Anglican denomination. Church attendance continues on a long, slow, steady decline, according to Church of England statistics.\n\nLondon is also home to sizeable Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Jewish communities. Notable mosques include the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets, London Central Mosque on the edge of Regent's Park and the Baitul Futuh Mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Following the oil boom, increasing numbers of wealthy Hindus and Middle-Eastern Muslims have based themselves around Mayfair and Knightsbridge in West London. There are large Muslim communities in the eastern boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham. \nLarge Hindu communities are in the north-western boroughs of Harrow and Brent, the latter of which is home to Europe's largest Hindu temple, Neasden Temple. London is also home to 42 Hindu temples. There are Sikh communities in East and West London, particularly in Southall, home to one of the largest Sikh populations and the largest Sikh temple outside India.\n\nThe majority of British Jews live in London, with significant Jewish communities in Stamford Hill, Stanmore, Golders Green, Finchley, Hampstead, Hendon and Edgware in North London. Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London is affiliated to London's historic Sephardic Jewish community. It is the only synagogue in Europe which has held regular services continuously for over 300 years. Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue has the largest membership of any single Orthodox synagogue in the whole of Europe, overtaking Ilford synagogue (also in London) in 1998. The community set up the London Jewish Forum in 2006 in response to the growing significance of devolved London Government.\n\nAccent\n\nThere are many accents that are traditionally thought of as London accents. The most well known of the London accents long ago acquired the Cockney label, which is heard both in London itself, and across the wider South East England region more generally. The accent of a 21st-century Londoner varies widely; what is becoming more and more common amongst the under-30s however is some fusion of Cockney with a whole array of ethnic accents, in particular Caribbean, which form an accent labelled Multicultural London English (MLE). The other widely heard and spoken accent is RP (Received Pronunciation) in various forms, which can often be heard in the media and many of other traditional professions and beyond, although this accent is not limited to London and South East England, and can also be heard selectively throughout the whole UK amongst certain social groupings.\n\nEconomy\n\nLondon generates about 20 per cent of the UK's GDP (or $446 billion in 2005); while the economy of the London metropolitan area—the largest in Europe—generates about 30 per cent of the UK's GDP (or an estimated $669 billion in 2005). London is one of the pre-eminent financial centres of the world as the most important location for international finance. London tops the world rankings on the global financial centres index. \n\nLondon's largest industry is finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK's balance of payments. Around 325,000 people were employed in financial services in London until mid-2007. London has over 480 overseas banks, more than any other city in the world. Over 85 percent (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in the services industries. Because of its prominent global role, London's economy had been affected by the Late-2000s financial crisis. However, by 2010 the City has recovered; put in place new regulatory powers, proceeded to regain lost ground and re-established London's economic dominance. The City of London is home to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, and Lloyd's of London insurance market.\n\nOver half of the UK's top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies have their headquarters in central London. Over 70 per cent of the FTSE 100 are within London's metropolitan area, and 75 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London. \n\nAlong with professional services, media companies are concentrated in London and the media distribution industry is London's second most competitive sector. The BBC is a significant employer, while other broadcasters also have headquarters around the City. Many national newspapers are edited in London. London is a major retail centre and in 2010 had the highest non-food retail sales of any city in the world, with a total spend of around £64.2 billion. The Port of London is the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year.\n\nLondon has five major business districts: the City, Westminster, Canary Wharf, Camden & Islington and Lambeth & Southwark. One way to get an idea of their relative importance is to look at relative amounts of office space: Greater London had 27 million m2 of office space in 2001, and the City contains the most space, with 8 million m2 of office space. London has some of the highest real estate prices in the world. \n\nA growing number of technology companies are based in London notably in East London Tech City, also known as Silicon Roundabout. In April 2014, the city was among the first to receive a geoTLD. In 2014 Forbes magazine ranked London as the most influential city in the world. In February 2014 London was ranked as the European City of the Future in the 2014/15 list by FDi Magazine. \n\nLondon is the world's most expensive office market for the last three years according to world property journal (2015) report. the residential property in London is worth $2.2 trillion - same value as that of Brazil annual GDP. The city has the highest property prices of any European city according to the Office for National Statistics and the European Office of Statistics. On average the price per square metre in central London is €24,252 (April 2014). This is higher than the property prices in other G8 European capital cities; Berlin €3,306, Rome €6,188 and Paris €11,229. \n\nThe gas and electricity distribution networks that manage and operate the towers, cables and pressure systems that deliver energy to consumers across the city are managed by National Grid plc, SGN and UK Power Networks. \n\nTourism\n\nLondon is one of the leading tourist destinations in the world and in 2015 was ranked as the most visited city in the world with over 65 million visits. It is also the top city in the world by visitor cross-border spending, estimated at US$20.23 billion in 2015 Tourism is one of London's prime industries, employing the equivalent of 350,000 full-time workers in 2003, and the city accounts for 54% of all inbound visitor spend in UK. As of 2016 London is rated as the world top ranked city destination by TripAdvisor users. \n\nIn 2010 the ten most-visited attractions in London were: \n# British Museum\n# Tate Modern\n# National Gallery\n# Natural History Museum\n# Imperial War Museum\n# Science Museum\n# Victoria and Albert Museum\n# Madame Tussauds\n# National Maritime Museum\n# Tower of London\nThe number of hotel rooms in London in 2015 stands at 138,769 which is expected to grow over the years. \n\nHousing crisis\n\nThousands of homeless families find themselves stuck in emergency accommodation for at least two years. \nA growth in the number of UK households has led to the homeless charity Shelter stating: \"This growth is a result of people living longer, more people living alone or in smaller households, and net migration.\" \n\nTransport\n\nTransport is one of the four main areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London, however the mayor's financial control does not extend to the longer distance rail network that enters London. In 2007 he assumed responsibility for some local lines, which now form the London Overground network, adding to the existing responsibility for the London Underground, trams and buses. The public transport network is administered by Transport for London (TfL) and is one of the most extensive in the world.\n\nThe lines that formed the London Underground, as well as trams and buses, became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board or London Transport was created. Transport for London is now the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, and is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.\n\nAviation\n\nLondon is a major international air transport hub with the busiest city airspace in the world. Eight airports use the word London in their name, but most traffic passes through six of these. London Heathrow Airport, in Hillingdon, West London, is the busiest airport in the world for international traffic, and is the major hub of the nation's flag carrier, British Airways. In March 2008 its fifth terminal was opened. There were plans for a third runway and a sixth terminal; however, these were cancelled by the Coalition Government on 12 May 2010. \n\nSimilar traffic, with some cheap short-haul flights, is also handled at Gatwick Airport, south of London in West Sussex.\n\nStansted Airport, north east of London in Essex, is a local UK hub and Luton Airport to the north of London in Bedfordshire, caters mostly for cheap short-haul flights. London City Airport, the smallest and most central airport, in Newham, East London, is focused on business travellers, with a mixture of full service short-haul scheduled flights and considerable business jet traffic. London Southend Airport, east of London in Essex, is a smaller, regional airport that mainly caters for cheap short-haul flights.\n\nRail\n\nUnderground and DLR\n\nThe London Underground, commonly referred to as the Tube, is the oldest and second longest metro system in the world. The system serves 270 stations and was formed from several private companies, including the world's first underground electric line, the City and South London Railway. It dates from 1863.\n\nOver three million journeys are made every day on the Underground network, over 1 billion each year. An investment programme is attempting to reduce congestion and improve reliability, including £6.5 billion (€7.7 billion) spent before the 2012 Summer Olympics. The Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which opened in 1987, is a second, more local metro system using smaller and lighter tram-type vehicles that serve the Docklands, Greenwich and Lewisham.\n\nSuburban\n\nThere are 366 railway stations in the London Travelcard Zones on an extensive above-ground suburban railway network. South London, particularly, has a high concentration of railways as it has fewer Underground lines. Most rail lines terminate around the centre of London, running into eighteen terminal stations, with the exception of the Thameslink trains connecting Bedford in the north and Brighton in the south via Luton and Gatwick airports. London has Britain's busiest station by number of passengers – Waterloo, with over 184 million people using the interchange station complex (which includes Waterloo East station) each year. is the busiest station in Europe by the number of trains passing.\n\nWith the need for more rail capacity in London, Crossrail is due to open in 2018. It will be a new railway line running east to west through London and into the Home Counties with a branch to Heathrow Airport. It is Europe's biggest construction project, with a £15 billion projected cost. \n\nInter-city and international\n\nLondon is the centre of the National Rail network, with 70 percent of rail journeys starting or ending in London. Like suburban rail services, regional and inter-city trains depart from several termini around the city centre, linking London with the rest of Britain including Birmingham, Brighton, Reading, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Exeter, Sheffield, Southampton, Leeds, Manchester, Cambridge, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Edinburgh and Glasgow.\n\nSome international railway services to Continental Europe were operated during the 20th century as boat trains, such as the Admiraal de Ruijter to Amsterdam and the Night Ferry to Paris and Brussels. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 connected London directly to the continental rail network, allowing Eurostar services to begin. Since 2007, high-speed trains link St. Pancras International with Lille, Paris, Brussels and European tourist destinations via the High Speed 1 rail link and the Channel Tunnel. The first high-speed domestic trains started in June 2009 linking Kent to London. There are plans for a second high speed line linking London to the Midlands, North West England, and Yorkshire.\n\nFreight\n\nAlthough rail freight levels are far down compared to their height, significant quantities of cargo are also carried into and out of London by rail; chiefly building materials and landfill waste. As a major hub of the British railway network, London's tracks also carry large amounts of freight for the other regions, such as container freight from the Channel Tunnel and English Channel ports, and nuclear waste for reprocessing at Sellafield.\n\nBuses and trams\n\nLondon's bus network is one of the largest in the world, running 24 hours a day, with about 8,500 buses, more than 700 bus routes and around 19,500 bus stops. In 2013, the network had more than 2 billion commuter trips per annum, more than the Underground. Around £850 million is taken in revenue each year. London has the largest wheelchair accessible network in the world and, from the 3rd quarter of 2007, became more accessible to hearing and visually impaired passengers as audio-visual announcements were introduced. The distinctive red double-decker buses are an internationally recognised trademark of London transport along with black cabs and the Tube.\n\nLondon has a modern tram network, known as Tramlink, centred on Croydon in South London. The network has 39 stops and four routes, and carried 28 million people in 2013. Since June 2008 Transport for London has completely owned Tramlink, and it plans to spend £54m by 2015 on maintenance, renewals, upgrades and capacity enhancements.\n\nCable car\n\nLondon's first and only cable car, known as the Emirates Air Line, opened in June 2012. Crossing the River Thames, linking Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks in the east of the city, the cable car is integrated with London's Oyster Card ticketing system, although special fares are charged. Costing £60 million to build, it carries over 3,500 passengers every day, although this is very much lower than its capacity. Similar to the Santander Cycles bike hire scheme, the cable car is sponsored in a 10-year deal by the airline Emirates.\n\nCycling\n\nCycling is an increasingly popular way to get around London. The launch of a cycle hire scheme in July 2010 has been successful and generally well received. In 2016, there are 13,600 Santander cycles in London. Docking stations and bikes are provided by PBSC Urban Solutions, a company based in Montreal (Canada). The London Cycling Campaign lobbies for better provision. \n\nPort and river boats\n\nFrom being the largest port in the world, the Port of London is now only the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year. Most of this actually passes through the Port of Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.\n\nLondon has frequent river boat services on the Thames known as Thames Clippers. These run up to every 20 minutes between Embankment Pier and North Greenwich Pier. The Woolwich Ferry, with 2.5 million passengers every year, is a frequent service linking the North and South Circular Roads. Other operators run both commuter and tourist boat services in London.\n\nRoads\n\nAlthough the majority of journeys involving central London are made by public transport, car travel is common in the suburbs. The inner ring road (around the city centre), the North and South Circular roads (in the suburbs), and the outer orbital motorway (the M25, outside the built-up area) encircle the city and are intersected by a number of busy radial routes—but very few motorways penetrate into inner London. A plan for a comprehensive network of motorways throughout the city (the Ringways Plan) was prepared in the 1960s but was mostly cancelled in the early 1970s. The M25 is the longest ring-road motorway in the world at long. The A1 and M1 connect London to Leeds, and Newcastle and Edinburgh.\n\nLondon is notorious for its traffic congestion, with the M25 motorway the busiest stretch in the country. The average speed of a car in the rush hour is .\n\nIn 2003, a congestion charge was introduced to reduce traffic volumes in the city centre. With a few exceptions, motorists are required to pay £10 per day to drive within a defined zone encompassing much of central London. Motorists who are residents of the defined zone can buy a greatly reduced season pass. London government initially expected the Congestion Charge Zone to increase daily peak period Underground and bus users by 20,000 people, reduce road traffic by 10 to 15 per cent, increase traffic speeds by 10 to 15 per cent, and reduce queues by 20 to 30 per cent. Over the course of several years, the average number of cars entering the centre of London on a weekday was reduced from 195,000 to 125,000 cars – a 35-per-cent reduction of vehicles driven per day. \n\nEducation\n\nTertiary education\n\nLondon is a major global centre of higher education teaching and research and its 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. According to the QS World University Rankings 2015/16, London has the greatest concentration of top class universities in the world and the international student population around 110,000 which is also more than any other city in the world. A 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers report termed London as the global capital of higher education \n\nA number of world-leading education institutions are based in London. In the 2014/15 QS World University Rankings, Imperial College London is ranked joint 2nd in the world (alongside The University of Cambridge), University College London (UCL) is ranked 5th, and King's College London (KCL) is ranked 16th. The London School of Economics has been described as the world's leading social science institution for both teaching and research. The London Business School is considered one of the world's leading business schools and in 2015 its MBA programme was ranked second best in the world by the Financial Times.\n\nWith 120,000 students in London, the federal University of London is the largest contact teaching university in the UK. It includes four large multi-faculty universities – King's College London, Queen Mary, Royal Holloway and UCL – and a number of smaller and more specialised institutions including Birkbeck, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Institute of Education, the London Business School, the London School of Economics, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Royal Academy of Music, the Central School of Speech and Drama, the Royal Veterinary College and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Members of the University of London have their own admissions procedures, and some award their own degrees.\n\nA number of universities in London are outside the University of London system, including Brunel University, City University London, Imperial College London, Kingston University, London Metropolitan University (with over 34,000 students, the largest unitary university in London),[http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/library/o90402_3.pdf About London Met] London Metropolitan University, August 2008 University of East London, University of West London, University of Westminster, London South Bank University, Middlesex University, and University of the Arts London (the largest university of art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts in Europe). In addition there are three international universities in London – Regent's University London, Richmond, The American International University in London and Schiller International University.\n\nLondon is home to five major medical schools – Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (part of Queen Mary), King's College London School of Medicine (the largest medical school in Europe), Imperial College School of Medicine, UCL Medical School and St George's, University of London – and has a large number of affiliated teaching hospitals. It is also a major centre for biomedical research, and three of the UK's five academic health science centres are based in the city – Imperial College Healthcare, King's Health Partners and UCL Partners (the largest such centre in Europe). \n\nThere are a number of business schools in London, including the London School of Business and Finance, Cass Business School (part of City University London), Hult International Business School, ESCP Europe, European Business School London, Imperial College Business School and the London Business School. London is also home to many specialist arts education institutions, including the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Central School of Ballet, LAMDA, London College of Contemporary Arts (LCCA), London Contemporary Dance School, National Centre for Circus Arts, RADA, Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, the Royal College of Art, the Royal College of Music and Trinity Laban.\n\nPrimary and secondary education\n\nThe majority of primary and secondary schools and further-education colleges in London are controlled by the London boroughs or otherwise state-funded; leading examples include City and Islington College, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, Leyton Sixth Form College, Tower Hamlets College and Bethnal Green Academy. There are also a number of private schools and colleges in London, some old and famous, such as City of London School, Harrow, St Paul's School, Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, University College School, The John Lyon School, Highgate School and Westminster School.\n\nCulture\n\nLeisure and entertainment\n\nLeisure is major part of London economy with a 2003 report contributing a quarter of entire UK leisure economy to London. Globally, the city is amongst the big four fashion capital of the world and according to official statistics London is the world's third busiest film production centre, presents more live comedy than any other city and has the biggest theatre audience of any city in the world. \n\nWithin the City of Westminster in London the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district (in Soho), and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. The city is the home of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have dominated the West End theatre since the late 20th century. The United Kingdom's Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Opera and English National Opera are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the London Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall as well as touring the country. \n\nIslington's 1 mi long Upper Street, extending northwards from Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the United Kingdom. Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly 1 mi long, making it the longest shopping street in the United Kingdom. Oxford Street is home to vast numbers of retailers and department stores, including the world-famous Selfridges flagship store. Knightsbridge, home to the equally renowned Harrods department store, lies to the south-west.\n \nLondon is home to designers Vivienne Westwood, Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it an international centre of fashion alongside Paris, Milan, and New York City. London offers a great variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese food restaurants of Chinatown.\n\nThere is a variety of annual events, beginning with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, fireworks display at the London Eye, the world's second largest street party, the Notting Hill Carnival is held during the late August Bank Holiday each year. Traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the City, and June's Trooping the Colour, a formal military pageant performed by regiments of the Commonwealth and British armies to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday.\n\nLiterature, film and television\n\nLondon has been the setting for many works of literature. The literary centres of London have traditionally been hilly Hampstead and (since the early 20th century) Bloomsbury. Writers closely associated with the city are the diarist Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire, Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has been a major influence on people's vision of early Victorian London, and Virginia Woolf, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the 20th century. \n\nThe pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century Canterbury Tales set out for Canterbury from London – specifically, from the Tabard inn, Southwark. William Shakespeare spent a large part of his life living and working in London; his contemporary Ben Jonson was also based there, and some of his work—most notably his play The Alchemist—was set in the city. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) by Daniel Defoe is a fictionalisation of the events of the 1665 Great Plague. Later important depictions of London from the 19th and early 20th centuries are Dickens' novels, and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Modern writers pervasively influenced by the city include Peter Ackroyd, author of a \"biography\" of London, and Iain Sinclair, who writes in the genre of psychogeography.\n\nLondon has played a significant role in the film industry, and has major studios at Ealing and a special effects and post-production community centred in Soho. Working Title Films has its headquarters in London. London has been the setting for films including Oliver Twist (1948), Scrooge (1951), Peter Pan (1953), The 101 Dalmatians (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), Mary Poppins (1964), Blowup (1966), The Long Good Friday (1980), Notting Hill (1999), Love Actually (2003), V For Vendetta (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2008) and The King's Speech (2010). Notable actors and filmmakers from London include; Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Gary Oldman, Christopher Nolan, Jude Law, Tom Hardy, Keira Knightley and Daniel Day-Lewis. , the British Academy Film Awards have taken place at the Royal Opera House. London is a major centre for television production, with studios including BBC Television Centre, The Fountain Studios and The London Studios. Many television programmes have been set in London, including the popular television soap opera EastEnders, broadcast by the BBC since 1985.\n\nMuseums and art galleries\n\nLondon is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753. Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. In 1824 the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square.\n\nIn the latter half of the 19th century the locale of South Kensington was developed as \"Albertopolis\", a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are there: the Victoria and Albert Museum (for the applied arts), the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to house depictions of figures from British history; its holdings now comprise the world's most extensive collection of portraits. The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art; in 2000 this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station.\n\nMusic\n\nLondon is one of the major classical and popular music capitals of the world and is home to major music corporations, such as Warner Music Group as well as countless bands, musicians and industry professionals. The city is also home to many orchestras and concert halls, such as the Barbican Arts Centre (principal base of the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Chorus), Cadogan Hall (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and the Royal Albert Hall (The Proms). London's two main opera houses are the Royal Opera House and the London Coliseum. The UK's largest pipe organ is at the Royal Albert Hall. Other significant instruments are at the cathedrals and major churches. Several conservatoires are within the city: Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban.\n\nLondon has numerous venues for rock and pop concerts, including the world's busiest arena the o2 arena and other large arenas such as Earls Court, Wembley Arena, as well as many mid-sized venues, such as Brixton Academy, the Hammersmith Apollo and the Shepherd's Bush Empire. Several music festivals, including the Wireless Festival, South West Four, Lovebox, and Hyde Park's British Summer Time are all held in London. The city is home to the first and original Hard Rock Cafe and the Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles recorded many of their hits. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, musicians and groups like Elton John, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, The Small Faces, Iron Maiden, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, Cat Stevens, The Police, The Cure, Madness, The Jam, Dusty Springfield, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart and Sade, derived their sound from the streets and rhythms vibrating through London. \n\nLondon was instrumental in the development of punk music, with figures such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Vivienne Westwood all based in the city. More recent artists to emerge from the London music scene include George Michael, Kate Bush, Seal, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bush, the Spice Girls, Jamiroquai, Blur, The Prodigy, Gorillaz, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Adele, Ed Sheeran and One Direction. London is also a centre for urban music. In particular the genres UK garage, drum and bass, dubstep and grime evolved in the city from the foreign genres of hip hop and reggae, alongside local drum and bass. Black music station BBC Radio 1Xtra was set up to support the rise of home-grown urban music both in London and in the rest of the UK.\n\nNotable people\n\nRecreation\n\nParks and open spaces\n\nThe largest parks in the central area of London are three of the eight Royal Parks, namely Hyde Park and its neighbour Kensington Gardens in the west, and Regent's Park to the north. Hyde Park in particular is popular for sports and sometimes hosts open-air concerts. Regent's Park contains London Zoo, the world's oldest scientific zoo, and is near the tourist attraction of Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Primrose Hill in the northern part of Regent's Park at 256 ftMills, A., Dictionary of London Place Names, (2001) is a popular spot to view the city skyline.\n\nClose to Hyde Park are smaller Royal Parks, Green Park and St. James's Park. A number of large parks lie outside the city centre, including the remaining Royal Parks of Greenwich Park to the south-east and Bushy Park and Richmond Park (the largest) to the south-west, Hampton Court Park is also a royal park, but, because it contains a palace, it is administered by the Historic Royal Palaces, unlike the eight Royal Parks. \n\nClose to Richmond Park is Kew Gardens which has the world's largest collection of living plants. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. There are also numerous parks administered by London's borough Councils, including Victoria Park in the East End and Battersea Park in the centre. Some more informal, semi-natural open spaces also exist, including the 320 ha Hampstead Heath of North London, and Epping Forest, which covers 2,476 hectares (6,118.32 acres) in the east. Both are controlled by the City of London Corporation. Hampstead Heath incorporates Kenwood House, the former stately home and a popular location in the summer months where classical musical concerts are held by the lake, attracting thousands of people every weekend to enjoy the music, scenery and fireworks.\n\nEpping Forest is a popular venue for various outdoor activities, including mountain biking, walking, horse riding, golf, angling, and orienteering. \n\nWalking\n\nWalking is a popular recreational activity in London. Areas that provide for walks include Wimbledon Common, Epping Forest, Hampton Court Park, Hampstead Heath, the eight Royal Parks, canals and disused railway tracks. Access to canals and rivers has improved recently, including the creation of the Thames Path, some 28 mi of which is within Greater London, and The Wandle Trail; this runs 12 mi through South London along the River Wandle, a tributary of the River Thames. Other long distance paths, linking green spaces, have also been created, including the Capital Ring, the Green Chain Walk, London Outer Orbital Path (\"Loop\"), Jubilee Walkway, Lea Valley Walk, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk. \n\nSport\n\nLondon has hosted the Summer Olympics three times: in 1908, 1948, and 2012. It was chosen in July 2005 to host the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, making it the first city to host the modern Games three times. The city was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934. In 2017 London will host the World Championships in Athletics. \n\nLondon's most popular sport is football and it has fourteen Football League clubs, including five in the Premier League: Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United. Other professional teams in London are Fulham, Queens Park Rangers, Brentford, Millwall, Charlton Athletic, AFC Wimbledon, Barnet and Leyton Orient. In 2012, Chelsea became the first London club to win the UEFA Champions League. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham are the only London clubs to have won the League.\n\nFrom 1924, the original Wembley Stadium was the home of the English national football team.\nIt hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, with England defeating West Germany, and served as the venue for the FA Cup Final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final. The new Wembley Stadium serves exactly the same purposes and has a capacity of 90,000. \n\nThree Aviva Premiership rugby union teams are based in London, (London Irish, Saracens, and Harlequins), although currently only Harlequins and Saracens play their home games within Greater London. London Scottish and London Welsh play in the RFU Championship club and other rugby union clubs in the city include Richmond F.C., Rosslyn Park F.C., Westcombe Park R.F.C. and Blackheath F.C.. Twickenham Stadium in south-west London is the national rugby union stadium, and has a capacity of 82,000 now that the new south stand has been completed. \n\nWhile rugby league is more popular in the north of England, there are two professional rugby league clubs in London – the second tier Championship One team, the London Broncos, who play at the Trailfinders Sports Ground in West Ealing, and the third tier League 1 team, the London Skolars from Wood Green, Haringey; in addition, Hemel Stags from Hemel Hempstead north of London also play in League 1.\n\nOne of London's best-known annual sports competitions is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, held at the All England Club in the south-western suburb of Wimbledon. Played in late June to early July, it is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious. \n\nLondon has two Test cricket grounds, Lord's (home of Middlesex C.C.C.) in St John's Wood and the Oval (home of Surrey C.C.C.) in Kennington. Lord's has hosted four finals of the Cricket World Cup. Other key events are the annual mass-participation London Marathon, in which some 35,000 runners attempt a course around the city, and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake."
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What did Clarice Cliff create?
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"Clarice Cliff (20 January 1899 – 23 October 1972) was an English ceramic artist active from 1922 to 1963. She began as an apprentice potter. By reason of her talent and ability, she became a ceramic artist, becoming the head of the factory artistic department.\n\nEarly life \n\nThe Cliff family moved to Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, from the Eccleshall area in about 1725. Cliff was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, England. When Clarice was born their home was on Meir Street on a terrace of modest houses. Cliff's father Harry worked at the local iron foundry in Tunstall, her mother Ann took in washing to supplement the family income, and they had seven children.Wentworth-Sheilds Peter, Johnson Kay: Clarice Cliff, L'Odeon publishing 1976/1981 \n\nCliff was sent to a different school from her siblings, and this perhaps prompted her more independent approach to her career, and her non-standard life style by Stoke-on-Trent standards. After school Cliff would visit aunts who were hand painters at a local pottery company, and she also made models from papier-mâché at school. \n\nAt the age of 13, Cliff started working in the pottery industry. Her first work was as a gilder, adding gold lines on ware of traditional design. Once she had mastered this she changed jobs to learn freehand painting at another potbank, at the same time studying art and sculpture at the Burslem School of Art in the evenings.\n\nEarly career\n\nIn 1916,Cliff made the rather unusual decision to move to the factory of A.J. Wilkinson at Newport, Burslem, to improve her career opportunities. This necessitated a lengthy journey to work. This was an unusual start to an unusual career; most young women in the Staffordshire Potteries were on 'apprentice wages', and having mastered a particular task, stayed with that to maximise their income. However, Cliff was ambitious and acquired skills in modelling figurines and vases, gilding, keeping pattern books and hand painting ware: outlining, enamelling (filling in colours within the outline) and banding (the radial bands on plates or vessels). In the early 1920s her immediate boss Jack Walker brought Cliff to the attention of one of the two factory owners, Colley Shorter, who managed it with his brother Guy. Colley Shorter was 17 years older than Cliff, and as well as playing a major role in nurturing her skills and ideas, he was later to be her husband.\n\nCliff was given a second apprenticeship at A. J. Wilkinson's in 1924 (when she was already 25 years old) primarily as a 'modeller' but she also worked with the factory designers John Butler and Fred Ridgway. They produced conservative, Victorian style ware – Butler had been the designer for over 20 years by this time. Eventually, Cliff's wide range of skills were recognised and in 1927 she was given her own studio at the adjoining Newport Pottery which Shorter had bought in 1920. Here Cliff was allowed to decorate some of the old defective 'glost' (white) ware in her own freehand patterns. For these she used on-glaze enamel colours, which enabled a brighter palette than underglaze colours. \n\nShe covered the imperfections in simple patterns of triangles, in a style that she called 'Bizarre'. The earliest examples had just a hand-painted mark, usually in a rust coloured paint, 'Bizarre by Clarice Cliff', sometimes with 'Newport Pottery' underneath. To the surprise of the company's senior salesman Ewart Oakes, when he took a car load to a major stockist, it was immediately popular. Clarice was joined by young painter Gladys Scarlett, who helped her with the ware, and soon a more professional 'backstamp' was made, which carried Cliff's facsimile signature, and proclaimed Hand painted Bizarre by Clarice Cliff, Newport Pottery England. \n\nThis backstamp was in fact to lead to Bizarre being used as an umbrella name for her entire pattern range, so that the factory then had to refer to the first pieces in the simple triangles as Original Bizarre.\n\nIn March 1927 Colley Shorter (who acted very independently of his brother, Guy), sent Cliff to the Royal College of Art in Kensington, London for two brief periods of study in March and May. These dates are recorded in the Royal College of Art archive and were also remembered by Gladys Scarlett (in 1982 ) as she was briefly left alone at Newport to paint the new 'Bizarre' ware.\n\nFrom 1927 Cliff was actually credited for shapes she designed, such as her Viking Boat flower holder, though her modelling for the factory is recorded in trade journal as far back as 1923–24. The shapes from 1929 onwards took on a more 'Moderne' influence, often angular and geometric, and some are what was to be later termed Art Deco. Abstract and cubist patterns appeared on these shapes, such as the 1929 Ravel (seen on Cliff's Conical shape ware) which was an abstract leaf and flower pattern named after the composer. The image shows a Conical coffee pot, and sugar bowl and cream with four triangular feet, another of Cliff's rather Bizarre shape ideas which proved popular with 1930s customers. Ravel was to be produced between 1929 and at least as late as 1935.\n\nIn 1928 Clarice produced a simple, hand painted pattern of Crocus flowers in orange, blue and purple, each flower being constructed with confident upward strokes. Then green leaves were added by holding the piece upside down and painting thin lines amongst the flowers. Being made from the individual brushstrokes, the Crocus pattern was clearly completely hand-painted, and the vibrant colours instantly attracted large sales. \n\nInitially, Clarice had just one young decorator produce Crocus, Ethel Barrow. But as orders flooded in by 1930 a separate decorating 'shop' was established underneath the top floor of the building which housed the 'Bizarre' shop, and Ethel became responsible for training young painters how to do the pattern. Twenty young women painted nothing but Crocus 5½ days a week, for much of the 1930s. Crocus was unusual in that it was produced on both tableware, tea and coffeeware, and 'fancies', novelty items made primarily as gift ware. The pattern had many colour variations, including Purple Crocus (1932) Blue Crocus (1935), Sungleam Crocus (1935) Spring Crocus. It was even produced after the war, the final pieces with Clarice Cliff marks being made in 1963, though Midwinter (who bought the factory) continued to paint it to order until as late as 1968. \n\nBy 1929, Cliff's team of decorators had grown to a team of around 70 young painters, mainly women (called her 'Bizarre girls') but also four boys – who hand painted the ware under her direction. Many of these workers were traced in the 1980s and 1990s and they totalled over 100. Their names and work for Clarice Cliff were recorded in the centenary book. \n\nThe factory produced a series of small colour printed leaflets (quite unusual for this time) which could be obtained by post, or picked up from stockists. This promotional device was clearly successful, as one young girl was employed whose only job was to put the leaflets in stamped addressed envelopes sent into the factory. At this time, many women would buy pottery by 'mail order' from advertising in magazines. The series of leaflets, each of which covered a range of pieces in a similar style or set of colours, included ones for Bizarre, Fantasque, Delecia, Appliqué, Inspiration, Crocus & Gayday and others. The original leaflet for the Appliqué patterns featured just two, Lucerne and Lugano, but Cliff's prolific ability to design new patterns is witnessed by the fact that by 1932 the Appliqué range had 14 patterns: with Avignon, Windmill, Red Tree, Idyll, Palermo, Blossom, Caravan, Bird of Paradise, Etna, Garden, Eden and Monsoon in addition to the original two. The Appliqué Lugano pattern is shown left on a 10 in wall plaque, with (inset) the printed Bizarre mark, and a hand painted range name as often seen on this ware. Appliqué, with its more intense colouring, proved long term to be one of the most sought after Cliff ranges.\n\nThe Fantasque range evolved between 1928 and 1934 and mainly featured abstracts or landscapes of cottages and trees, and some Art Deco inspired patterns. The first Fantasque landscape pattern was Trees and House and this sold well from 1930 until at least 1934. However, it was the slightly later, more sophisticated Autumn pattern issued near the end of 1930 which was to prove the most adaptable and popular. Originally created in red (coral) green and black in 1930, from 1931 many colourway variations appeared. The rarest remains the red colourway, shown on a 13 in wall plaque, but the best selling version at the time was one with the trees in blue green and yellow. All these variations have proven particularly collectible.\n\nThe 1930s\n\nIn 1930, Cliff was appointed Art Director to Newport Pottery and A. J. Wilkinson, the two adjoining factories that produced her wares. Her work involved spending more time with the Colley Shorter, and this gradually developed into an affair, conducted in secrecy. The couple worked closely together on creating awareness of 'Bizarre ware' to catch the attention of buyers in the middle of a major financial depression, and with a skilful eye and great foresight, Colley Shorter registered Clarice's name and even some of her shapes. It was her ability to design both patterns and also the shapes they were to go on that distinguished Cliff above any other designers in the Staffordshire Potteries at this time. Her first modelling in the mid 20s was of stylised figures, people, ducks, the floral embossed Davenport ware of 1925. But in 1929 at the same time as she started the colourful cubist and landscape designs, Cliff's modelling took on a new style. This was influenced by European originals by Désny, Tétard Freres, Josef Hoffmann and others, that she had seen in design journals including 'Mobilier e Décoration'. \n\nBetween 1929 and 1935 Cliff issued a mass of shape ranges, including Conical, Bon Jour/Biarritz, Stamford, Eton, Daffodil, and Trieste. In each of these there were tea and coffee ware shapes, but the first two were so popular that biscuit barrels, sugar sifters, bowls and vases were issued to enlarge the range. Bon Jour had 20 shapes created during 1933, with about 10 more being added in 1934. There were also many other innovatively shaped vases, bowls and 'fancies', such as the Liner vase, Flower tube vase and the (now rare) Lido Lady ashtray and Age of Jazz musicians and dancers. \n\nThrough the depths of the Depression Cliff's wares continued to sell in volume at what were high prices for the time. Her Bizarre and Fantasque ware was sold throughout North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, but not in mainland Europe. In Britain many top London stores sold it, including Harrods. Some of the other London stockists have long since closed, but the list is impressive: 'Maple & Co., Lawley's, Bon Marche, John Lewis Peter Robinson, Selfridges, John Barker & Co., Warring & Gillow and Gorringe's'. However, the extant order books of the period confirm that Bizarre ware was never sold at Woolworths as some have erroneously stated. \n\nFurther outrageous patterns, vividly coloured, such as Melon and Circle Tree appeared in 1930. Cliff devised many ways of marketing these; in-store painting demonstrations, for which Cliff chose just the prettiest of her painters and most famously she and Shorter had the idea to actually pay major 1930s celebrities to endorse the ware. This was done both in magazine articles and by appearances at large stores. The celebrities included 'actresses Adrienne Allen, Marion Lorne, Marie Tempest, the BBC presenter Christopher Stone, musical comedy star Bobby Howes '. Even Sir Malcolm Campbell who had just broken the world land speed record appeared at a promotion at the First Avenue Hotel, London in 1930.\n\nCliff's worldwide impact was made clear by a story in the 'Pasadena Evening Post' in California. It pictured her with a five-foot-high 'horse' made entirely of Bizarre ware which had been made to promote the ware in Britain. It was in this article, that Cliff made what has become her most famous quote: Having a little fun at my work does not make me any less of an artist, and people who appreciate truly beautiful and original creations in pottery are not frightened by innocent tomfoolery \n\nBetween 1932 and 1934 Cliff was the art director for a major project involving nearly 30 artists of the day (prompted by the Prince of Wales) to promote good design on tableware. The 'Artists in Industry' earthenware examples were produced under her direction, and the artists included such notable names as Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Vanessa Bell, and Dame Laura Knight. The project 'Modern Art for the Table' was launched at Harrods London in October 1934 but received a mixed response from both the public and the press, though at the same time Cliff's own patterns and shapes were selling in large quantities around the world. \n\nCliff's patterns are highly stylised and interpreted in strong colours, such as the 1933 Honolulu pattern. The trees are enamelled in red (coral) orange and yellow. Cliff produced a colourway variation on this by simply changing the trees to shades of blue and pink, and this was then called Rudyard after a local Staffordshire beauty spot.\n\nClarice Cliff's fame and success in the 1930s are hard to fully appreciate now, but at that time there was no such thing as 'career women'. The publicity she received in the national press was unprecedented. Research by a PhD student into the contemporary press between 1928 and 1936 found '360 articles about Cliff and her work were published in the trade press, women's magazines, national and local newspapers'. This was put into context when he pointed out that in the same period, Susie Cooper, another Staffordshire ceramicist and designer, had 'fewer than 20 reviews, all bar one in the trade press' . \n\nDespite all the publicity she received, Cliff was actually quite camera shy, and in most cases the images of her pottery were what dominated the women's magazine of the day. One picture which shows Cliff informally was taken when a South African stockist of her ware, from Werner Brothers, visited the factory on a buying trip. Cliff is seen with the 3-year-old daughter and wife of the stockist. After the visit Cliff sent the daughter a present of a miniature child's tea set painted in her Honolulu pattern. \n\nIn the mid 30s tastes changed and heavily modelled ware came into vogue. The My Garden series issued from 1934 onwards led the way, with small flowers modelled as a handle or base on more rounded shapes. These were fully painted in bright colours – the body of the ware was covered in thin colour washes – 'Verdant' was green, 'Sunrise' yellow and so on. The range included vases, bowls, jugs, a biscuit barrel, and proved very popular as gift ware. It was produced in more muted colours, right until the start of the war in 1939.\n\nOther modelled shapes included the 1937 'Raffia' based on traditional basketware by Native Americans, decorated in a similar style to them with small blocks of colour. More popular was the heavily modelled Harvest ware, jugs and bowls modelled with corn and fruit. After the war this range was heavily marketed in North America (very patriotically) as England. This later modelled ware attracts relatively low prices at auction.\n\nThe 1940s\n\nIn 1940, after the death of Ann Shorter, Colley's wife, he married Cliff and she moved into his home Chetwynd House at Clayton, Staffordshire. This Arts and Crafts home had been designed in 1899 and was one of the earliest commissions of the British architects Parker and Unwin (Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin) who were later heavily involved in the Welwyn Garden city project. \n\nDuring World War II only plain white pottery (utility ware) was permitted under wartime regulations, so Cliff assisted with management of the pottery but was not able to continue design work. Instead she concentrated her creative talents on gardening and the massive 4 acre garden at Chetwynd House became her shared passion with Shorter. \n\nAfter the war, although Cliff was occasionally nostalgic for the 'Bizarre' years, as witnessed in personal letters to friends, she seemed to be realistic and accepted the commercial taste was for conservative ware. Clarice seemed to enjoy playing a lesser role at the factory, knowing that she could not recapture those crazy days of the thirties. Much of the post-war production went to Australia, New Zealand or North America, where the taste was for formal ware in traditional English designs such as Tonquin rather than the striking patterns and shapes that had established Cliff's reputation; thus she was never to return to creative work. The post-war ware has little value at auction.\n\nLater life\n\nA.J.Wilkinson and their Newport Pottery continued to sell ware under Cliff's name until 1964. The death of Colley Shorter in 1963 led Cliff to sell the factory to Midwinter in 1964 and she retired, becoming somewhat of a recluse. However, from December 1971 to January 1972, the first exhibition of Clarice Cliff pottery took place at Brighton, East Sussex. Cliff reluctantly provided comments for the catalogue, though she refused an invitation to go to the opening. The exhibition was prompted by enthusiastic collectors, including Martin Battersby, an early devotee of 20s and 30s design, the first author on that period to publish major works, and a devotee of Cliff's ceramics. Then, on 23 October 1972, Cliff died suddenly at Chetwynd House.\n\nRevival of interest in her work\n\nThe exhibition and the first book published privately in 1976 'Clarice Cliff' by Peter Wentworth- and Kay Johnson (L'Odeon publishing) marked the start of a major revival of interest in Cliff's work, which has continued to be sought after by Art Deco ceramic collectors ever since. \n\nIn 1982 the ORIGINAL Clarice Cliff Collectors Club was formed and promoted her and her work throughout the world. The club founder had appealed in the Staffordshire Evening Sentinel for anyone who worked with Cliff to contact him and was delighted when he found 28 former workers. Still calling themselves the 'Bizarre girls' even in their mid 70s and early 80s Cliff's former painters were delighted in the interest in the pottery they had hand painted 50 years earlier. They attended the annual meetings of the club, and were to be involved in many television and radio programmes about Cliff, and a mass of books that appeared. Many of their memories were recorded in the CCCC Reviews from 1982 to 2004. The club also held meetings and exhibitions in Britain, North America, Australia and New Zealand.\n\nThe Stoke-on-Trent meetings visited the old painting shop of Bizarre ware by the canal at Newport, Burslem from 1987 to 1997, ironically the only building left standing on the site. Sadly it was demolished by Wedgwood in 1997, and the land sold for housing. \n\nA chain of mergers had led to Wedgwood owning the Clarice Cliff name, and from 1992 to 2002 they produced a range of reproductions of the highly sought 1930s pieces. These were made to a high quality, and were produced in small numbers for sale to collectors who could not find (or perhaps could not afford) the most striking original pieces.\n\nThe first pieces produced included a ginger jar in House and Bridge, a large shape 14 vase in Solitude, a Stamford shape teapot milk and sugar in Pink Roof Cottage, a Conical bowl in Tennis, and a wall plaque in Lightning. From 1996 to 2002 pieces were made for CCCC members and these were also sold at major Wedgwood rooms. The hand painted pieces ceased production in 2002 but ware with printed (not hand painted) patterns were made in larger quantities by Wedgwood during and after this time. These reproductions should not be confused with forgeries (of which a number are found), the Wedgwood ones are clearly marked as 'Wedgwood Clarice Cliff'. An original Cliff painter Alice Andrews, then in her 80s, was employed to appear at launches of the ware in stores throughout Britain. \n\nStatus as an artist\n\nIn the mid 90s Cliff's position as a major artist of her era was confirmed when she was included in major international reference works; the massive Dictionary of Art by Macmillan Publishers, and Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon by K. G. Saur Verlag . \n\nThe work of the CCCC culminated with the centenary exhibition 'Clarice Cliff the Art of Bizarre' at the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston Stoke-on-Trent. Nowadays, with 26 years of experience the club is based on the internet (see below). It should not be confused with an organisation who used the same name from 2001 after registering it in 1997. The CCCC was then the consultant for the BBC Radio 4 drama 'The Bizarre Girl', written by Lizzie Slater which was described as 'an uplifting drama exploring the dramatic rise of Clarice Cliff from the shop floor to Company Art Director ~ illustrating how a working-class Staffordshire girl brought modern art to the people'. The drama was broadcast in December 2000. \n\nCollecting Clarice\n\nIn 2002 Peter Wentworth- and Kay Johnson, the authors of the original 'Clarice Cliff' book from 1976 returned to Britain to lecture at a CCCC event at Christie's, South Kensington. They spoke about the early days of collecting when their first purchase had been, 'a Summerhouse Athens jug for 7 shillings and 6 pence, 35 pence'. Peter had actually spoken to Cliff on the phone, but she had declined to be interviewed. They revealed that they had both been working for Stanley Kubrick when they wrote their book; Kay was Kubrick's personal assistant, and as set designer Peter had been able to decorate a room in A Clockwork Orange with a frieze he has designed based on original landscapes by Cliff.\n \nThe collecting market for Clarice Cliff pottery is complex; it is still possible to find examples of Crocus, Cliff's longest produced pattern (1928–1964) for as little as £30–50. But rare combinations of shape and pattern attract very high prices at auction. The world record price for a piece of Clarice Cliff is held by Christie's, South Kensington, London, who sold an 18 in 'charger' (wall plaque) in the May Avenue pattern for £39,500 in 2004. Shortly after this the same auction house sold an 8 in vase in Sunspots for £20,000. \n\nIn 2008, Cliff's pottery continued to prove both sought after and esteemed. Despite the financial depression collectors still paid high prices for special pieces. In Britain, Bonhams, London sold a 'Triple Bonjour' vase in Blue Firs for £6000.\n\nA rare Red Autumn shape 369 vase sold for £4900 at Fielding's auctioneers, Stourbridge in the West Midlands, and Woolley and Wallis auctioneers Salisbury sold a 3 in high miniature vase in Café (used as a salesman's sample in the 1930s) for a staggering £3000. In May 2009 an eighteen inch charger in the May Avenue pattern sold for £20,500 at Fielding's auctioneers. \n\nOn 2 August 2009 Will Farmer of the BBC Antiques Roadshow and members of the original Clarice Cliff Collectors Club unveiled three plaques commemorating Clarice Cliff's life and work in the Potteries. These were on her birthplace, Meir Street, Tunstall, her second home on Edwards Street, Tunstall and the site of Newport Pottery by the canal in Burslem where her Bizarre ware was decorated. These were filmed by BBC television for showing on a special Antiques Roadshow programme in December 2009. \n\nIn September 2009 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened its 'New Ceramics Galleries' and Cliff's work was chosen to be included; 'There will be two rooms displaying 20th-century collections. One will show ceramics made in a factory context and will include objects by designers such as Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff' ."
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Which James Bond film features a song by Louis Armstrong?
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tc_104
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelizations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.\n\nThe character has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games and film. The films are the longest continually running and the third-highest-grossing film series to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of , there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Spectre (2015), stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond; he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also been two independent productions of Bond films: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball).\n\nThe Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond's cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch. The films are also noted for Bond's relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as \"Bond girls\".\n\nPublication history\n\nCreation and inspiration\n\nAs the central figure for his works, Ian Fleming created the fictional character of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander.\n\nFleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, admitting that Bond \"was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war\". Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war. Aside from Fleming's brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond's make up, including Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill \"Biffy\" Dunderdale.\n\nThe name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that \"It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born\". He further explained that:\n\nOn another occasion, Fleming said: \"I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.\"\n\nFleming decided that Bond should resemble both American singer Hoagy Carmichael and himself and in Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd remarks, \"Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless.\" Likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is \"certainly good-looking ... Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.\"\n\nFleming also endowed Bond with many of his own traits, including sharing the same golf handicap, the taste for scrambled eggs and using the same brand of toiletries. Bond's tastes are also often taken from Fleming's own as was his behaviour, with Bond's love of golf and gambling mirroring Fleming's own. Fleming used his experiences of his espionage career and all other aspects of his life as inspiration when writing, including using names of school friends, acquaintances, relatives and lovers throughout his books.\n\nIt was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice, that Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background. The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Sean Connery's depiction of Bond affected Fleming's interpretation of the character, to give Bond both a sense of humour and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories. In a fictional obituary, purportedly published in The Times, Bond's parents were given as Andrew Bond, from the village of Glencoe, Scotland, and Monique Delacroix, from the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Fleming did not provide Bond's date of birth, but John Pearson's fictional biography of Bond, James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, gives Bond a birth date on 11 November 1920, while a study by John Griswold puts the date at 11 November 1921.\n\nNovels and related works\n\nIan Fleming novels\n\nWhilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming had planned to become an author and had told a friend, \"I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories.\" On 17 February 1952, he began writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he wrote all his Bond novels during the months of January and February each year. He started the story shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, in order to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials.\n\nAfter completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming showed the manuscript to his friend (and later editor) William Plomer to read. Plomer liked it and submitted it to the publishers, Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming's older brother Peter, an established travel writer. Between 1953 and 1966, two years after his death, twelve novels and two short-story collections were published, with the last two books – The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights – published posthumously. All the books were published in the UK through Jonathan Cape.\n\nPost-Fleming novels\n\nAfter Fleming's death a continuation novel, Colonel Sun, was written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) and published in 1968. Amis had already written a literary study of Fleming's Bond novels in his 1965 work The James Bond Dossier. Although novelizations of two of the Eon Productions Bond films appeared in print, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker, both written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, the series of novels did not continue until the 1980s. In 1981 the thriller writer John Gardner picked up the series with Licence Renewed. Gardner went on to write sixteen Bond books in total; two of the books he wrote – Licence to Kill and GoldenEye – were novelizations of Eon Productions films of the same name. Gardner moved the Bond series into the 1980s, although he retained the ages of the characters as they were when Fleming had left them. In 1996 Gardner retired from writing James Bond books due to ill health. \n\nIn 1996 the American author Raymond Benson became the author of the Bond novels. Benson had previously been the author of The James Bond Bedside Companion, first published in 1984. \nBy the time he moved on to other, non-Bond related projects in 2002, Benson had written six Bond novels, three novelizations and three short stories. \n\nAfter a gap of six years, Sebastian Faulks was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel, which was released on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth. The book—titled Devil May Care—was published in the UK by Penguin Books and by Doubleday in the US. American writer Jeffery Deaver was then commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to produce Carte Blanche, which was published on 26 May 2011. The book updated Bond into a post-9/11 agent, independent of MI5 or MI6. On 26 September 2013 Solo, written by William Boyd, was published, set in 1969. In October 2014 it was announced that Anthony Horowitz was to write a Bond continuation novel. Set in the 1950s two weeks after the events of Goldfinger, it contains material written, but previously unreleased, by Fleming. Trigger Mortis was released on 8 September 2015. \n\nYoung Bond\n\nThe Young Bond series of novels was started by Charlie Higson and, between 2005 and 2009, five novels and one short story were published. The first Young Bond novel, SilverFin was also adapted and released as a graphic novel on 2 October 2008 by Puffin Books. In October 2013 Ian Fleming Publications announced that Stephen Cole would continue the series, with the first edition scheduled to be released in Autumn 2014. \n\nThe Moneypenny Diaries\n\nThe Moneypenny Diaries are a trilogy of novels chronicling the life of Miss Moneypenny, M's personal secretary. The novels are penned by Samantha Weinberg under the pseudonym Kate Westbrook, who is depicted as the book's \"editor\". The first instalment of the trilogy, subtitled Guardian Angel, was released on 10 October 2005 in the UK. A second volume, subtitled Secret Servant was released on 2 November 2006 in the UK, published by John Murray. A third volume, subtitled Final Fling was released on 1 May 2008. \n\nAdaptations\n\nTelevision\n\nIn 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) to adapt his novel Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure as part of its Climax! series. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson as \"Card Sense\" James Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The novel was adapted for American audiences to show Bond as an American agent working for \"Combined Intelligence\", while the character Felix Leiter—American in the novel—became British onscreen and was renamed \"Clarence Leiter\".\n\nIn 1973 a BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing a number of such title characters (e.g. Richard Hannay and Bulldog Drummond). The documentary included James Bond in dramatised scenes from\nGoldfinger—notably featuring 007 being threatened with the novel's circular saw, rather than the film's laser beam—and Diamonds Are Forever. In 1991 a TV cartoon series James Bond Jr. was produced with Corey Burton in the role of Bond's nephew, also called James Bond. \n\nRadio\n\nIn 1956 the novel Moonraker was adapted for broadcast on South African radio, with Bob Holness providing the voice of Bond. According to The Independent, \"listeners across the Union thrilled to Bob's cultured tones as he defeated evil master criminals in search of world domination\". \n\nThe BBC have adapted five of the Fleming novels for broadcast: in 1990 You Only Live Twice was adapted into a 90-minute radio play for BBC Radio 4 with Michael Jayston playing James Bond. The production was repeated a number of times between 2008 and 2011. On 24 May 2008 BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of Dr. No. The actor Toby Stephens, who played Bond villain Gustav Graves in the Eon Productions version of Die Another Day, played Bond, while Dr. No was played by David Suchet. Following its success, a second story was adapted and on 3 April 2010 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Goldfinger with Stephens again playing Bond. Sir Ian McKellen was Goldfinger and Stephens' Die Another Day co-star Rosamund Pike played Pussy Galore. The play was adapted from Fleming's novel by Archie Scottney and was directed by Martin Jarvis. \nIn 2012 the novel From Russia, with Love was dramatized for Radio 4; it featured a full cast again starring Stephens as Bond. In May 2014 Stephens again played Bond, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with Alfred Molina as Blofeld, and Joanna Lumley as Irma Bunt. \n\nComics medium\n\nIn 1957 the Daily Express approached Ian Fleming to adapt his stories into comic strips, offering him £1,500 per novel and a share of takings from syndication. After initial reluctance, Fleming, who felt the strips would lack the quality of his writing, agreed. To aid the Daily Express in illustrating Bond, Fleming commissioned an artist to create a sketch of how he believed James Bond looked. The illustrator, John McLusky, however, felt that Fleming's 007 looked too \"outdated\" and \"pre-war\" and changed Bond to give him a more masculine look. The first strip, Casino Royale was published from 7 July 1958 to 13 December 1958 and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky.\n\nMost of the Bond novels and short stories have since been adapted for illustration, as well as Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun; the works were written by Henry Gammidge or Jim Lawrence with Yaroslav Horak replacing McClusky as artist in 1966. After the Fleming and Amis material had been adapted, original stories were produced, continuing in the Daily Express and Sunday Express until May 1977.\n\nSeveral comic book adaptations of the James Bond films have been published through the years: at the time of Dr. No's release in October 1962, a comic book adaptation of the screenplay, written by Norman J. Nodel, was published in Britain as part of the Classics Illustrated anthology series. It was later reprinted in the United States by DC Comics as part of its Showcase anthology series, in January 1963. This was the first American comic book appearance of James Bond and is noteworthy for being a relatively rare example of a British comic being reprinted in a fairly high-profile American comic. It was also one of the earliest comics to be censored on racial grounds (some skin tones and dialogue were changed for the American market). \n\nWith the release of the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only, Marvel Comics published a two-issue comic book adaptation of the film. When Octopussy was released in the cinemas in 1983, Marvel published an accompanying comic; Eclipse also produced a one-off comic for Licence to Kill, although Timothy Dalton refused to allow his likeness to be used. New Bond stories were also drawn up and published from 1989 onwards through Marvel, Eclipse Comics and Dark Horse Comics.\n\nFilms\n\nThe Eon Productions films\n\nIn 1962 Eon Productions, the company of Canadian Harry Saltzman and American Albert R. \"Cubby\" Broccoli, released the first cinema adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, Dr. No, featuring Sean Connery as 007. Connery starred in a further four films before leaving the role after You Only Live Twice, which was taken up by George Lazenby for On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Lazenby left the role after just one appearance and Connery was tempted back for his last Eon-produced film Diamonds Are Forever.\n\nIn 1973 Roger Moore was appointed to the role of 007 for Live and Let Die and played Bond a further six times over twelve years before being replaced by Timothy Dalton for two films. After a six-year hiatus, during which a legal wrangle threatened Eon's productions of the Bond films, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was cast as Bond in GoldenEye, released in 1995; he remained in the role for a total of four films, before leaving in 2002. In 2006, Daniel Craig was given the role of Bond for Casino Royale, which rebooted the series. The twenty-third Eon produced film, Skyfall, was released on 26 October 2012. The series has grossed almost $7 billion to date, making it the third-highest-grossing film series (behind Harry Potter and the Marvel Cinematic Universe), and the single most successful adjusted for inflation. \n\nNon-Eon films\n\nIn 1967 Casino Royale was adapted into a parody Bond film starring David Niven as Sir James Bond and Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd. Niven had been Fleming's preference for the role of Bond. The result of a court case in the High Court in London in 1963 allowed Kevin McClory to produce a remake of Thunderball titled Never Say Never Again in 1983. The film, produced by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm production company and starring Sean Connery as Bond, was not part of the Eon series of Bond films. In 1997 the Sony Corporation acquired all or some of McClory's rights in an undisclosed deal, which were then subsequently acquired by MGM, whilst on 4 December 1997, MGM announced that the company had purchased the rights to Never Say Never Again from Taliafilm. As at 2015 Eon holds the full adaptation rights to all of Fleming's Bond novels. \n\nMusic\n\nThe \"James Bond Theme\" was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962's Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years. In 2001, Norman won £30,000 in libel damages from the The Sunday Times newspaper, which suggested that Barry was entirely responsible for the composition. The theme, as written by Norman and arranged by Barry, was described by another Bond film composer, David Arnold, as \"bebop-swing vibe coupled with that vicious, dark, distorted electric guitar, definitely an instrument of rock 'n' roll ... it represented everything about the character you would want: It was cocky, swaggering, confident, dark, dangerous, suggestive, sexy, unstoppable. And he did it in two minutes.\" Barry composed the scores for eleven Bond films and had an uncredited contribution to Dr. No with his arrangement of the Bond Theme.\n\nA Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers. Several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney's \"Live and Let Die\", Carly Simon's \"Nobody Does It Better\", Sheena Easton's \"For Your Eyes Only\", Adele's \"Skyfall\", and Sam Smith's \"Writing's on the Wall\". Adele won the award at the 85th Academy Awards, and Smith won at the 88th Academy Awards. For the non-Eon produced Casino Royale, Burt Bacharach's score included \"The Look of Love\", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. \n\nVideo games\n\nIn 1983 the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64 and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines. In 1997 the first-person shooter video game GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64, based on the 1995 Pierce Brosnan film GoldenEye. The game received very positive reviews, won the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for UK Developer of the Year in 1998 and sold over eight million copies worldwide, grossing $250 million. \n\nIn 1999 Electronic Arts acquired the licence and released Tomorrow Never Dies on 16 December 1999. In October 2000, they released The World Is Not Enough for the Nintendo 64 followed by 007 Racing for the PlayStation on 21 November 2000. In 2003, the company released James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, which included the likenesses and voices of Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Judi Dench and John Cleese, amongst others. In November 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of 007: From Russia with Love, which involved Sean Connery's image and voice-over for Bond. In 2006 Electronic Arts announced a game based on then-upcoming film Casino Royale: the game was cancelled because it would not be ready by the film's release in November of that year. With MGM losing revenue from lost licensing fees, the franchise was removed from EA to Activision. Activision subsequently released the 007: Quantum of Solace game on 31 October 2008, based on the film of the same name. \n\nA new version of GoldenEye 007 featuring Daniel Craig was released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and a handheld version for the Nintendo DS in November 2010. A year later another new version was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 under the title GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. In October 2012 007 Legends was released, which featured one mission from each of the Bond actors of the Eon Productions' series. \n\nGuns, vehicles and gadgets\n\nGuns\n\nFor the first five novels, Fleming armed Bond with a Beretta 418 until he received a letter from a thirty-one-year-old Bond enthusiast and gun expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd, criticising Fleming's choice of firearm for Bond, calling it \"a lady's gun – and not a very nice lady at that!\" Boothroyd suggested that Bond should swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK 7.65mm and this exchange of arms made it to Dr. No. Boothroyd also gave Fleming advice on the Berns-Martin triple draw shoulder holster and a number of the weapons used by SMERSH and other villains. In thanks, Fleming gave the MI6 Armourer in his novels the name Major Boothroyd and, in Dr. No, M introduces him to Bond as \"the greatest small-arms expert in the world\". Bond also used a variety of rifles, including the Savage Model 99 in \"For Your Eyes Only\" and a Winchester .308 target rifle in \"The Living Daylights\". Other handguns used by Bond in the Fleming books included the Colt Detective Special and a long-barrelled Colt .45 Army Special.\n\nThe first Bond film, Dr. No, saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. In Tomorrow Never Dies and the two subsequent films, Bond's main weapon was the Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol.\n\nVehicles\n\nIn the early Bond stories Fleming gave Bond a battleship-grey Bentley 4½ Litre with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. After Bond's car was written off by Hugo Drax in Moonraker, Fleming gave Bond a Mark II Continental Bentley, which he used in the remaining books of the series. During Goldfinger, Bond was issued with an Aston Martin DB Mark III with a homing device, which he used to track Goldfinger across France. Bond returned to his Bentley for the subsequent novels.\n\nThe Bond of the films has driven a number of cars, including the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, during the 1980s, the V12 Vanquish and DBS during the 2000s, as well as the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. He has, however, also needed to drive a number of other vehicles, ranging from a Citroën 2CV to a Routemaster Bus, amongst others.\n\nBond's most famous car is the silver grey Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later featured in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Skyfall. The films have used a number of different Aston Martins for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in the US for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. \n\nGadgets\n\nFleming's novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as the booby-trapped attaché case in From Russia with Love, although this situation changed dramatically with the films. However, the effects of the two Eon-produced Bond films Dr. No and From Russia with Love had an effect on the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, through the increased number of devices used in Fleming's final story.\n\nFor the film adaptations of Bond, the pre-mission briefing by Q Branch became one of the motifs that ran through the series. Dr. No provided no spy-related gadgets, but a Geiger counter was used; industrial designer Andy Davey observed that the first ever onscreen spy-gadget was the attaché case shown in From Russia with Love, which he described as \"a classic 007 product\". The gadgets assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film's success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond, although the increased use of technology led to an accusation that Bond was over-reliant on equipment, particularly in the later films.\n\nDavey noted that \"Bond's gizmos follow the zeitgeist more closely than any other ... nuance in the films\" as they moved from the potential representations of the future in the early films, through to the brand-name obsessions of the later films. It is also noticeable that, although Bond uses a number of pieces of equipment from Q Branch, including the Little Nellie autogyro, a jet pack and the exploding attaché case, the villains are also well-equipped with custom-made devices, including Scaramanga's golden gun, Rosa Klebb's poison-tipped shoes, Oddjob's steel-rimmed bowler hat and Blofeld's communication devices in his agents' vanity case.\n\nCultural impact\n\nCinematically, Bond has been a major influence within the spy genre since the release of Dr. No in 1962, with 22 secret agent films released in 1966 alone attempting to capitalise on the Bond franchise's popularity and success. The first parody was the 1964 film Carry On Spying, which shows the villain Dr. Crow being overcome by agents who included James Bind (Charles Hawtry) and Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor). One of the films that reacted against the portrayal of Bond was the Harry Palmer series, whose first film, The Ipcress File was released in 1965. The eponymous hero of the series was what academic Jeremy Packer called an \"anti-Bond\", or what Christoph Lindner calls \"the thinking man's Bond\". The Palmer series were produced by Harry Saltzman, who also used key crew members from the Bond series, including designer Ken Adam, editor Peter R. Hunt and composer John Barry. The four \"Matt Helm\" films starring Dean Martin (released between 1966 and 1969), the \"Flint\" series starring James Coburn (comprising two films, one each in 1966 and 1969), while The Man from U.N.C.L.E. also moved onto the cinema screen, with eight films released: all were testaments to Bond's prominence in popular culture. More recently, the Austin Powers series by writer, producer and comedian Mike Myers, and other parodies such as the 2003 film Johnny English, have also used elements from or parodied the Bond films.\n\nFollowing the release of the film Dr. No in 1962, the line \"Bond ... James Bond\", became a catch phrase that entered the lexicon of Western popular culture: writers Cork and Scivally said of the introduction in Dr. No that the \"signature introduction would become the most famous and loved film line ever\". In 2001, it was voted as the \"best-loved one-liner in cinema\" by British cinema goers, and in 2005, it was honoured as the 22nd greatest quotation in cinema history by the American Film Institute as part of their 100 Years Series. The 2005 American Film Institute's '100 Years' series recognised the character of James Bond himself as the third greatest film hero. He was also placed at number 11 on a similar list by Empire and as the fifth greatest movie character of all time by Premiere. \n\nThe 23 James Bond films produced by Eon Productions, which have grossed $4,910,000,000 in box office returns alone, have made the series one of the highest-grossing ever. It is estimated that since Dr. No, a quarter of the world's population have seen at least one Bond film. The UK Film Distributors' Association have stated that the importance of the Bond series of films to the British film industry cannot be overstated, as they \"form the backbone of the industry\". \n\nTelevision also saw the effect of Bond films, with the NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which was described as the \"first network television imitation\" of Bond, largely because Fleming provided advice and ideas on the development of the series, even giving the main character the name Napoleon Solo. Other 1960s television series inspired by Bond include I Spy, and Get Smart.\n\nBy 2012, James Bond had become such a symbol of the United Kingdom that the character, played by Craig, appeared in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics as Queen Elizabeth II's escort. \n\nThroughout the life of the film series, a number of tie-in products have been released.\n\nCriticisms of James Bond \n\nThe James Bond character and related media have triggered a number of criticisms and reactions across the political spectrum, and are still highly debated in popular culture studies. Left-leaning observers often accuse Bond novels and films of misogyny and sexism. Geographers have considered the role of exotic locations in the movies in the dynamics of the Cold War, with power struggles among blocs playing out in the peripheral areas. Other critics claim that 21st century Bond movies reflect imperial nostalgia. American conservative critics, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, saw Bond as a nihilistic, hedonistic, and amoral character that challenged family values.",
"Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in jazz. \n\nComing to prominence in the 1920s as an \"inventive\" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing.\n\nRenowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to \"cross over\", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were highly restricted for black men of his era.\n\nEarly life \n\nArmstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900, a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. \n\nArmstrong was born into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood known as \"the Battlefield\", which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary \"Mayann\" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and only saw his father in parades.\n\nHe attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's, where Joe \"King\" Oliver performed as well as other famous musicians who would drop in to jam.\n\nAfter dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but drew inspiration from it instead: \"Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.\" \n\nHe also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family; knowing he lived without a father, they fed and nurtured him. He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by \"other white folks\" nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... \"I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.\" \nArmstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: \"how to live—real life and determination.\"Teachout, Terry. [https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/satchmo-and-the-jews/ \"Satchmo and the Jews\"] Commentary magazine, 1 November 2009. The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to \"put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience.\" \n\nArmstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, but it was only an empty shot, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones) instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new step-mother, Gertrude, and then back with his mother and thus back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce's where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.\n\nHe played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe \"King\" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as \"going to the University,\" since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.\n\nIn 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band. \n\nCareer \n\n \n\n1920s\n\nThroughout his riverboat experience, Armstrong's musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazz men to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances. In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe \"King\" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the city was teeming with jobs available for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.\n\nOliver's band was among the most influential jazz bands in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong's reputation grew, he was challenged to \"cutting contests\" by hornmen trying to displace the new phenomenon, who could blow two hundred high Cs in a row. Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.\n\nArmstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil's influence eventually undermined Armstrong's relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the time. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.\n\nArmstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone. The other members quickly took up Armstrong's emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers. The Henderson Orchestra was playing in prominent venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington's orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong's performances and young horn men around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.\n\nDuring this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the most memorable pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.\n\nArmstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong's career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as \"the World's Greatest Trumpet Player\". At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife. He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as \"Potato Head Blues\", \"Muggles\", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and \"West End Blues\", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.\n\nThe group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong's band leading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, \"One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded ... always did his best to feature each individual.\" Among the most notable of the Hot Five and Seven records were \"Cornet Chop Suey,\" \"Struttin' With Some Barbecue,\" \"Hotter Than that\" and \"Potato Head Blues,\", all featuring highly creative solos by Armstrong. His recordings soon after with pianist Earl \"Fatha\" Hines (most famously their 1928 \"Weatherbird\" duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to and solo in \"West End Blues\" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as \"whip that thing, Miss Lil\" and \"Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!\" \n\nArmstrong also played with Erskine Tate's Little Symphony, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as \"Madame Butterfly\", which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on the Hot Five recording \"Heebie Jeebies\" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong's new type of jazz. \n\nAfter separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators. \n\nArmstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of \"Ain't Misbehavin'\", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date. \n\n1930s\n\nArmstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Carmichael's \"Stardust\" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.\n\nArmstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's \"Lazy River\" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is introduced by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: \"Yeah! ...\"Uh-huh\" ...\"Sure\" ... \"Way down, way down.\" In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong \"scat singing\".\n\nAs with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as \"Lazy River\" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.\n\nThe Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens. \n\nArmstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame and was also convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/program/louis-armstrong-30s-tribute-life-and-music-armstrong-30s Louis Armstrong in the 30s: A Tribute to the Life and Music of Armstrong in the 30s]. Retrieved May 5, 2015. Armstrong visited New Orleans, had a hero's welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as \"Armstrong's Secret Nine\" and had a cigar named after him. But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.\n\nAfter returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins' erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result, he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast. \n\n1940s\n\nAfter spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.\n\nDuring the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.\n\nThe All Stars\n\nDuring the 1940s, a widespread revival of interest in the traditional jazz of the 1920s made it possible for Armstrong to consider a return to the small-group musical style of his youth. Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece traditional jazz small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and Dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.\n\nThis group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl \"Fatha\" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg, Eddie Shu and percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine, on February 21, 1949. In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival, where Suzy Delair sang \"C'est si bon\", by Henri Betti and André Hornez, for the first time in public.\n\n1950s–1970s\n\nWith the publishers' permission, Armstrong recorded the first American version of \"C'est si bon\" on June 26, 1950, in New York, with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. When it was released, the disc garnered worldwide sales. In the 1960s, he toured Ghana and Nigeria, performing with Victor Olaiya during the Nigerian Civil war. \nIn 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, \"Hello, Dolly!\", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record produced that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit\n1176392524 Hale, James (editor of Jazzhouse.org), Danny Barcelona (1929–2007), Drums, Armstrong All-Star, The Last Post, 2007]. Retrieved July 4, 2007.\nArmstrong made his last recorded trumpet performances on his 1968 album Disney Songs the Satchmo Way. \nArmstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname \"Ambassador Satch\" and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors. \n\nPersonal life \n\nPronunciation of name\n\nThe Louis Armstrong House Museum website states:\n\n In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong states, \"All white folks call me Louie,\" suggesting that he himself did not. That said, Armstrong was registered as \"Lewie\" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called \"Louie\" on stage, such as on the 1952 \"Can Anyone Explain?\" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that \"Lewie\" is the French pronunciation of \"Louis\" and is commonly used in Louisiana.\n\nFamily\n\nOn March 19, 1918, at the age of 16, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana. They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis' cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him. Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.\n\nOn February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith. His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971. \n\nArmstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children. However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille \"Sweets\" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club. In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child. \n\nPersonality \n\nArmstrong was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His autobiography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of telling tales, particularly of his early childhood when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack consistency. \n\nIn addition to an entertainer, Armstrong was a leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public that gave even the greatest African American performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege afforded to few other African Americans during that era.\n\nHe generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Movement of U.S. history.\n\nNicknames \n\nThe nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth. Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname has many possible origins.\n\nThe most common tale that biographers tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him \"satchel mouth\" for his mouth acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed \"satchel mouth\" which became shortened to Satchmo.\n\nEarly on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues. and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.\n\nThe nickname Pops came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply call them \"pops\" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout. \n\nRace \n\nArmstrong was largely accepted into white society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the finer things in life usually denied to African-Americans, even famous ones. His renown was such that he dined in reputable restaurants and stayed in hotels usually exclusively for whites. It was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.\n\nThat still did not prevent members of the African-American community, particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, \"Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart.\" He was criticized for accepting the title of \"King of The Zulus\" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes.\n\nSome musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the American Civil Rights Movement. The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him \"two-faced\" and \"gutless\" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news. As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying: \"The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell\" and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people. \n\nThe FBI kept a file on Armstrong for his outspokenness about integration. \n\nReligion \n\nWhen asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope. Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans, and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI, though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic. Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but also found humor in them.\n\nPersonal habits \n\nArmstrong was concerned with his health. He used laxatives to control his weight, a practice he advocated both to acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan \"Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'\") The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss. In a live recording of \"Baby, It's Cold Outside\" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from \"Put another record on while I pour\" to \"Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour.\" \n\nThe concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food, reflected in such songs as \"Cheesecake\", \"Cornet Chop Suey,\" though \"Struttin’ with Some Barbecue\" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food. He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, \"Red beans and ricely yours...\" \n\nWritings \n\nArmstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly, sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy \"medicinal\" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described. He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.\n\nSocial organizations \n\nLouis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason. Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No. 18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. However, Armstrong stated in his autobiography that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias which is not a Masonic group. \n\nMusic \n\nHorn playing and early jazz \n\nIn his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The most lauded recordings on which Armstrong plays trumpet include the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, as well as those of the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations, while unconventionally sophisticated for that era, were also subtle and highly melodic. The solo that Armstrong plays during the song Potato Head Blues has long been considered his best solo of that series. \n\nPrior to Armstrong, most collective ensemble playing in jazz, along with its occasional solos, simply varied the melodies of the songs. Armstrong was virtually the first to create significant variations based on the chord harmonies of the songs instead of merely on the melodies. This opened a rich field for creation and improvisation, and significantly changed the music into a soloist's art form.\n\nOften, Armstrong re-composed pop-tunes he played, simply with variations that made them more compelling to jazz listeners of the era. At the same time, however, his oeuvre includes many original melodies, creative leaps, and relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In his records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what had been essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.\n\nArmstrong was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio. \n\nVocal popularity \n\nAs his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it with the first recording on which he scatted, \"Heebie Jeebies\". At a recording session for Okeh Records, when the sheet music supposedly fell on the floor and the music began before he could pick up the pages, Armstrong simply started singing nonsense syllables while Okeh president E.A. Fearn, who was at the session, kept telling him to continue. Armstrong did, thinking the track would be discarded, but that was the version that was pressed to disc, sold, and became an unexpected hit. Although the story was thought to be apocryphal, Armstrong himself confirmed it in at least one interview as well as in his memoirs. On a later recording, Armstrong also sang out \"I done forgot the words\" in the middle of recording \"I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas.\"\n\nSuch records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.\n\nComposing\n\nArmstrong was a gifted composer who wrote more than fifty songs, which in a number of cases have become jazz standards (e.g., “Gully Low Blues,” “Potato Head Blues,” and “Swing That Music”).\n\nColleagues and followers \n\nDuring his long career he played and sang with some of the most important instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald. His influence upon Crosby is particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably \"Just One More Chance\" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:\n\nArmstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gershwin brothers' work.\n\nHis recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two albums - \"The Great Summit\" and \"The Great Reunion\" (now together as a single disc) with Duke Ellington. The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features \"Summer Song,\" one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.\n\nIn 1964 his recording of the song \"Hello Dolly\" went to number one. An album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also shot to number one (knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the year, quickly going \"Gold\" (500,000). His performance of \"Hello Dolly\" won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.\n\nHits and later career \n\nArmstrong had nineteen \"Top Ten\" records including \"Stardust\", \"What a Wonderful World\", \"When The Saints Go Marching In\", \"Dream a Little Dream of Me\", \"Ain't Misbehavin'\", \"You Rascal You\", and \"Stompin' at the Savoy\". \"We Have All the Time in the World\" was featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and enjoyed renewed popularity in the UK in 1994 when it featured on a Guinness advert. It reached number 3 in the charts on being re-released.\n\nIn 1964, Armstrong knocked The Beatles off the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with \"Hello, Dolly!\", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a number one song. His 1964 song \"Bout Time\" was later featured in the film Bewitched.\n\nArmstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang \"Mi Va di Cantare\" alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul. In February 1968, he also appeared with Lara Saint Paul on the Italian RAI television channel where he performed \"Grassa e Bella,\" a track he sang in Italian for the Italian market and C.D.I. label. \n\nIn 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with \"What a Wonderful World\", which topped the British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, its subsequent re-release topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970, Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat King Cole's hit \"Rambling Rose\" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on \"Blue Yodel No. 9\".\n\nStylistic range \n\nArmstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera. Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of \"St. Louis Blues\" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.\n\nLiterature, radio, films and TV \n\nArmstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on \"Now You Has Jazz\". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago. In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye Armstrong performed a duet of \"When the Saints Go Marching In\" during which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.\n\nHe was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of \"Hello, Dolly!\" is one of his most recognizable performances.\n\nHe was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.\n\nArgentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar once called Armstrong himself \"Grandísimo Cronopio\" (The Great Cronopio).\n\nArmstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.\n\nThere is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's \"Stardust\" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany. The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love with an ill-advised woman. \n\nTerry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.\n\nA fledgling musician named \"Louis,\" who is obsessed with Buddy Bolden, appears in two of David Fulmer's Storyville novels: Chasing the Devil's Tail and Jass.\n\nDeath \n\nAgainst his doctor's advice, Armstrong played a two-week engagement in March 1971 at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. At the end of it he was hospitalized for a heart attack. He was released from the hospital in May, and died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City. \nHis honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang \"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen\" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy. \n\nAwards and honors \n\nGrammy Awards \n\nArmstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. \n\nGrammy Hall of Fame\n\nRecordings of Armstrong were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old, and that have \"qualitative or historical significance.\" \n\nRock and Roll Hall of Fame \n\nThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed Armstrong's West End Blues on the list of 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll. \n\nInductions and honors \n\nIn 1995, the U.S. Post Office issued a Louis Armstrong 32 cents commemorative postage stamp.\n\nFilm honors \n\nIn 1999 Armstrong was nominated for inclusion in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Stars. \n\nLegacy \n\nThe influence of Armstrong on the development of jazz is virtually immeasurable. Yet, his irrepressible personality both as a performer, and as a public figure later in his career, was so strong that to some it sometimes overshadowed his contributions as a musician and singer.\n\nAs a virtuoso trumpet player, Armstrong had a unique tone and an extraordinary talent for melodic improvisation. Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz and is used widely today. Additionally, jazz itself was transformed from a collectively improvised folk music to a soloist's serious art form largely through his influence. He was a masterful accompanist and ensemble player in addition to his extraordinary skills as a soloist. With his innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him.\n\nThough Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others. Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who were greatly indebted to him. Holiday said that she always wanted Bessie Smith's 'big' sound and Armstrong's feeling in her singing. Even special musicians like Duke Ellington have praised Armstrong through strong testimonials. Duke Ellington said, \"If anybody was a master, it was Louis Armstrong.\" In 1950, Bing Crosby, the most successful vocalist of the first half of the 20th century, said, \"He is the beginning and the end of music in America.\"\n\nIn the summer of 2001, in commemoration of the centennial of Armstrong's birth, New Orleans's main airport was renamed Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.\n\nIn 2002, the Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–1928) were preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. \n\nThe US Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong Stadium in honor of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the site. \n\nToday, there are many bands worldwide dedicated to preserving and honoring the music and style of Satchmo, including the Louis Armstrong Society located in New Orleans, Louisiana.\n\nHome turned into National Historic Landmark \n\nThe house where Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and is now a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona, Queens, presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a historic house museum and makes materials in its archives of writings, books, recordings and memorabilia available to the public for research. The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will. The museum opened to the public on October 15, 2003. A new visitors center is planned. \n\nDiscography \n\nSingles \n\nOriginal albums \n\nThese LPs and EPs were released during Armstrong's lifetime and contained original studio and/or live recordings. The year and label information is for the first vinyl release, unless otherwise noted. Additional information such as number of tracks is given only when necessary to distinguish between different releases under the same title. In most cases, the number of CD releases listed is limited, with preference given to the label that originally released the album.\n\nPosthumous releases \n\nThese LPs and CDs were released after Armstrong's 1971 death.\n\n* Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions\n** Hot Fives & Sevens (JSP, 1998)\n** The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)\n* Struttin' (Drive Archive, 1996) — 8 February 1947 concert with Edmond Hall's All-Stars\n* The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve (1997) — repackaging of Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess\n* rereleases of Together For The First Time and The Great Reunion\n** The Great Summit: The Master Takes (2001)\n** Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: The Great Summit/Complete Sessions (2000) — includes additional CD of alternate takes\n* The Legendary Berlin Concert (Jazzpoint Records, 2000) — 22 March 1965 concert with Billy Kyle, Tyree Glenn, Eddie Shu, Arvell Shaw and Danny Barcelona\n\nList of songs recorded \n\nChronology of the recordings of Armstrong's songs:"
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In what year were US ground troops first dispatched to Vietnam?
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tc_107
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Vietnam War (), also known as the Second Indochina War, and known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America () or simply the American War, was a Cold War-era proxy war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War (1946–54) and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies—and the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States, Philippines and other anti-communist allies. The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The People's Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units to battle.\n\nAs the war continued, the part of the Viet Cong in the fighting decreased as the role of the NVA grew. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.\n\nThe U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against forces from France and then the U.S., and later against South Vietnam. \n\nBeginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. The Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (with an authorized strength of 128 men) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam.\n\nGradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of \"Vietnamization\", which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the Communists to the South Vietnamese themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations. \n\nDirect U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 800,000 to 3.1 million. Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians, . 20,000–200,000 Laotians, , which estimates 200,000 by 1973. and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action.\n\nNames for the war\n\nVarious names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict.\n\nAs there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is generally known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War Against America). It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam (The Vietnam War). \n\nThe primary military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) (more commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English-language sources), and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong in English language sources), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force. \n\nBackground to 1949\n\nFrance began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notably by the Cần Vương of Phan Đình Phùng, by 1888 the area of the current-day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina (Laos was later added to the colony).. Various Vietnamese opposition movements to French rule existed during this period, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng who staged the failed Yên Bái mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, which was founded in 1941, controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party, and funded by the U.S. and the Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Imperial Japanese occupation..\n\nIn 1940, during World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans. The French State (commonly known as Vichy France) was established as a client state of Nazi Germany. The French colonial authorities, in French Indochina, sided with the Vichy regime. In September 1940, Japan invaded Indochina. Following the cessation of fighting and the beginning of the Imperial Japanese occupation, the French colonial authorities collaborated with the Japanese. The French continued to run affairs in Indochina, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Imperial Japanese.\n\nThe Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Imperial Japanese. However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party. \n\nDouble occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Imperial Japanese military interned the French authorities and troops on 9 March 1945. and created the puppet Empire of Vietnam state, under Bảo Đại instead.\n\nDuring 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French/Japanese exploitation (French Indochina had to supply grains to Japan). Between 400,000 and 2 million people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area).. Exploiting the administrative gap that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes.. Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided.. This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh's popularity and they recruited many members during this period.\n\nOn 22 August 1945, following the Imperial Japanese surrender, OSS agents Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and were accompanied by Jean Sainteny, a French government official. The Japanese forces informally surrendered (the official surrender took place on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay) but being the only force capable of maintaining law and order the Imperial Japanese military remained in power while keeping French colonial troops and Sainteny detained..\n\nDuring August the Imperial Japanese forces remained inactive as the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups took over public buildings and weapons, which began the August Revolution. OSS officers met repeatedly with Ho Chi Minh and other Viet Minh officers during this period and on 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi. In an overture to the Americans, he began his speech by paraphrasing the United States Declaration of Independence: \"All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness.\"\n\nThe Viet Minh took power in Vietnam in the August Revolution. The Viet Minh, downplaying their Communist agenda and stressing nationalism enjoyed large popular support (Vietnamese independence being popular at the time), although Arthur J. Dommen cautions against a \"romanticized view\" of their success: \"The Viet Minh use of terror was systematic….the party had drawn up a list of those to be liquidated without delay.\" After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Viet Minh had recruited more than 600 Imperial Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers. \n\nHowever, the major allied victors of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, all agreed the area belonged to the French. As the French did not have the means to immediately retake Vietnam, the major powers came to an agreement that British troops would occupy the south while Nationalist Chinese forces would move in from the north. Nationalist Chinese troops entered the country to disarm Imperial Japanese troops north of the 16th parallel on 14 September 1945. When the British landed in the south, they rearmed the interned French forces as well as parts of the surrendered Imperial Japanese forces to aid them in retaking southern Vietnam, as they did not have enough troops to do this themselves.\n\nOn the urging of the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly re-establishing their control across the area. In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam.. On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a \"free\" republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation. The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city. British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French. Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War.\n\nThe war spread to Laos and Cambodia, where communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei, both of which were modeled on the Viet Minh.. Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies.\n\nExit of the French, 1950–54\n\nIn January 1950, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. The following month the United States and Great Britain recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the legitimate Vietnamese government.. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Soviet Union. \n\nMilitary advisors from the People's Republic of China (PRC) began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950. PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army. In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers.. By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US$1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war. \n\nThere were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory. One version of the plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B-29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Võ Nguyên Giáp's positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet.[http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2004/August%202004/0804dien.aspx Dien Bien Phu], Air Force Magazine 87:8, August 2004.\n\nU.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Dien Bien Phu were conducted during the negotiations. According to U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use three small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French. Nixon, a so-called \"hawk\" on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to \"put American boys in\". U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but they were opposed to such a venture. In the end, convinced that the political risks outweighed the possible benefits, Eisenhower decided against the intervention. Eisenhower was a five-star general. He was wary of getting the United States involved in a land war in Asia. \n\nThe Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from the PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success. \n\nThe Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. Giap's Viet Minh forces handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.\n\nTransition period\n\nVietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government. Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as \"The Virgin Mary is heading south\",. and aided by a U.S.-funded $93 million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees. As many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.. The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency.. Diệm later went on to staff his administration's key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.\n\nIn addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 \"Revolutionary Regroupees\" went to the north for \"regroupment\", expecting to return to the south within two years. The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a \"politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism.\" The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956. The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time. Around 52,000 Vietnamese civilians moved from south to north. \n\nBetween 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including \"rent reduction\" and \"land reform\", which resulted in significant political oppression. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which extrapolated nationwide would indicate nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although likely greater than 13,500. In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to \"excesses\" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners..\n\nThe south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng, who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of \"local commissions\". The United States countered with what became known as the \"American Plan\", with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation. The United States said, \"With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this\". \n\nU.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954, \"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.\" According to the Pentagon Papers, however, from 1954 to 1956 \"Ngô Đình Diệm really did accomplish miracles\" in South Vietnam: \"It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diệm—would have been much smaller than eighty percent.\" In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement \n\nFrom April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups: the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo of Ba Cụt. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm increasingly sought to blame the communists.\n\nIn a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of \"60 to 70 percent.\" Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority.. Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president. Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese \"elections\". \n\nThe domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration.. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: \"Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam.\" \n\nDiệm era, 1955–63\n\nRule\n\nA devout Roman Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that \"Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism.\". The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as Diệm's dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.\n\nBeginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the \"Denounce the Communists\" campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956. According to Gabriel Kolko about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diệm were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed. However, Guenter Lewy argues that such figures were exaggerated and that there were never more than 35,000 prisoners of all kinds in the whole country..\n\nIn May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm's honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diệm had been selected because there were no better alternatives..\n\nFormer Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in Argument Without End (1999) that the new American patrons of the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country. There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, though Diệm warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems.\n\nInsurgency in the South, 1954–60\n\nBetween 1954 and 1957 there was large-scale but disorganized dissidence in the countryside which the Diệm government succeeded in quelling. In early 1957 South Vietnam had its first peace in over a decade. However, by mid-1957 through 1959 incidents of violence increased but the government \"did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN [Government of Vietnam] resources.\" By early 1959 however, Diệm considered it an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation. There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to \"wildcat\" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists.\n\nIn December 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF, a.k.a. the Viet Cong) was formally created with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN activists, including non-communists. According to the Pentagon Papers, the Viet Cong \"placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam.\" Often the leaders of the organization were kept secret.\n\nThe reason for the continued survival of the NLF was the class relations in the countryside. The vast majority of the population lived in villages in the countryside where the key issue was land reform. The Viet Minh had reduced rents and debts; and had leased communal lands, mostly to the poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who were farming land they held for years now had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. This rent collection was enforced by the South Vietnamese army. The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: \"75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government,\" \n\nNorth Vietnamese involvement\n\nSources disagree on whether North Vietnam played a direct role in aiding and organizing South Vietnamese rebels prior to 1960. Kahin and Lewis assert:\n\nSimilarly, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. states that \"it was not until September, 1960 that the Communist Party of North Vietnam bestowed its formal blessing and called for the liberation of the south from American imperialism\".\n\nBy contrast, the author of War Comes to Long An Jeffrey Race interviewed communist defectors in 1967 and 1968 who found such denials \"very amusing\", and who \"commented humorously that the Party had apparently been more successful than was expected in concealing its role.\" James Olson and Randy Roberts assert that North Vietnam authorized a low-level insurgency in December 1956. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda. \n\nIn March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled \"The Road to the South\" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi, but as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected. However the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956..This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958. The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a \"people's war\" on the South at a session in January 1959 and in May, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the \"regroupees\" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation. The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959..\n\nNorth Vietnam invaded Laos in 1959, and used 30,000 men to build invasion routes through Laos and Cambodia by 1961. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated into the south from 1961–63. North Vietnam sent 10,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army to attack the south in 1964, and this figure increased to 100,000 in 1965. \n\nKennedy's escalation, 1961–63\n\nIn the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America \"loomed larger than Asia on his sights.\". In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to \"pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.\" In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.–Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the U.S.–Soviet issues included the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16–28, 1962) played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command(SAC) forces to DEFCON 2.\n\nThe Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three-part crisis – the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement. These crises made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy was thus determined to \"draw a line in the sand\" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, \"Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place.\" \n\nIn May 1961, U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diệm the \"Winston Churchill of Asia.\". Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, \"Diệm's the only boy we got out there.\" Johnson assured Diệm of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists.\n\nKennedy's policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that \"to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences.\" \nThe quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis..\n\nOne major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a \"brush fire\" war in Vietnam.\n\nKennedy advisors Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the \"danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did.\" By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors. \n\nThe Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964.\n\nOn 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.[http://www.answers.com/topic/international-agreement-on-the-neutrality-of-laos-35k International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos].\n\nOusting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm\n\nThe inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat. \n\nThe Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces were led in that battle by Diệm's most trusted general, Huỳnh Văn Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, \"Diệm wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with…\" \n\nAs historian James Gibson summed up the situation:\n\nDiscontent with Diệm's policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of nine majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diệm's elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc's anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diệm's rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm's younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.\n\nU.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243.\n\nThe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was in contact with generals planning to remove Diệm. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy \"rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face.\". He had not anticipated Diệm's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that \"the prospects now are for a shorter war\".. Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for \"a fine job.\" \n\nFollowing the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable..\n\nU.S military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency.. The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and \"winning over the hearts and minds\" of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training. General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.. The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that \"the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort\".\n\nParamilitary officers from the CIA's Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters. The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participated in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes. \n\nJohnson's escalation, 1963–69\n\nAt the time Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, he had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam, Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, \"Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man's fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing.\".Johnson viewed many members that he inherited from Kennedy's cabinet with distrust because he had never penetrated their circle during Kennedy's presidency; to Johnson's mind, those like W. Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson spoke a different language. \n\nUpon becoming president, however, Johnson immediately had to focus on Vietnam: on 24 November 1963, he said, \"the battle against communism [...] must be joined [...] with strength and determination.\".Before a small group, including Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the new president also said, \"We should stop playing cops and robbers [a reference to Diệm's failed leadership] and get back to… winning the war… tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word…[to] win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy.\" The pledge came at a time when the situation in South Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diệm.: \"At a place called Hoa Phu, for example, the strategic hamlet built during the previous summer now looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. […] Speaking through an interpreter, a local guard explained to me that a handful of Viet Cong agents had entered the hamlet one night and told the peasants to tear it down and return to their native villages. The peasants complied without question.\"\n\nThe military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Dương Văn Minh—whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as \"a model of lethargy.\". Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: \"Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?\" His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh.. However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short period of time.\n\nOn 2 August 1964, the , on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.. A second attack was reported two days later on the and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that \"those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish.\" \n\nThe second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964, signed by Johnson, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full-scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the president unilateral power to launch a full-scale war if the president deemed it necessary. In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not \"… committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land.\".\n\nAn undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August. It had already been called into question long before this. \"Gulf of Tonkin incident\", writes Louise Gerdes, \"is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam.\" George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon \"did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe.\".\n\n\"From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964…Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men.\" The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964. By early 1965, 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets had been destroyed by the Viet Cong. \n\nThe National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 2 March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku, Operation Flaming Dart (initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was on a state visit to North Vietnam), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced. The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnam's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese.Earl L. Tilford, Setup: What the Air Force did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 1991, p. 89. Between March 1965 and November 1968, \"Rolling Thunder\" deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs..\n\nBombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and NVA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. As one officer noted, \"This is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon… would be a knife… The worst is an airplane.\". The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that \"we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age\". \n\nEscalation and ground war\n\nAfter several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. \n\nIn a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans \"want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea.\" As former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co has noted, the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence. Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.. However, the Pentagon Papers warned of \"a dangerous period of Vietnamese expansionism….Laos and Cambodia would have been easy pickings for such a Vietnam….Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and even Indonesia, could have been next.\" \n\nThe Marines' initial assignment was defensive. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December.. The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission. In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã, in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, communist forces had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. However, at Binh Gia, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle. Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài. \n\nDesertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical. He said, \"I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF [National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam a.k.a. the Viet Cong].\" With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended.. Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:\n* Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.\n* Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.\n* Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas. \n\nThe plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity. The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation.. The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved.\n\nThe one-year tour of duty of American soldiers deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer noted \"we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times.\" As a result, training programs were shortened.\n\nSouth Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, \"the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale's…\". The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound effect on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed.\n\nWashington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests. The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility.\n\nMeanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilize with the coming to power of prime minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead Chief of State, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmaneuvered and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one-candidate election in 1971..\n \n\nThe Johnson administration employed a \"policy of minimum candor\". in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media's coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed.\n\nTet Offensive\n\nIn late 1967 the Communists lured American forces into the hinterlands at Đắk Tô and at the Marine Khe Sanh combat base in Quảng Trị Province where the United States was more than willing to fight because it could unleash its massive firepower unimpeded by civilians. However, on 31 January 1968, the NVA and the Viet Cong broke the truce that traditionally accompanied the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday by launching the largest battle of the war, the Tet Offensive, in the hope of sparking a national uprising. Over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 enemy troops including assaults on General Westmoreland's headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon..\n\nAlthough the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale of the urban offensive, they responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the Viet Cong. In the former capital city of Huế, the combined NVA and Viet Cong troops captured the Imperial Citadel and much of the city and massacred over 3,000 unarmed Huế civilians. In the following Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins. Further north, at Quảng Trị City, members of the 1st Cavalry Division and 1st ARVN Infantry Division killed more than 900 NVA and Vietcong troops in and around the city. In Saigon, 1,000 NLF (Viet Cong) fighters fought off 11,000 U.S. and ARVN troops for three weeks.\n\nAcross South Vietnam, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN, 14,000 civilians, and 32,000 NVA and Viet Cong lay dead. \n\nBut the Tet Offensive had another, unintended consequence. General Westmoreland had become the public face of the war. He had been named Time magazine's 1965's Man of the Year and eventually was featured on the magazine's cover three times. Time described him as \"the sinewy personification of the American fighting man… (who) directed the historic buildup, drew up the battle plans, and infused the… men under him with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities.\" Six weeks after the Tet Offensive began, \"public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent–and, more dramatically, endorsement for his handling of the war fell from 40 percent to 26 percent.\" \n\nA few months earlier, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support. In a speech before the National Press Club he had said a point in the war had been reached \"where the end comes into view.\" Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland's predictions were trumped by Tet. The American media, which had until then been largely supportive of U.S. efforts, turned on the Johnson administration for what had become an increasing credibility gap.\n\nAlthough the Tet Offensive was a significant victory for allied forces, in terms of casualties and control of territory, it was a sound defeat when evaluated from the point of view of strategic consequences: it became a turning point in America's involvement in the Vietnam War because it had a profound impact on domestic support for the conflict. Despite the military failure for the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive became a political victory for them and ended the career of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent. As James Witz noted, Tet \"contradicted the claims of progress… made by the Johnson administration and the military.\" The offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Journalist Peter Arnett, in a disputed article, quoted an officer he refused to identify, saying of Bến Tre (laid to rubble by U.S. attacks) that \"it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it\". \n\nWalter Cronkite said in an editorial, \"To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.\" Following Cronkite's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, \"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.\" \n\nWestmoreland became Chief of Staff of the Army in March 1968, just as all resistance was finally subdued. The move was technically a promotion. However, his position had become untenable because of the offensive and because his request for 200,000 additional troops had been leaked to the media. Westmoreland was succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams, a commander less inclined to public media pronouncements. \n\nOn 10 May 1968, despite low expectations, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam.\n\nAs historian Robert Dallek writes, \"Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps… cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, (and) destroyed Johnson's presidency…\" His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson's admission that the war was lost. It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, \"the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead.\".\n\nVietnam was a major political issue during the United States presidential election in 1968. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon.\n\nVietnamization, 1969–72\n\nNixon Doctrine / Vietnamization\n\nU.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as \"Vietnamization\".\n\nNixon said in 1970 in an announcement, \"I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago.\"\n\nOn 10 October 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War.\n\nNixon also pursued negotiations. Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy-nine. \n\nThe anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the \"silent majority\" of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 \"Green Beret Affair\" where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent provoked national and international outrage.\n\nBeginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place, and instead redeployed along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969's totals.\n\nCambodia and Laos\n\nPrince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955, but the communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five high-ranking Congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu. \n\nIn 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 at the request of Khmer Rouge deputy leader Nuon Chea. U.S. and ARVN forces launched an invasion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases.\n\nThis invasion sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio, which provoked further public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement. The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal.\n\nIn 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal. \n\nThe ARVN launched Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. The ostensibly neutral Laos had long been the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a confused rout. They fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they exhausted fuel supplies, soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to barge their way on to American helicopters sent to evacuate the wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. U.S. aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the ARVN troops involved in the operation were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. As Karnow noted \"the blunders were monumental… The (South Vietnamese) government's top officers had been tutored by the Americans for ten or fifteen years, many at training schools in the United States, yet they had learned little.\" \n\nIn 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment and ill-discipline grew in the ranks including increased drug use, \"fragging\" (the act of murdering the commander of a fighting unit) and desertions. \n\nVietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. American airpower responded, beginning Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973; U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam. \n\n1972 election and Paris Peace Accords\n\nThe war was the central issue of the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Nixon's opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam. Nixon's National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam's Lê Đức Thọ. In October 1972, they reached an agreement.\n\nHowever, South Vietnamese president Thieu demanded massive changes to the peace accord. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement's details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked. Hanoi demanded new changes.\n\nTo show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18–29 December 1972. The offensive destroyed much of the remaining economic and industrial capacity of North Vietnam. Simultaneously Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement, threatening to conclude a bilateral peace deal and cut off American aid.\n\nOn 15 January 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on \"Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam\" were signed on 27 January 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. \"This article\", noted Peter Church, \"proved… to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out.\" \n\nOpposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War: 1962–1973\n\nDuring the course of the Vietnam War a large segment of the American population came to be opposed to U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam. \n\nNearly a third of the American population were strongly against the war. It is possible to specify certain groups who led the anti-war movement and the reasons why. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and its music.\n\nSome advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. One reason given for the withdrawal is that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions in the region and thus less human bloodshed. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the very democracy that America claimed to be supporting. John F. Kennedy, while Senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam.\n\nOpposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism and, for those involved with the New Left such as the Catholic Worker Movement. Others, such as Stephen Spiro opposed the war based on the theory of Just War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the people of Vietnam, such as Norman Morrison emulating the actions of Thích Quảng Đức. In a key televised debate from 15 May 1965, Eric Severeid reporting for CBS conducted a debate between McGeorge Bundy and Hans Morgenthau dealing with an acute summary of the main war concerns of the U.S. as seen at that time stating them as: \"(1) What are the justifications for the American presence in Vietnam – why are we there? (2) What is the fundamental nature of this war? Is it aggression from North Vietnam or is it basically, a civil war between the peoples of South Vietnam? (3) What are the implications of this Vietnam struggle in terms of Communist China's power and aims and future actions? And (4) What are the alternatives to our present policy in Vietnam?\" \n\nHigh-profile opposition to the Vietnam War turned to street protests in an effort to turn U.S. political opinion. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans. Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention during protests against the war. After news reports of American military abuses such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests. Anti-war protests ended with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. South Vietnam was left to defend itself alone when the fighting resumed. Many South Vietnamese subsequently fled to the United States. \n\nExit of the Americans: 1973–75\n\nThe United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of Vietnamization. Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. \n\nUnder the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Đức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese president Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing expended materiel. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist.\n\nThe communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong. The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà..\n\nAs the Viet Cong's top commander, Tra participated in several of these meetings. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975–76 dry season. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi's last opportunity to strike before Saigon's army could be fully trained.\n\nIn the November 1972 Election, Democratic nominee George McGovern lost 49 of 50 states to the incumbent President Richard Nixon. On 15 March 1973, President Nixon implied that the United States would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire. Public and congressional reaction to Nixon's trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. Martin was a second stringer compared to previous U.S. ambassadors and his appointment was an early signal that Washington had given up on Vietnam. During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. On 4 June 1973, the U.S. Senate passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention..\n\nThe oil price shock of October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War in Egypt caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. The Viet Cong resumed offensive operations when the dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period. \n\nGerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.\n\nThe success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek.. Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà's plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp's head to first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved of the operation.\n\nTrà's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phước Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether U.S. would return to the fray.\n\nOn 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phước Long Province. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.\n\nThe speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: \"Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now.\" \n\nAt the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armored cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over their Communist enemies. However, the rising oil prices meant that much of this could not be used. They faced a well-organized, highly determined and well-funded North Vietnam. Much of the North's material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. The departure of the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession that followed the Arab oil embargo.\n\nCampaign 275\n\nOn 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation.\n\nPresident Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat. The president declared this to be a \"lighten the top and keep the bottom\" strategy. But in what appeared to be a repeat of Operation Lam Son 719, the withdrawal soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN General Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the \"column of tears\".\n\nAs the ARVN tried to disengage from the enemy, refugees mixed in with the line of retreat. The poor condition of roads and bridges, damaged by years of conflict and neglect, slowed Phu's column. As the North Vietnamese forces approached, panic set in. Often abandoned by the officers, the soldiers and civilians were shelled incessantly. The retreat degenerated into a desperate scramble for the coast. By 1 April the \"column of tears\" was all but annihilated.\n\nOn 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam's third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. Thieu's contradictory orders confused and demoralized his officer corps. As the North Vietnamese launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the NVA opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. Some even swam out to sea to reach boats and barges anchored offshore. In the confusion, routed ARVN soldiers fired on civilians to make way for their retreat.\n\nOn 25 March, after a three-day battle, Huế fell. As resistance in Huế collapsed, North Vietnamese rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 VPA troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the NVA marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end.\n\nFinal North Vietnamese offensive\n\nWith the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Da Lat.\n\nOn 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. The North Vietnamese met fierce resistance at Xuân Lộc from the ARVN 18th Division, who were outnumbered six to one. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. By 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison were ordered to withdraw towards Saigon.\n\nAn embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years ago, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power to Trần Văn Hương, he left for Taiwan on 25 April. At the same time, North Vietnamese tanks had reached Biên Hòa and turned toward Saigon, brushing aside isolated ARVN units along the way.\n\nBy the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. On 27 April 100,000 North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the NVA shelled the airport and forced its closure. With the air exit closed, large numbers of civilians found that they had no way out.\n\nFall of Saigon\n\nChaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin's belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached.\n\nSchlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel. Frequent Wind was arguably the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Martin pleaded with Washington to dispatch $700 million in emergency aid to bolster the regime and help it mobilize fresh military reserves. But American public opinion had soured on this conflict.\n\nIn the United States, South Vietnam was perceived as doomed. President Gerald Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as North Vietnamese tanks breached defenses on the outskirts of Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. Many of them had been employed by the Americans and were left to their fate.\n\nOn 30 April 1975, NVA troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. A tank from the 324th Division crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace at 11:30 am local time and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it. President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered.\n\nOther countries' involvement\n\nPro-Hanoi\n\nPeople's Republic of China\n\nIn 1950, the People's Republic of China extended diplomatic recognition to the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam and sent weapons, as well as military advisers led by Luo Guibo to assist the Viet Minh in its war with the French. The first draft of the 1954 Geneva Accords was negotiated by French prime minister Pierre Mendès France and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who, fearing U.S. intervention, urged the Viet Minh to accept a partition at the 17th parallel. \n\nChina's support for North Vietnam included both financial aid and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of military personnel in support roles. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. Starting in 1965, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million. The Chinese military claims to have caused 38% of American air losses in the war. China claimed that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20 billion (approx. $143 billion adjusted for inflation in 2015) during the Vietnam War. Included in that aid were donations of 5 million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to NV food production in a single year), accounting for 10-15% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s.\n\nSino-Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused. The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 1969. The Chinese also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at this time.\n\nChina \"armed and trained\" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war and continued to aid them for years afterward. \nThe Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975–1978. When Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979.\n\nSoviet Union\n\nSoviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move \"perpendicularly to the attack trajectory.\" These advance warning gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes. \n\nThe Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet citizens lost their lives in this conflict. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war. \n\nSome Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers – in all more than 10,000 military personnel. \n\nNorth Korea\n\nAs a result of a decision of the Korean Workers' Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served. \n\nIn addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam. Kim Il-sung is reported to have told his pilots to \"fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own\". \n\nCuba\n\nThe contribution to North Vietnam by the Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro have been recognized several times by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Fidel Castro has mentioned in his discourses the Batallón Girón (Giron Battalion) as comprising the Cuban contingent that served as military advisors during the war. In this battalion, alongside the Cubans, fought Nguyễn Thị Định, founding member of the Viet Cong, who later became the first female Major General in the North Vietnamese Army. There are numerous allegations by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war and that they participated in torture activities, in what is known as the \"Cuba Program\". Witnesses to this include Senator John McCain, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate and former Vietnam prisoner of war, according to his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers. Benjamin Gilman, a Vietnam War POW/MIA issue advocate, claim evidence that Cuba's military and non-military involvement may have run into the \"thousands\" of personnel. Fidel Castro visited in person Quảng Trị province, held by North Vietnam after the Easter Offensive to show his support for the Viet Cong. \n\nPro-Saigon\n\nSouth Korea\n\nOn the anti-communist side, South Korea (a.k.a. the Republic of Korea, ROK) had the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. In November 1961, Park Chung-hee proposed South Korean participation in the war to John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy disagreed. On 1 May 1964 Lyndon Johnson requested South Korean participation. The first South Korean troops began arriving in 1964 and large combat formations began arriving a year later. The ROK Marine Corps dispatched their 2nd Marine Brigade while the ROK Army sent the Capital Division and later the 9th Infantry Division. In August 1966 after the arrival of the 9th Division the Koreans established a corps command, the Republic of Korea Forces Vietnam Field Command, near I Field Force, Vietnam at Nha Trang. The South Koreans soon developed a reputation for effectiveness, reportedly conducting counterinsurgency operations so well that American commanders felt that the South Korean area of responsibility was the safest. \n\nApproximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam, each serving a one-year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973. About 5,099 South Koreans were killed and 10,962 wounded during the war. South Korea claimed to have killed 41,000 Viet Cong fighters. The United States paid South Korean soldiers 236 million dollars for their efforts in Vietnam, and South Korean GNP increased five-fold during the war.\n\nAustralia and New Zealand\n\nAustralia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. Their governments subscribed to the Domino theory. Australia began by sending advisors to Vietnam in 1962, and combat troops were committed in 1965.Dennis et al 2008, pp. 555–558. New Zealand began by sending a detachment of engineers and an artillery battery, and then started sending special forces and regular infantry which were attached to Australian formations. Australia's peak commitment was 7,672 combat troops and New Zealand's 552. More than 60,000 Australian personnel were involved during the course of the war, of which 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded. Approximately 3,500 New Zealanders served in Vietnam, with 37 killed and 187 wounded. Most Australians and New Zealanders served in the 1st Australian Task Force in Phước Tuy Province.\n\nPhilippines\n\nSome 10,450 Filipino troops were dispatched to South Vietnam. They were primarily engaged in medical and other civilian pacification projects. These forces operated under the designation PHLCAG-V or Philippine Civic Action Group-Vietnam. More noteworthy was the fact that the naval base in Subic Bay was used for the U.S. Seventh Fleet from 1964 till the end of the war in 1975. The Navy base in Subic bay and the Air force base at Clark achieved maximum functionality during the war and supported an estimated 80,000 locals in allied tertiary businesses from shoe making to prostitution. \n\nThailand\n\nThai Army formations, including the \"Queen's Cobra\" battalion, saw action in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations there were heavily outnumbered by the irregular \"volunteers\" of the CIA-sponsored Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units or PARU, who carried out reconnaissance activities on the western side of the Ho Chi Minh trail.\n\nRepublic of China (Taiwan)\n\nSince November 1967, the Taiwanese government secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and South Vietnam. Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDMN) or \"Frogman unit\" in English. In addition to the diving trainers there were several hundred military personnel. Military commandos from Taiwan were captured by communist forces three times trying to infiltrate North Vietnam.\n\nCanada and the ICC\n\nCanada, India and Poland constituted the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement. Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was \"non-belligerent\". Victor Levant suggested otherwise in his book Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War (1986). The Vietnam War entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia asserts plainly that Canada's record on the truce commissions was a pro-Saigon partisan one. \n\nUnited Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO)\n\nThe ethnic minority peoples of south Vietnam like the Christian Montagnards (Degar), Hindu and Muslim Cham and the Buddhist Khmer Krom banded together in the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (French: Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym: FULRO) to fight against the Vietnamese for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against both the anti-Communist South Vietnamese and the Communist Viet Cong, and then FURLO proceeded to fight against the united Communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam. FULRO was supported by China, the United States, Cambodia, and some French citizens.\n\nDuring the war, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in south Vietnam, following an anti- ethnic Vietnamese policy.\n\nFULRO was formed from the amalgation of the Cham organization \"Champa Liberation Front\" (Front de Liberation du Champa FLC) led by the Cham Muslim officer Les Kosem who served in the Royal Cambodian Army, the Khmer Krom organization \"Liberation Front of Kampuchea Krom\" (Front de Liberation du Kampuchea Krom FLKK) led by Chau Dara, a former monk, and the Montagnard organizations \"Central Highlands Liberation Front\" (Front de Liberation des Hauts Plateaux FLHP) led by Y Bham Enuol and BAJARAKA.\n\nAfter overthrowing pro-China Sihanouk, Cambodian leader Lon Nol, despite being anti-Communist and ostensibly in the \"pro-American\" camp, continued to back FULRO against all Vietnamese, both anti-communist South Vietnam and the Communist Viet Cong. Lon Nol planned a slaughter of all Vietnamese in Cambodia and a restoration of South Vietnam to a revived Champa state.\n\nVietnamese were slaughtered and dumped in the Mekong River at the hands of Lon Nol's anti-Communist forces. The Khmer Rouge later imitated Lon Nol's actions. \n\nThe leaders of FULRO were executed by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot when he took power in Cambodia but FULRO insurgents proceeded to fight against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and it was not until 1992 that they finally surrendered to the United Nations in Cambodia.\n\nWar crimes\n\nA large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity. \n\nAllied war crimes\n\nWar crimes committed by US forces\n\nIn 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.\n\nThe investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 incidents had factual basis. The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; one hundred and forty-one cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock. Over 800 alleged atrocities were investigated but only 23 soldiers were ever convicted on charges and most served sentences of less than a year. A Los Angeles Times report on the archived files concluded that the war crimes were not confined to a few rogue units, having been uncovered in every army division that was active in Vietnam.\n\nIn 2003 a series of investigative reports by the Toledo Blade uncovered a large number of unreported American war crimes particularly from the Tiger Force unit. Some of the most violent war criminals included men such as Sam Ybarra and Sergeant Roy E. \"the Bummer\" Bumgarner, a soldier who served with the 1st Cavalry Division and later the 173d Airborne Brigade. \n\nIn 1971 the later U.S. presidential candidate, John Kerry, testified before the U.S. Senate and stated that over 150 U.S. veterans testified during the Winter Soldier Investigation and described war crimes committed in Southeast Asia.\n\nAccording to political scientist R.J. Rummel, U.S. troops murdered about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians during the war. Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues for a much higher total. He says that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops.. One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, \"many My Lais\". A report by Newsweek magazine suggested that 5,000 innocent civilians may have been killed by U.S. soldiers in this single operation. In more detail:\n\nWar Crimes committed by South Vietnamese forces\n\nIn terms of atrocities by the South Vietnamese, during the Diem era (1954-1963) R.J. Rummell estimated that 16,000 to 167,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated a total of 42,000 to 128,000 killed. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is from 57,000 to 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding NLF/North Vietnamese forces killed by the South Vietnamese armed forces. \n\nWar crimes committed by South Korean forces\n\nSouth Korean forces were also culpable of war crimes as well. One of the massacres was the Tây Vinh Massacre where ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army killed 1,200 unarmed citizens between 12 February 1966 and 17 March 1966 in Bình An village, today Tây Vinh village, Tây Sơn District of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam. Another example was the Gò Dài massacre where ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army killed 380 civilians on 26 February 1966 in Gò Dài hamlet, in Bình An commune, Tây Sơn District (today Tây Vinh District) of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam.\n\nNorth Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge war crimes\n\nAccording to Guenter Lewy, Viet Cong insurgents assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam and routinely employed terror.. Ami Pedahzur has written that \"the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century\". Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the incineration of hundreds of civilians at the Đắk Sơn massacre with flamethrowers. Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975. According to Rummel, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops murdered between 106,000 and 227,000 civilians in South Vietnam. North Vietnam was also known for its inhumane and abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison (aka the Hanoi Hilton), where severe torture was employed to extract \"confessions\"..\n\nViet Cong insurgents reportedly sliced off the genitals of village chiefs and sewed them inside their bloody mouths, cut off the tongues of helpless victims, rammed bamboo lances through one ear and out the other, slashed open the wombs of pregnant women, machine gunned children, hacked men and women to pieces with machetes, and cut off the fingers of small children who dared to get an education. According to a U.S. Senate report, squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas. Peer De Silva, former head of the Saigon department of the CIA, wrote that from as early as 1963, Viet Cong units were using disembowelment and other methods of mutilation for psychological warfare.\n\nIn the Cambodian Civil War, Khmer Rouge insurgents reportedly committed atrocities during the war. These include the murder of civilians and POWs by slowly sawing off their heads a little more each day, the destruction of Buddhist wats and the killing of monks, attacks on refugee camps involving the deliberate murder of babies and bomb threats against foreign aid workers, the abduction and assassination of journalists, and the shelling of Phnom Penh for more than a year. Journalist accounts stated that the Khmer Rouge shelling \"tortured the capital almost continuously\", inflicting \"random death and mutilation\" on 2 million trapped civilians. \n\nThe Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the entire city after taking it, in what has been described as a death march: François Ponchaud wrote: \"I shall never forget one cripple who had neither hands nor feet, writhing along the ground like a severed worm, or a weeping father carrying his ten-year old daughter wrapped in a sheet tied around his neck like a sling, or the man with his foot dangling at the end of a leg to which it was attached by nothing but skin\"; John Swain recalled that the Khmer Rouge were \"tipping out patients from the hospitals like garbage into the streets….In five years of war, this is the greatest caravan of human misery I have seen.\" \n\nWomen in the Vietnam War\n\nAmerican nurses\n\nDuring the Vietnam War, American women served on active duty doing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. Most nurses who volunteered to serve in Vietnam came from predominantly working or middle-class families with histories of military service. The majority of these women were white Catholics and Protestants. Because the need for medical aid was great, many nurses underwent a concentrated four-month training program before being deployed to Vietnam in the ANC. Due to the shortage of staff, nurses usually worked twelve-hour shifts, six days per week and often suffered from exhaustion. First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969. \n\nAt the start of the Vietnam War, it was commonly thought that American women had no place in the military. Their traditional place had been in the domestic sphere, but with the war came opportunity for the expansion of gender roles. In Vietnam, women held a variety of jobs which included operating complex data processing equipment and serving as stenographers. Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. The women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. While this high male to female ratio was often uncomfortable for women, many men reported that having women in the field with them boosted their morale. Although this was not the women's purpose, it was one positive result of their service. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater. In that same year, the military lifted the prohibition on women entering the armed forces.\n\nAmerican women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. Many Americans either considered females serving in Vietnam masculine for living under the army discipline, or judged them to be women of questionable moral character who enlisted for the sole purpose of seducing men. To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as \"proper, professional and well protected.\" (26) This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the ideas of second-wave feminism that occurred during the 1960s–1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported. \n\nVietnamese women\n\nUnlike the American women who went to Vietnam, North Vietnamese women were enlisted and fought in the combat zone as well as providing manual labor to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail open and cook for the soldiers. They also worked in the rice fields in North Vietnam and Viet Cong-held farming areas in South Vietnam's Mekong Delta region to provide food for their families and the war effort. Women were enlisted in both the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong guerrilla insurgent force in South Vietnam. Some women also served for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence services.\n\nIn South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN's Women's Armed Force Corps (WAFC) and various other Women's corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, fought in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America's intelligence agencies. During Diệm's presidency, Madame Nhu was the commander of the WAFC.\n\nThe war saw more than one million rural people migrate or flee the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous \"bargirls\" of wartime South Vietnam \"hawking her wares – be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself\" to American and allied soldiers. American bases were ringed by bars and brothels. \n\n8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975. Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam. 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. \n\nBlack servicemen in Vietnam\n\nThe experience of African American military personnel during the Vietnam War has received significant attention. For example, the website \"African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War\" compiles examples of such coverage, as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry.\n\nThe epigraph of Terry's book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes the following quote: \"I have an intuitive feeling that the Negro serviceman have a better understanding than whites of what the war is about.\" – General William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army, Saigon, 1967. That book's introduction includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include: the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African American servicemen than among American soldiers of other races, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military careerists versus black draftees, the discrimination encountered by black servicemen \"on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments\" as well as their having to endure \"the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades\" – and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and after America's withdrawal. Upon the war's completion, black casualties made up 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military. \n\nWeapons\n\nThe communist forces were principally armed with Chinese and Soviet weaponry though some guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the First Indochina war or from ARVN units or bought on the black market. The ubiquitous Soviet AK-47 assault rifle was often regarded as the best rifle of the war, due to its ability to continue to function even in adverse, muddy conditions. Other weapons used by the Viet Cong included the World War II-era PPSh-41 submachine gun (both Soviet and Chinese versions), the SKS carbine, the DShK heavy machine gun and the RPG-2/B-40 grenade launcher.\n\nWhile the Viet Cong had both amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and light tanks (such as the Type 62), they also used bicycles to transport munitions. The US' heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War and over 600 were deployed with US Forces. They played an important role in infantry support.\n\nThe US service rifle was initially the M14 (though some units were still using the WWII-era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s). Found to be unsuitable for jungle warfare, the M14 was replaced by M16 which was more accurate and lighter than the AK-47. For a period, the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as \"failure to extract\", which means that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the action after a round is fired. According to a congressional report, the jamming was caused primarily by a change in gunpowder which was done without adequate testing and reflected a decision for which the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration. That issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1 that featured a chrome plated chamber among several other features. End-user satisfaction with the M16 was high except during this episode, but the M16 still has a reputation as a gun that jams easily.\n\nThe M60 machine gun GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) was the main machine gun of the US army at the time and many of them were put on helicopters, to provide suppressive fire when landing in hostile regions. The MAC-10 machine pistol was supplied to many special forces troops in the midpoint of the war. It also armed many CIA agents in the field.\n\nTwo aircraft which were prominent in the war were the AC-130 \"Spectre\" Gunship and the UH-1 \"Huey\" gunship. The AC-130 was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane; it was used to provide close air support, air interdiction and force protection. The AC-130H \"Spectre\" was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, one Bofors 40mm autocannon, and one 105 mm M102 howitzer. The Huey is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine, with a two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. Approximately 7,000 UH-1 aircraft saw service in Vietnam.\n\nThe Claymore M18A1, an anti-personnel mine, was widely used during the war. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control and shoots a pattern of 700 one-eighth-inch steel balls into the kill zone like a shotgun.\n\nThe aircraft ordnance used during the war included precision-guided munition, cluster bombs, and napalm, a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, initially against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon that sticks to skin and can burn down to the bone.\n\nRadio communications\n\nThe Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment code named NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially. Eventually 30,000 units were produced. However limitations of the units, including poor voice quality, reduced range, annoying time delays and logistical support issues led to only one unit in ten being used.[http://www.governmentattic.org/18docs/Hist_US_COMSEC_Boak_NSA_1973u.pdf A History of U.S. Communications Security; the David G. Boak Lectures,] National Security Agency (NSA), Volumes I, 1973, Volumes II 1981, partially released 2008, additional portions declassified October 14, 2015 While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and NVA would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they were able to understand the jargon and codes used in realtime and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions.\n\nAftermath\n\nEvents in Southeast Asia\n\nOn 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon's words, \"massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions,\" there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions in fact took place. However, over the decade following the end of the war, an estimated 1 million South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, with approximately 165,000 prisoners dying. In addition, 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. \n\nPhnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the communist Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1–3 million Cambodians in the Killing Fields, out of a population of around 8 million.Heuveline, Patrick (2001). \"The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia.\" In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Heuveline suggests that a range of 1.17–3.42 million people were killed. At least 1,386,734 victims of execution have been counted in mass graves, while demographic analysis suggests that the policies of the regime caused between 1.7 and 2.5 million excess deaths altogether (including disease and starvation). After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were expelled. The devastating impact of Khmer Rouge rule contributed to a 1979 famine in Cambodia, during which an additional 300,000 Cambodians perished.\n\nThe Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People's Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was \"quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic 'velvet revolution'\"—although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets. \n\nOver 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people. Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people. Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were \"about 90 percent\" of Laos's \"intellectuals, technicians, and officials.\" In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions. Vietnam played a role in Asia similar to Cuba's in Latin America: it supported local revolutionary groups and was a headquarters for Soviet-style communism. Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continue to detonate and kill people today. The Vietnamese government claims that ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended. In 2012 alone, unexploded bombs and other ordnance claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and government databases. \n\nAgent Orange and similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including the US Air Force crew that handled them. On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. \n\nEffect on the United States\n\nIn the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, \"First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies… And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous.\". President Ronald Reagan coined the term \"Vietnam Syndrome\" to describe the reluctance of the American public and politicians to support further international interventions after Vietnam.\n\nSome have suggested that \"the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress…\" Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that \"tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure… The…Vietnam War…legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military…Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.\"\n\nU.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that \"in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail.\" Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that \"the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.\".\n\nDoubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, \"if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job.\" Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, \"I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.\"\n\nThe inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North's leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, \"You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours…But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.\".\n\nThe Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it \"wasteful of American lives… with small likelihood of a successful outcome.\" In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.\n\nBetween 1965 and 1975, the United States spent $111 billion on the war ($686 billion in FY2008 dollars). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.\n\nMore than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that \"At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops.\". Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973.\n\nBy war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. According to Dale Kueter, \"Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races.\" Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II. \n\nAs of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than 22 billion dollars a year in war-related claims. \n\nImpact on the U.S. military\n\nAs the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging—attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons—created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. By 1971, a U.S. Army colonel writing in the Armed Forces Journal declared: \"By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous....The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.\" Between 1969 and 1971 the US Army recorded more than 700 attacks by troops on their own officers. Eighty-three officers were killed and almost 650 were injured. \n\nRon Milam has questioned the severity of the \"breakdown\" of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of \"angry colonels\" who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War. Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged \"near mutinous\" conduct of junior officers and enlisted men in combat. Investigating one combat refusal incident, a journalist declared, \"A certain sense of independence, a reluctance to behave according to the military's insistence on obedience, like pawns or puppets...The grunts [infantrymen] were determined to survive...they insisted of having something to say about the making of decisions that determined whether they might live or die.\" \n\nThe morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription (the draft) were important factors leading to the creation of an all-volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973. The all-volunteer military moderated some of the coercive methods of discipline previously used to maintain order in military ranks. \n\nEffects of U.S. chemical defoliation\n\nOne of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain. \n\nEarly in the American military effort, it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple-canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases (both large and small) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporations like Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto were given the task of developing herbicides for this purpose. American officials also pointed out that the British had previously used 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (virtually identical to America's use in Vietnam) on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s in order to destroy bushes, crops, and trees in effort to deny communist insurgents the concealment they needed to ambush passing convoys. Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told President John F. Kennedy on 24 November 1961, that \"[t]he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of aircraft for destroying crops by chemical spraying.\" \n\nThe defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the \"Rainbow Herbicides\"—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 11-12 million gallons (41.6-45.4 million L) of Agent Orange were sprayed over southern Vietnam between 1961 and 1971. A prime area of Ranch Hand operations was in the Mekong Delta, where the U.S. Navy patrol boats were vulnerable to attack from the undergrowth at the water's edge.\n\nIn 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas. \n\nVietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case..In his 234-page judgment, Weinstein observed: \"Despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time.\" They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard. \n\nThe U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. \n\nCasualties\n\nEstimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002. \n195,000–430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000 to 182,000. The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954–1959 and in 1975. The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported \"enemy\" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000. A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related deaths for all of Vietnam. Between 240,000Sliwinski estimates 240,000 wartime deaths, of which 40,000 were caused by U.S. bombing. (). He characterizes other estimates ranging from 600,000–700,000 as \"the most extreme evaluations\" (p. 42). and 300,000 Cambodians died during the war. About 60,000 Laotians also died, and 58,300 U.S. military personnel were killed, of which 1,596 are still listed as missing . \n\nPopular culture\n\nThe Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. In American popular culture, the \"Crazy Vietnam Veteran\", who was suffering from Posttraumatic stress disorder, became a common stock character after the war.\n\nOne of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne's pro-war film, The Green Berets (1968). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, including Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) – based on his service in the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), Hamburger Hill (1987), and Casualties of War (1989). Later films would include We Were Soldiers (2002) and Rescue Dawn (2007).\n\nThe war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro/anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded \"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag\" / The \"Fish\" Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems. Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie."
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|
In 1999 Anna Kournikova signed a lucrative contract to model what?
|
tc_108
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (; born 7 June 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player. Her appearance and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google Search.\n\nDespite never winning a singles title, she reached No. 8 in the world in 2000. She achieved greater success playing doubles, where she was at times the World No. 1 player. With Martina Hingis as her partner, she won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002, and the WTA Championships in 1999 and 2000. They referred to themselves as the \"Spice Girls of Tennis\". \n\nKournikova's professional tennis career ended prematurely at the age of 21 due to serious back and spinal problems, including a herniated disk. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and plays in occasional exhibitions and in doubles for the St. Louis Aces of World Team Tennis. She was a new trainer for season 12 of the television show The Biggest Loser, replacing Jillian Michaels, but did not return for season 13. In addition to her tennis and television work, Kournikova serves as a Global Ambassador for Population Services International's \"Five & Alive\" program, which addresses health crises facing children under the age of five and their families. \n\nEarly life \n\nAnna Kournikova was born in Moscow, Russia, on 7 June 1981. Her father, Sergei Kournikov (born 1961), a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion, eventually earned a PhD and was a professor at the University of Physical Culture and Sport in Moscow. As of 2001, he was still a part-time martial arts instructor there. Her mother Alla (born 1963) had been a 400-metre runner. Her younger brother, Allan, is a youth golf world champion who was featured in the 2013 documentary film The Short Game. \n\nSergei Kournikov has said, \"We were young and we liked the clean, physical life, so Anna was in a good environment for sport from the beginning\".\n\nKournikova received her first tennis racquet as a New Year gift in 1986 at age 5. Describing her early regimen, she said, \"I played two times a week from age six. It was a children's program. And it was just for fun; my parents didn't know I was going to play professionally, they just wanted me to do something because I had lots of energy. It was only when I started playing well at seven that I went to a professional academy. I would go to school, and then my parents would take me to the club, and I'd spend the rest of the day there just having fun with the kids.\" In 1986, Kournikova became a member of the Spartak Tennis Club, coached by Larissa Preobrazhenskaya. In 1989, at the age of eight, Kournikova began appearing in junior tournaments, and by the following year, was attracting attention from tennis scouts across the world. Kournikova signed a management deal at age ten and went to Bradenton, Florida, to train at Nick Bollettieri's celebrated tennis academy.\n\nTennis career \n\n1989–1997: Early years and breakthrough \n\nFollowing her arrival in the United States, Kournikova became prominent on the tennis scene. At 14, she won the European Championships and the Italian Open Junior tournament. She became the youngest player to win the 18-and-under division of the Junior Orange Bowl tennis tournament. By the end of the year, Kournikova was crowned the ITF Junior World Champion U-18 and Junior European Champion U-18.\n\nIn 1994, Kournikova received a wild card into ITF tournament in Moscow qualifications, but lost to third seeded Sabine Appelmans. She debuted in professional tennis at 14 in the Fed Cup for Russia, the youngest player ever to participate and win. In 1995, she turned pro, and won two ITF titles, in Midland, Michigan and Rockford, Illinois. The same year Kournikova reached her first WTA Tour doubles final at the Kremlin Cup. Partnering with 1995 Wimbledon girls' champion in both singles and doubles Aleksandra Olsza, they lost to Meredith McGrath and Larisa Neiland.\n\nIn 1996, she started playing under a new coach, Ed Nagel. Her six-year tenure with Ed would produce terrific results. At 15, she made her grand slam debut, when she reached the fourth round of the 1996 US Open, only to be stopped by then-top ranked player Steffi Graf, the eventual champion. After this tournament, Kournikova's ranking jumped from No. 144 to debut in the Top 100 at No. 69. Kournikova was a member of the Russian delegation to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1996, she was named WTA Newcomer of the Year, and she was ranked No. 57 in the end of the season.\n\nKournikova entered the 1997 Australian Open as World No. 67, where she lost in the first round to World No. 12 Amanda Coetzer. At the Italian Open, Kournikova lost to Amanda Coetzer in the second round. However, she reached the semi-finals in the doubles partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, before losing to the sixth seeds Mary Joe Fernández and Patricia Tarabini.\n\nAt the 1997 French Open, Kournikova made it to the third round before losing to World No. 1 Martina Hingis. She also reached the third round in doubles with Likhovtseva. At the 1997 Wimbledon Championships, Kournikova became only the second woman in the open era to reach the semi-finals in her Wimbledon debut, the first being Chris Evert in 1972; she still holds the record for being the youngest Wimbledon semi-finalist in history (15 years of age). There she lost to eventual champion Martina Hingis.\n\nAt the 1997 US Open, she lost in the second round to the eleventh seed Irina Spîrlea. Partnering with Likhovtseva, she reached the third round of the women's doubles event. Kournikova played her last WTA Tour event of 1997 at Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt, losing to Amanda Coetzer in the second round of singles, and in the first round of doubles to Lindsay Davenport and Jana Novotná partnering with Likhovtseva. She broke into the top 50 on 19 May, and was ranked No. 32 in singles and No. 41 in doubles at the end of the season. \n\n1998–2000: Success and stardom \n\nIn 1998, Kournikova broke into the WTA's top 20 rankings for the first time, when she was ranked No. 16. At the 1998 Australian Open, Kournikova lost in the third round to World No. 1 player Martina Hingis. She also partnered with Larisa Neiland in women's doubles, and they lost to eventual champions Hingis and Mirjana Lučić in the second round. Although she lost in the second round of the Paris Open to Anke Huber in singles, Kournikova reached her second doubles WTA Tour final, partnering with Larisa Neiland. They lost to Sabine Appelmans and Miriam Oremans. Kournikova and Neiland reached their second consecutive final at the Linz Open, losing to Alexandra Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat. At the Miami Open, Kournikova reached her first WTA Tour singles final, before losing to Venus Williams in the final.\n\nKournikova then reached two consecutive quarterfinals, at Amelia Island and the Italian Open, losing respectively to Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis. At the German Open, she reached the semi-finals in both singles and doubles, partnering with Larisa Neiland. At the 1998 French Open Kournikova had her best result at this tournament, making it to the fourth round before losing to Jana Novotná. She also reached her first Grand Slam doubles semi-finals, losing with Neiland to Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva. During her quarterfinals match at the grass-court Eastbourne Open versus Steffi Graf, Kournikova injured her thumb, which would eventually force her to withdraw from the 1998 Wimbledon Championships. However, she won that match, but then withdrew from her semi-finals match against Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Kournikova returned for the Du Maurier Open and made it to the third round, before losing to Conchita Martínez. At the 1998 US Open Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Her strong year qualified her for the year-end 1998 WTA Tour Championships, but she lost to Monica Seles in the first round. However, with Seles, she won her first WTA doubles title, in Tokyo, beating Mary Joe Fernández and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final. At the end of the season, she was ranked No. 10 in doubles.\n\nAt the start of the 1999 season, Kournikova advanced to the fourth round in singles before losing to Mary Pierce. However, Kournikova won her first doubles Grand Slam title, partnering Martina Hingis. The two defeated Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva in the final. At the Tier I Family Circle Cup, Kournikova reached her second WTA Tour final, but lost to Martina Hingis. She then defeated Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Patty Schnyder on her route to the Bausch & Lomb Championships semi-finals, losing to Ruxandra Dragomir. At The French Open, Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to eventual champion Steffi Graf. Once the grass-court season commenced in England, Kournikova lost to Nathalie Tauziat in the semi-finals in Eastbourne. At Wimbledon, Kournikova lost to Venus Williams in the fourth round. She also reached the final in mixed doubles, partnering with Jonas Björkman, but they lost to Leander Paes and Lisa Raymond. Kournikova again qualified for year-end WTA Tour Championships, but lost to Mary Pierce in the first round, and ended the season as World No. 12.\n\nWhile Kournikova had a successful singles season, she was even more successful in doubles. After their victory at the Australian Open, she and Martina Hingis won tournaments in Indian Wells, Rome, Eastbourne and the WTA Tour Championshiops, and reached the final of The French Open where they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, Kournikova also reached the final in Stanford. On 22 November 1999 she reached the World No. 1 ranking in doubles, and ended the season at this ranking. Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis were presented with the WTA Award for Doubles Team of the Year.\n\nKournikova opened her 2000 season winning the Gold Coast Open doubles tournament partnering with Julie Halard. She then reached the singles semi-finals at the Medibank International Sydney, losing to Lindsay Davenport. At the 2000 Australian Open, she reached the fourth round in singles and the semi-finals in doubles. That season, Kournikova reached eight semi-finals (Sydney, Scottsdale, Stanford, San Diego, Luxembourg, Leipzig and 2000 WTA Tour Championships), seven quarterfinals (Gold Coast, Tokyo, Amelia Island, Hamburg, Eastbourne, Zürich and Philadelphia) and one final. On 20 November 2000 she broke into top 10 for the first time, reaching No. 8. She was also ranked No. 4 in doubles at the end of the season. Kournikova was once again, more successful in doubles. She reached the final of the 2000 US Open in mixed doubles, partnering with Max Mirnyi, but they lost to Jared Palmer and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. She also won six doubles titles – Gold Coast (with Julie Halard), Hamburg (with Natasha Zvereva), Filderstadt, Zürich, Philadelphia and the 2000 WTA Tour Championships (with Martina Hingis).\n\n2001–2003: Injuries and final years \n\nHer 2001 season was dominated by injury, including a left foot stress fracture which forced her withdrawal from twelve tournaments, including the French Open and Wimbledon. She underwent surgery in April. She reached her second career grand slam quarterfinals, at the Australian Open. Kournikova then withdrew from several events due to continuing problems with her left foot and did not return until Leipzig. With Barbara Schett, she won the doubles title in Sydney. She then lost in the finals in Tokyo, partnering with Iroda Tulyaganova, and at San Diego, partnering with Martina Hingis. Hingis and Kournikova also won the Kremlin Cup. At the end of the 2001 season, she was ranked No. 74 in singles and No. 26 in doubles.\n\nKournikova was quite successful in 2002. She reached the semi-finals of Auckland, Tokyo, Acapulco and San Diego, and the final of the China Open, losing to Anna Smashnova. This was Kournikova's last singles final. With Martina Hingis, she lost in the final at Sydney, but they won their second grand slam title together, the Australian Open. They also lost in the quarterfinals of the US Open. With Chanda Rubin, Kournikova played the semi-finals of Wimbledon, but they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering Janet Lee, she won the Shanghai title. At the end of 2002 season, she was ranked No. 35 in singles and No. 11 in doubles.\n\nIn 2003, Anna Kournikova collected her first grand slam match victory in two years at the Australian Open. She defeated Henrieta Nagyová in the 1st round, and then lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne in the 2nd round. She withdrew from Tokyo due to a sprained back suffered at the Australian Open and did not return to Tour until Miami. On 9 April, in what would be the final WTA match of her career, Kournikova retired in the 1st round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina, due to a left adductor strain. Her singles world ranking was 67. She reached the semi-finals at the ITF tournament in Sea Island, before withdrawing from a match versus Maria Sharapova due to the adductor injury. She lost in the 1st round of the ITF tournament in Charlottesville. She did not compete for the rest of the season due to a continuing back injury. At the end of the 2003 season and her professional career, she was ranked No. 305 in singles and No. 176 in doubles.\n\nKournikova's two Grand Slam doubles titles came in 1999 and 2002, both at the Australian Open in the Women's Doubles event with partner Martina Hingis. Kournikova proved a successful doubles player on the professional circuit, winning 16 tournament doubles titles, including two Australian Opens and being a finalist in mixed doubles at the US Open and at Wimbledon, and reaching the No. 1 ranking in doubles in the Women's Tennis Association tour rankings. Her pro career doubles record was 200–71. However, her singles career plateaued after 1999. For the most part, she managed to retain her ranking between 10 and 15 (her career high singles ranking was No.8), but her expected finals breakthrough failed to occur; she only reached four finals out of 130 singles tournaments, never in a Grand Slam event, and never won one.\n\nHer singles record is 209–129. Her final playing years were marred by a string of injuries, especially back injuries, which caused her ranking to erode gradually. As a personality Kournikova was among the most common search strings for both articles and images in her prime.\n\n2004–present: Exhibitions and World Team Tennis \n\nKournikova has not played on the WTA Tour since 2003, but still plays exhibition matches for charitable causes. In late 2004, she participated in three events organized by Elton John and by fellow tennis players Serena Williams and Andy Roddick. In January 2005, she played in a doubles charity event for the Indian Ocean tsunami with John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, and Chris Evert. In November 2005, she teamed up with Martina Hingis, playing against Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur in the WTT finals for charity. Kournikova is also a member of the St. Louis Aces in the World Team Tennis (WTT), playing doubles only.\n\nIn September 2008, Kournikova showed up for the 2008 Nautica Malibu Triathlon held at Zuma Beach in Malibu, California. The Race raised funds for children's Hospital Los Angeles. She won that race for women's K-Swiss team. On 27 September 2008, Kournikova played exhibition mixed doubles matches in Charlotte, North Carolina, partnering with Tim Wilkison and Karel Nováček. Kournikova and Wilkison defeated Jimmy Arias and Chanda Rubin, and then Kournikova and Novacek defeated Rubin and Wilkison.\n\nOn 12 October 2008, Anna Kournikova played one exhibition match for the annual charity event, hosted by Billie Jean King and Elton John, and raised more than $400,000 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund. She played doubles with Andy Roddick (they were coached by David Chang) versus Martina Navratilova and Jesse Levine (coached by Billie Jean King); Kournikova and Roddick won.\n\nKournikova competed alongside John McEnroe, Tracy Austin and Jim Courier at the \"Legendary Night\", which was held on 2 May 2009, at the Turning Stone Event Center in Verona, New York. The exhibition included a mixed doubles match of McEnroe and Austin against Courier and Kournikova.\n\nIn 2008, she was named a spokesperson for K-Swiss. In 2005, Kournikova stated that if she were 100% fit, she would like to come back and compete again. \n\nIn June 2010, Kournikova reunited with her doubles partner Martina Hingis to participate in competitive tennis for the first time in seven years in the Invitational Ladies Doubles event at Wimbledon. On 29 June 2010 they defeated the British pair Samantha Smith and Anne Hobbs. \n\nPlaying style \n\nAs a player, Kournikova was noted for her footspeed and aggressive baseline play, and excellent angles and dropshots; however, her relatively flat, high-risk groundstrokes tended to produce frequent errors, and her serve was sometimes unreliable in singles.\n\nKournikova plays right-handed with a two-handed backhand. She is a great player at the net. She can hit forceful groundstrokes and also drop shots. \n\nHer playing style fits the profile for a doubles player, and is complemented by her height. She has been compared to such doubles specialists as Pam Shriver and Peter Fleming.\n\nPersonal life \n\nKournikova was in a relationship with fellow Russian Pavel Bure, an NHL ice hockey player. The two met in 1999 when Kournikova was still linked to Bure's former Russian teammate Sergei Fedorov. Bure and Kournikova were reported to have been engaged in 2000 after a reporter took a photo of them together in a Florida restaurant where Bure supposedly asked Kournikova to marry him. As the story made headlines in Russia, where they were both heavily followed in the media as celebrities, Bure and Kournikova both denied any engagement. Kournikova, 10 years younger than Bure, was 18 years old at the time. \n\nThe following year, Kournikova and Fedorov were married in Moscow. Fedorov claimed he and Kournikova were married in 2001, and divorced in 2003. Kournikova's representatives deny any marriage to Fedorov; however, Fedorov's agent Pat Brisson claims that although he does not know when they got married, he knew \"Fedorov was married\". \n\nKournikova started dating pop star Enrique Iglesias in late 2001 (she appeared in his video, \"Escape\"). Kournikova has consistently refused to directly confirm or deny the status of her personal relationships. In June 2008, Iglesias was quoted by the Daily Star as having married Kournikova the previous year and subsequently separated. The couple have invested in a $20 million home to be built on a private island in Miami. \n\nKournikova resides in Miami Beach, Florida.\n\nMedia publicity \n\nMost of Kournikova's fame has come from the publicity surrounding her looks and her personal life. During her debut at the 1996 US Open at the age of 15, the western world noticed her beauty, and soon pictures of her appeared in numerous magazines worldwide.\n\nIn 2000, Kournikova became the new face for Berlei's shock absorber sports bras, and appeared in the \"only the ball should bounce\" billboard campaign. Following that, she was cast by the Farrelly brothers for a minor role in the 2000 film Me, Myself & Irene starring Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger. Photographs of her have appeared on covers of various publications, including men's magazines, such as one in the much-publicized 2004 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, where she posed in bikinis and swimsuits, as well as in FHM and Maxim. Kournikova was named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998 and was voted \"hottest female athlete\" on ESPN.com. In 2002 she also placed first in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World in US and UK editions. By contrast, ESPN—citing the degree of hype as compared to actual accomplishments as a singles player—ranked Kournikova 18th in its \"25 Biggest Sports Flops of the Past 25 Years\". Kournikova was also ranked No. 1 in the ESPN Classic series \"Who's number 1?\" when the series featured sport's most overrated athletes. \n\nShe continued to be the most searched athlete on the Internet through 2008 even though she had retired from the professional tennis circuit years earlier. After slipping from first to sixth among athletes in 2009, she moved back up to third place among athletes in terms of search popularity in 2010. \n\nIn October 2010, Kournikova headed to NBC's The Biggest Loser where she led the contestants in a tennis-workout challenge. In May 2011, it was announced that Kournikova would join The Biggest Loser as a regular celebrity trainer in season 12. She did not return for season 13. \n\nIn November 2010, she became an American citizen. In 2011, Men's Health named her one of the \"100 Hottest Women of All-Time\", ranking her at No. 29. \n\nInfluences on popular culture \n\nA variation of a White Russian made with skim milk is known as an Anna Kournikova. In the lingo of the poker variation Texas Hold 'em, the hole cards Ace–King (unsuited) are sometimes referred to as an \"Anna Kournikova\", a term introduced by the poker commentator Vince van Patten during a WPT tournament because it \"looks great but never wins\". A video game featuring Kournikova's licensed appearance, titled Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis, was developed by Namco and released for the PlayStation in Japan and Europe in November 1998. A computer virus named the Anna Kournikova virus arose on 12 February 2001. \n\nCareer statistics and awards \n\n* 1996: WTA Newcomer of the Year\n* 1999: WTA Doubles Team of the Year (with Martina Hingis)\n\nBooks \n\n* Anna Kournikova by Susan Holden (2001) (ISBN 978-1-84222-416-8 / ISBN 978-1-84222-416-8)\n* Anna Kournikova (Women Who Win) by Connie Berman (2001) (ISBN 978-0-7910-6529-7 / ISBN 978-0-7910-6529-7)"
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Which member of the Monkees came from Washington DC?
|
tc_109
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"The Monkees are an American Pop-rock band originally active between 1965 and 1971, with subsequent reunion albums and tours in the decades that followed. They were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968. The musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork and British actor and singer Davy Jones. The band's music was initially supervised by producer Don Kirshner.\n\nDolenz described the Monkees as initially being \"a TV show about an imaginary band ... that wanted to be The Beatles, [but] that was never successful\". The actor-musicians, however, soon became a real band.\n\nFor the first few months of their initial five-year career as \"The Monkees\", the four actor-musicians were allowed only limited roles in the recording studio. This was due in part to the amount of time required to film the television series. Nonetheless, Nesmith did compose and produce some songs from the beginning, and Peter Tork contributed limited guitar work on the sessions produced by Nesmith. They eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band's name. The sitcom was canceled in 1968, but the band continued to record music through 1971.\n\nA revival of interest in the television show came in 1986, which led to a series of reunion tours and new records. Up until 2011 the group had reunited and toured several times, with varying degrees of success. Despite the sudden death of Davy Jones on February 29, 2012, the surviving members reunited for a tour in November–December 2012 and again in 2013 for a 24-date tour.\n\nThe Monkees have sold more than 75 million records worldwide and had international hits, including \"Last Train to Clarksville\", \"Pleasant Valley Sunday\", \"Daydream Believer\" and \"I'm a Believer\". At their peak in 1967, the band outsold The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined. \n\nConception\n\nAspiring filmmaker Bob Rafelson developed the initial idea for The Monkees in 1962, but was unsuccessful in selling the series. He had tried selling it to Revue, the television division of Universal Pictures. In May 1964, while working at Screen Gems, Rafelson teamed up with Bert Schneider, whose father, Abraham Schneider, headed the Colpix Television and Screen Gems Television units of Columbia Pictures. Rafelson and Schneider ultimately formed Raybert Productions. \n\nThe Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night inspired Rafelson and Schneider to revive Rafelson's idea for The Monkees. As \"The Raybert Producers\", they sold the show to Screen Gems Television on April 16, 1965. Rafelson and Schneider's original idea was to cast an existing New York folk rock group, The Lovin' Spoonful, who were not widely known at the time. However, John Sebastian had already signed the band to a record contract, which would have denied Screen Gems the right to market music from the show.\n\nOn July 14, 1965, The Hollywood Reporter stated that future band member Davy Jones was expected to return to the United States in September 1965 after a trip to England \"to prepare for [a] TV pilot for Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson\". Jones had previously starred as the Artful Dodger in the Broadway show Oliver!, which debuted on December 17, 1962, and his performance was later seen on The Ed Sullivan Show the same night as the Beatles' first appearance on that show, February 9, 1964. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical in 1963. In September 1964 he was signed to a long-term contract to appear in TV programs for Screen Gems, make feature films for Columbia Pictures and to record music for the Colpix label. Rafelson and Schneider already had him in mind for their project after their plans for The Lovin' Spoonful fell through; when they chose him, he was essentially a proto-star looking for his lucky break.\n\nOn September 8–10, 1965, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran an ad to cast the remainder of the band/cast members for the TV show:\n\nMadness!! Auditions. Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running Parts for 4 insane boys, age 17-21. Want spirited Ben Frank's types. Have courage to work. Must come down for interview.\n\nOut of 437 applicants, the other three chosen for the cast of the TV show were Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz. Nesmith had been working as a musician since early 1963 and had been recording and releasing music under various names, including Michael Blessing and \"Mike & John & Bill\" and had studied drama in college; contrary to popular belief, of the final four, Nesmith was the one member who actually saw the ad in the Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Tork, the last to be chosen, had been working the Greenwich Village scene as a musician, and had shared the stage with Pete Seeger; he learned of The Monkees from Stephen Stills, whom Rafelson and Schneider had rejected. Dolenz was an actor (his father was veteran character actor George Dolenz) who had starred in the TV series Circus Boy as a child, using the stage name Mickey Braddock, and he had also played guitar and sung in a band called the Missing Links before the Monkees, which had recorded and released a very minor single, \"Don't Do It\". By that time he was using his real name; he found out about The Monkees through his agent.\n\nDeveloping the music for their debut album\n\nDuring the casting process Don Kirshner, Screen Gems' head of music, was contacted to secure music for the pilot that would become The Monkees. Not getting much interest from his usual stable of Brill Building writers, Kirshner assigned Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to the project. The duo contributed four demo recordings for the pilot. One of these recordings was \"(Theme From) The Monkees\" which helped get the series the green light. \n\nWhen The Monkees was picked up as a series, development of the musical side of the project accelerated. Columbia-Screen Gems and RCA Victor entered into a joint venture called Colgems Records primarily to distribute Monkees records. Raybert set up a rehearsal space and rented instruments for the group to practice playing in April 1966, but it quickly became apparent they would not be in shape in time for the series debut. The producers called upon Kirshner to recruit a producer for the Monkees sessions. \n\nKirshner called on Snuff Garrett, composer of several hits by Gary Lewis & the Playboys, to produce the initial musical cuts for the show. Garrett, upon meeting the four Monkees in June 1966, decided that Jones would sing lead, a choice that was unpopular with the group. This cool reception led Kirshner to drop Garrett and buy out his contract. Kirshner next allowed Nesmith to produce sessions, provided he did not play on any tracks he produced. Nesmith did, however, start using the other Monkees on his sessions, particularly Tork as a guitarist. Kirshner came back to the enthusiastic Boyce and Hart to be the regular producers, but he brought in one of his top East Coast associates, Jack Keller, to lend some production experience to the sessions. Boyce and Hart observed quickly that when brought into the studio together, the four actors would fool around and try to crack each other up. Because of this, they would often bring in each singer individually. \n\nAccording to Nesmith, it was Dolenz's voice that made the Monkees' sound distinctive, and even during tension-filled times Nesmith and Tork sometimes turned over lead vocal duties to Dolenz on their own compositions, such as Tork's \"For Pete's Sake,\" which became the closing title theme for the second season of the television show.\n\nThe Monkees' debut and second albums were meant to be a soundtrack to the first season of the TV show, to cash in on the audience. In the 2006 Rhino Deluxe Edition re-issue of their second album, More of the Monkees, Mike Nesmith stated, \"The first album shows up and I look at it with horror because it makes [us] appear as if we are a rock 'n' roll band. There's no credit for the other musicians. I go completely ballistic, and I say, 'What are you people thinking?' [The powers that be say], 'Well, you know, it's the fantasy.' I say, 'It's not the fantasy. You've crossed the line here! You are now duping the public. They know when they look at the television series that we're not a rock 'n' roll band; it's a show about a rock 'n' roll band. ... nobody for a minute believes that we are somehow this accomplished rock 'n' roll band that got their own television show. ... you putting the record out like this is just beyond the pale.\" Within a few months of their debut album, Music Supervisor Don Kirshner would be forcibly dismissed and the Monkees would take control as a real band.\n\nThe Monkees' first single, \"Last Train to Clarksville\" b/w \"Take a Giant Step\", was released in August 1966, just weeks prior to the TV broadcast debut. In conjunction with the first broadcast of the television show on September 12, 1966, on the NBC television network, NBC and Columbia had a major hit on their hands. The first long-playing album, The Monkees, was released a month later, spent 13 weeks at #1 and stayed on the Billboard charts for 78 weeks. Twenty years later, during their reunion, it would spend another 24 weeks on the Billboard charts. This first album is also notable, in addition to containing their debut single, for containing band member Nesmith's first foray into country-rock, \"Papa Gene's Blues,\" which mixed country, rock and Latin flavors.\n\nFrom television to concert stage\n\nIn assigning instruments for purposes of the television show, a dilemma arose as to which of the four would be the drummer. Both Nesmith (a skilled guitarist and bassist) and Tork (who could play several stringed and keyboard instruments) were peripherally familiar with the instrument but both declined to give the drum set a try. Jones knew how to play the drums and tested well enough initially on the instrument, but the producers felt that, behind a drum kit, the camera would exaggerate his short stature and make him virtually hidden from view. Thus, Dolenz (who only knew how to play the guitar) was assigned to become the drummer. Tork taught Dolenz his first few beats on the drums, enough for him to fake his way through filming the pilot, but he was soon taught how to play properly. Thus, the lineup for the TV show most frequently featured Nesmith on guitar, Tork on bass, Dolenz on drums and Jones as a frontman, singer and percussionist. This, however, is in opposition to the lineup which would have made the most sense based upon the members' musical strengths. For example, Tork is actually a better guitar player than Nesmith, while Nesmith had at one time specifically trained on the bass. While Jones certainly had a strong lead voice and sings lead on several Monkees recordings, Dolenz's voice is regarded, particularly by Nesmith, as one of the most distinctive in popular music history and a hallmark of the Monkees' sound. This theoretical lineup was actually depicted once, in the music video for the band's song \"Words\", which shows Jones on drums, Tork playing lead guitar, Nesmith on bass and Dolenz fronting the group. In concert appearances Tork also took much of the guitar duties, even in appearances with Nesmith, and Dolenz often plays rhythm guitar on stage.\n\nUnlike most television shows of the time, The Monkees episodes were written with many setups, requiring frequent breaks to prepare the set and cameras for short bursts of filming. Some of the \"bursts\" are considered proto-music videos, inasmuch as they were produced to sell the records. Eric Lefcowitz, in The Monkees Tale, pointed out that the Monkees were—first and foremost—a video group. The four actors would spend 12-hour days on the set, many of them waiting for the production crew to do their jobs. Noticing that their instruments were left on the set unplugged, the four decided to turn them on and start playing.\n\nAfter working on the set all day, the Monkees (usually Dolenz or Jones) would be called into the recording studio to cut vocal tracks. As the band was essential to this aspect of the recording process, there were few limits on how long they could spend in the recording studio, and the result was an extensive catalogue of unreleased recordings.\n\nOn tour\n\nPleased with their initial efforts, Columbia (over Kirshner's objections) planned to send the Monkees out to play live concerts. The massive success of the series—and its spin-off records—created intense pressure to mount a touring version of the group. Against the initial wishes of the producers, the band went out on the road and made their debut live performance in December 1966 in Hawaii.\n\nThey had no time to rehearse a live performance except between takes on set. They worked on the TV series all day, recorded in the studio at night and slept very little. The weekends were usually filled with special appearances or filming of special sequences. These performances were sometimes used during the actual series. The episode \"Too Many Girls (Fern and Davy)\" opens with a live version of \"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone\" being performed as the scene was shot. One entire episode was filmed featuring live music. The last show of the premiere season, \"Monkees on Tour\", was shot in a documentary style by filming a concert in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 21, 1967. Bob Rafelson wrote and directed the episode.\n\nIn DVD commentary tracks included in the Season One release, Nesmith admitted that Tork was better at playing guitar than bass. In Tork's commentary he stated that Jones was a good drummer, and had the live performance lineups been based solely on playing ability, it should have been Tork on guitar, Nesmith on bass and Jones on drums, with Dolenz taking the fronting role. The four Monkees performed all the instruments and vocals for most of the live set. The most notable exceptions were during each member's solo sections where, during the December 1966 – May 1967 tour, they were backed by the Candy Store Prophets. During the summer 1967 tour of the United States and the UK (from which the Live 1967 recordings are taken), they were backed by a band called The Sundowners. In 1968 the Monkees toured Australia and Japan. The results were far better than expected. Wherever they went, the group was greeted by scenes of fan adulation reminiscent of Beatlemania. This gave the singers increased confidence in their fight for control over the musical material chosen for the series.\n\nWith Jones sticking primarily to vocals and tambourine (except when filling in on the drums when Dolenz came forward to sing a lead vocal), the Monkees' live act constituted a classic power trio of electric guitar, electric bass and drums (except when Tork passed the bass part to Jones or one of The Sundowners in order to take up the banjo or electric keyboards).\n\nKirshner and More of the Monkees\n\nAndrew Sandoval noted in Rhino's 2006 Deluxe Edition CD reissue of More of the Monkees that album sales were outstripping Nielsen ratings, meaning that more people were buying the music than watching the television show, which meant that the producers decided that more attention needed to be paid to the music and that more music needed to be produced for more albums. Sandoval also noted that their second album, More of the Monkees, propelled by their second single, \"I'm a Believer\" b/w \"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone\", became the biggest selling LP of their career, spending 70 weeks on the Billboard charts, staying No. 1 for 18 weeks, becoming the third biggest selling album of the 1960s and also returning to the charts in 1986 for another 26 weeks.\n\nAt the time songwriters Boyce and Hart considered the Monkees to be their project, with Tommy Boyce stating in the 2006 Rhino reissue of More of the Monkees that he considered the Monkees to be actors in the television show, while Boyce and Hart were the songwriters and producers doing the records. They wanted Micky to sing the faster songs and have Davy sing the ballads. He also stated in the liner notes that he felt that Michael's country leanings didn't fit in with the Monkees' image, and although he thought that Peter was a great musician, he had a different process of thinking about songs that wasn't right for the Monkees. Music Coordinator Kirshner, though, realizing how important the music was, wanted to move the music in a newer direction than Boyce and Hart to get the best record, and so he decided to move the production to New York where his A-list of writers/producers resided.\n\nHowever, the Monkees had been complaining that the music publishing company would not allow them to play their own instruments on their records, or to use more of their own material. These complaints intensified when Kirshner moved track recording from California to New York, leaving the band out of the musical process until they were called upon to add their vocals to the completed tracks. This campaign eventually forced Kirshner to let the group have more participation in the recording process. Dolenz's initial reaction, mentioned in the 2006 Rhino CD reissue of More of the Monkees, was \"To me, these were the soundtrack albums to the show, and it wasn't my job. My job was to be an actor and to come in and to sing the stuff when I was asked to do so. I had no problem with that . . . It wasn't until Mike and Peter started getting so upset that Davy and I started defending them . . . they were upset because it wasn't the way they were used to making music. The artist is the bottom line. The artist decides what songs are gonna go on and in what order and who writes 'em and who produces 'em.\" Nesmith, when asked about the situation, in Rolling Stone magazine, said, \". . . We were confused, especially me. But all of us shared the desire to play the songs we were singing. Everyone was accomplished--the notion [that] I was the only musician is one of those rumors that got started and won't stop--but it was not true . . . We were also kids with our own taste in music and were happier performing songs we liked--and/or wrote--than songs that were handed to us . . . The [TV show's] producers [in Hollywood] backed us and David went along. None of us could have fought the battles we did [with the music publishers] without the explicit support of the show's producers.\" \n\nFour months after their debut single was released in September 1966, on January 16, 1967, the Monkees held their first recording session as a fully functioning, self-contained band, recording an early version of Nesmith's self-composed top 40 hit single \"The Girl I Knew Somewhere\", along with \"All of Your Toys\" and \"She's So Far Out, She's In\". Four days later, on January 20, 1967, their debut self-titled album made its belated release in the U.K. (it was released in October '66 in the U.S.). This same month Kirshner released their second album of songs that used session musicians, More of the Monkees, without the band's knowledge. Nesmith and Tork were particularly upset when they were on tour in January 1967 and discovered this second album. The Monkees were annoyed at not having even been told of the release in advance, at having their opinions on the track selection ignored, at Kirshner's self-congratulatory liner notes and also because of the amateurish-looking cover art, which was merely a composite of pictures of the four taken for a J.C. Penney clothing advertisement. Indeed, the Monkees had not even been given a copy of the album; they had to buy it from a record store. \n\nThe climax of the rivalry between Kirshner and the band was an intense argument among Nesmith, Kirshner and Colgems lawyer Herb Moelis, which took place at the Beverly Hills Hotel in January 1967. Kirshner had presented the group with royalty checks and gold records. Nesmith had responded with an ultimatum, demanding a change in the way the Monkees' music was chosen and recorded. Moelis reminded Nesmith that he was under contract. The confrontation ended with Nesmith punching a hole in a wall and saying, \"That could have been your face!\" However, each of the members, including Nesmith, accepted the $250,000 royalty checks (equivalent to approximately $ in today's funds).\n\nKirshner's dismissal came in early February 1967, when he violated an agreement between Colgems and the Monkees not to release material directly created by the group together with unrelated Kirshner-produced material. Kirshner violated this agreement when he released \"A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You\", composed and written by Neil Diamond, as a single with an early version of \"She Hangs Out\", a song recorded in New York with Davy Jones' vocals, as the B-side. This single was only released in Canada and was withdrawn after a couple weeks. \n\nKirshner was reported to have been incensed by the group's unexpected rebellion, especially when he felt they had \"modicum talent\" when compared to the superstars of the day like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In the liner notes for Rhino's 2006 Deluxe Edition CD reissue of More of the Monkees, Kirshner stated, \"[I controlled the group] because I had a contract. I kicked them out of the studio because I had a TV show that I had to put songs in, and to me it was a business and I had to knock off the songs.\" This experience led directly to Kirshner's later venture, The Archies, which was an animated series—the \"stars\" existed only on animation cels, with music done by studio musicians, and obviously could not seize creative control over the records issued under their name.\n\nScreen Gems held the publishing rights to a wealth of material, with the Monkees being offered the first choice of many new songs. Due to the abundance of material numerous tracks were recorded but left unreleased, until Rhino Records started releasing them through the Missing Links series of albums, starting in the late 1980s. A rumor persists that the Monkees were offered \"Sugar, Sugar\" in 1967, but declined to record it. Producer and songwriter Jeff Barry, joint writer and composer of \"Sugar, Sugar\" with Andy Kim, has denied this, saying that the song had not even been written at the time. \n\nIndependence\n\nHeadquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones\n\nThe Monkees wanted to pick the songs they sang and play on the songs they recorded, and be the Monkees. With Kirshner dismissed as Musical Supervisor, in late February 1967 Nesmith hired former Turtles bassist Douglas Farthing Hatlelid, who was better known by his stage name Chip Douglas, to produce the next Monkees album, which was to be the first Monkees album where they were the only musicians, outside of most of the bass, and the horns. Douglas was responsible for both music presentation—actually leading the band and engineering recordings—and playing bass on most of Headquarters. This album, along with their next, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., would serve as the soundtrack to the second season of the television show.\n\nIn March 1967 \"The Girl I Knew Somewhere\", composed by Nesmith and performed by Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork and bassist John London, was issued as the B-side to the Monkees' third single, \"A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You\", and it rose to No. 39 on the charts. The A-side rose to No. 2. \n\nIssued in May 1967, Headquarters had no songs released as singles in the United States, but it would still be their third No. 1 album in a row, with many of its songs played on the second season of the television show. Having a more country-folk-rock sound than the pop outings under Kirshner, Sandoval notes in the 2007 Deluxe Edition reissue from Rhino that the album rose to No. 1 on May 24, 1967, with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper released the following week, which would knock Headquarters to the #2 spot on the charts for the next 11 weeks, the same weeks which would become known by the counterculture as the \"Summer of Love\". A selection that Dolenz wrote and composed, \"Randy Scouse Git,\" was issued under the title \"Alternate Title\" (due to the controversial title of the song) as a single internationally, where it rose to No. 2 on the charts in the UK and Norway, and in the top 10 in other parts of the world. Tork's \"For Pete's Sake\" would be used as the closing theme for the television show. Nesmith would continue in his country-rock leanings, adding the pedal steel guitar to three of the songs, along with contributing his self-composed countrified-rock song \"Sunny Girlfriend\". Tork added the banjo to the Nesmith-composed rocker \"You Told Me\", a song whose introduction was satirical of the Beatles' \"Taxman\". Other notable songs are the Nesmith-composed straightforward pop-rock song \"You Just May Be the One\", used on the television series during both seasons, along with \"Shades of Gray\" (with piano introduction written by Tork ), \"Forget that Girl\" and \"No Time\", used in the television show. The Monkees wrote five of the 12 songs on the album, plus the two tracks \"Band 6\" and \"Zilch\". The Los Angeles Times, when reviewing Headquarters, stated that \"The Monkees Upgrade Album Quality\" and that \"The Monkees are getting better. Headquarters has more interesting songs and a better quality level [than previous albums] . . . None of the tracks is a throwaway . . . The improvement trend is laudable.\" \n\nThe high of Headquarters was short-lived, however. Recording and producing as a group was Tork's major interest and he hoped that the four would continue working together as a band on future recordings, according to the liner notes of the 2007 Rhino reissue of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.. \"Cuddly Toy\" on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. would mark the last time Dolenz, who originally played guitar before the Monkees, would make a solo stand as a studio drummer. In commentary for the DVD release of the second season of the show, Tork said that Dolenz was \"incapable of repeating a triumph.\" Having been a drummer for one album, Dolenz lost interest in being a drummer and indeed, he largely gave up playing instruments on Monkees recordings (producer Chip Douglas also had identified Dolenz's drumming as the weak point in the collective musicianship of the quartet, having to splice together multiple takes of Dolenz's \"shaky\" drumming for final use). By this point the four did not have a common vision regarding their musical interests, with Nesmith and Jones also moving in different directions—Nesmith following his country/folk instincts and Jones reaching for Broadway-style numbers. The next three albums featured a diverse mixture of musical style influences, including country-rock, folk-rock, psychedelic rock, soul/R&B, guitar rock, Broadway and English music hall sensibilities.\n\nAt the height of their fame in 1967, they also suffered from a media backlash. Nesmith states in the 2007 Rhino reissue of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., \"Everybody in the press and in the hippie movement had got us into their target window as being illegitimate and not worthy of consideration as a musical force [or] certainly any kind of cultural force. We were under siege; wherever we went there was such resentment for us. We were constantly mocked and humiliated by the press. We were really gettin' beat up pretty good. We all knew what was going on inside. Kirshner had been purged. We'd gone to try to make Headquarters and found out that it was only marginally okay and that our better move was to just go back to the original songwriting and song-making strategy of the first albums except with a clear indication of how [the music] came to be . . . The rabid element and the hatred that was engendered is almost impossible to describe. It lingers to this day among people my own age.\" Tork disagreed with Nesmith's assessment of Headquarters, stating, \"I don't think the Pisces album was as groovy to listen to as Headquarters. Technically it was much better, but I think it suffers for that reason.\" Both Headquarters and Pisces are highly revered by most Monkees fans.\n\nWith Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., the Monkees fourth album, they went back to making music for the television show, except that they had control over the music and which songs would be chosen. They used a mixture of themselves and session musicians on the album. They would use this strategy of themselves playing, plus adding session musicians (including the Wrecking Crew, Louie Shelton, Glen Campbell, members of the Byrds and the Association, drummer \"Fast\" Eddie Hoh, Lowell George, Stephen Stills, Buddy Miles, and Neil Young) throughout their recording career, relying more on session musicians when the group became temporarily estranged after Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. and recorded some of their songs separately.\n\nUsing Chip Douglas again to produce, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., released in November 1967 was the Monkees' fourth No. 1 album in a row, staying at No. 1 for 5 weeks, and was also their last No. 1 album. It featured the hit single \"Pleasant Valley Sunday\" (#3 on charts) b/w \"Words\" (#11 on charts), the A-side had Nesmith on electric guitar/backing vocals, Tork on piano/backing vocals, Dolenz on lead vocals and possibly guitar and Jones on backing vocals; the B-side had Micky and Peter alternating lead vocals, Peter played organ, Mike played guitar, percussion, and provided backing vocals, and Davy provided percussion and backing vocals. Other notable items about this album is that it features an early use of the Moog Synthesizer on two tracks, the Nesmith-penned \"Daily Nightly\", along with \"Star Collector\". All of its songs, except for two, were featured on the Monkees' television show during the second season.\n\nThe song \"What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?\", recorded in June 1967 and featured on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., is seen as a landmark in the fusion of country and rock despite Nesmith's prior country-flavored rock songs for the Monkees. Nesmith stated, \"One of the things that I really felt was honest was country-rock. I wanted to move the Monkees more into that because ... if we get closer to country music, we'll get closer to blues, and country blues, and so forth. ... It had a lot of un-country things in it: a familiar change from a I major to a VI minor — those kinds of things. So it was a little kind of a new wave country song. It didn't sound like the country songs of the time, which was Buck Owens.\"\n\nTheir next single, \"Daydream Believer\" (with a piano intro written by Tork), would shoot to No. 1 on the charts, letting the Monkees hold the No. 1 position in the singles chart and the album chart with Pisces simultaneously. \"Daydream Believer\" used the non-album track \"Goin' Down\" as its B-side, which featured Nesmith and Tork on guitar with Micky on lead vocals.\n\nDuring their 1986 reunion, both Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. would return to the charts for 17 weeks.\n\nThe Birds, The Bees & The Monkees\n\nThe Monkees decided that they no longer needed Chip Douglas as a producer, and starting in November 1967, they largely produced their own sessions. Although the Monkees albums after this date will state \"Produced by The Monkees\", they would mostly be recording as solo artists. In a couple of cases, Boyce and Hart had returned from the first two albums to produce, but credit was given to the Monkees. It was also during this time that Michael Nesmith recorded his first solo album, The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, a big band jazz instrumental collection of interpretations of Nesmith's compositions, arranged by the jazz musician Shorty Rogers. Praised in The Los Angeles Times by the author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz, jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote \"Verbally and musically, Mike Nesmith is one of the most articulate spokesmen for the new and literate breed of pop musicians who have spring from the loins of primitive rock. [The album] with its carriage trade of symphony, rock, country, western, and swing, and with jazz riding in the caboose, may well indicate where contemporary popular music will be situated in the early 1970s.\"\n\nConsidered by some to be the Monkees' \"White Album\" period (for example, Sandoval mentions this in the liner notes of Rhino Handmade's 2010 Deluxe reissue of the album), each of the Monkee's contributions reflected his own musical tastes, which resulted in an eclectic album. Micky sang the pop songs (e.g., \"I'll Be Back Upon My Feet\"), and performed a double-vocal with Mike on the Nesmith/Allison composed \"Auntie's Municipal Court\". Davy sang the ballads (e.g., \"Daydream Believer\" and \"We Were Made for Each Other\") and Nesmith contributed some experimental songs, like the progressive \"Writing Wrongs\", the unusual hit song \"Tapioca Tundra\", and the lo-fi 1920s sound of \"Magnolia Simms\". This last song is notable for added effects to make it sound like an old record (even including a \"record skipping\" simulation) made before the Beatles \"Honey Pie\", which used a similar effect.\n\nPropelled by the hit singles \"Daydream Believer\" and \"Valleri\", along with Nesmith's self-penned top 40 hit \"Tapioca Tundra\", The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts shortly after it was released in April 1968. It was the first album released after NBC announced they were not renewing The Monkees for a third season. The album cover—a quaint collage of items looking like a display in a jumble shop or toy store—was chosen over the Monkees' objections. It was the last Monkees' album to be released in separate, dedicated mono and stereo mixes. During the 1986 reunion, it would return to the Billboard charts for 11 weeks.\n\nBeyond television\n\nDuring the filming of the second season, the band became tired of scripts which they deemed monotonous and stale. They had already succeeded in eliminating the laugh track (a then-standard on American sitcoms), with the bulk of Season 2 episodes airing minus the canned chuckles. They proposed switching the format of the series to become more like a variety show, with musical guests and live performances. This desire was partially fulfilled within some second-season episodes, with guest stars like musicians Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley and Charlie Smalls (composer of The Wiz) performing on the show. However, NBC was not interested in eliminating the existing format, and the group (except for Peter) had little desire to continue for a third season. Tork said in DVD commentary that everyone had developed such difficult personalities that the big-name stars invited as guests on the show would invariably leave the experience \"hating everybody\".\n\nScreen Gems and NBC went ahead with the existing format anyway, commissioning Monkees writers Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso to create a straight-comedy, no-music half-hour in the Monkees mold; a pilot episode was filmed with the then-popular nightclub act The Pickle Brothers. The pilot had the same energy and pace of The Monkees, but never became a series.\n\nIn June 1968, Music Supervisor Lester Sill chose to release the two non-album tracks \"D.W. Washburn\" b/w \"It's Nice To Be With You\" as the Monkees' next single. The Leiber/Stoller-penned A-side would break into the Top 20, peaking at No. 19 on the charts.\n\nHead\n\nAfter The Monkees was canceled in February 1968, Rafelson directed the four Monkees in a feature film, Head. Schneider was executive producer, and the project was co-written and co-produced by Bob Rafelson with a then relatively unknown Jack Nicholson.\n\nThe film, conceived and edited in a stream of consciousness style, featured oddball cameo appearances by movie stars Victor Mature, Annette Funicello, a young Teri Garr, boxer Sonny Liston, famous stripper Carol Doda, Green Bay Packer linebacker Ray Nitschke, and musician Frank Zappa. It was filmed at Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems studios and on location in California, Utah, and The Bahamas between February 19 and May 17, 1968 and premiered in New York City on November 6 of that year (the film later debuted in Hollywood on November 20).\n\nThe film was not a commercial success, in part because it was the antithesis of The Monkees television show, intended to comprehensively demolish the group's carefully groomed public image. Rafelson and Nicholson's Ditty Diego-War Chant (recited at the start of the film by the Monkees), ruthlessly parodies Boyce and Hart's \"Monkees Theme\". A sparse advertising campaign (with no mention of the Monkees) squelched any chances of the film doing well, and it played only briefly. In commentary for the DVD release, Nesmith said that by this time, everyone associated with the Monkees \"had gone crazy\". They were each using the platform of the Monkees to push their own disparate career goals, to the detriment of the Monkees project. Indeed, Nesmith said, Head was Rafelson and Nicholson's intentional effort to \"kill\" the Monkees, so that they would no longer be bothered with the matter.\n\nReleased in October 1968, the single from the album, \"The Porpoise Song\", is a psychedelic pop song written by Goffin/King, with lead vocals from Micky Dolenz and backing vocals from Davy Jones, and it reached number 62 on the Billboard charts. \n\nThe soundtrack album to the movie, Head, reached No. 45 on the Billboard charts. Jack Nicholson assembled the film's soundtrack album, weaving dialogue and sound effects from the film in between the songs from the film. The six (plus \"Ditty Diego\") Monkees songs on the album range from psychedelic pop to straight ahead rockers to Broadway rock to eastern-influenced pop to a folk-rock ballad. Although the Monkees performed \"Circle Sky\" live in the film, the studio version is chosen for the soundtrack album. The live version would later be released on various compilations, including Rhino's Missing Links series of Monkees albums. The soundtrack album also includes a song from the film's composer, Ken Thorne. The album had a mylar cover, to give it a mirror-like appearance, so that the person looking at the cover would see his own head, a play on the album title Head. Peter Tork said, \"That was something special ... [Jack] Nicholson coordinated the record, made it up from the soundtrack. He made it different from the movie. There's a line in the movie where [Frank] Zappa says, 'That's pretty white.' Then there's another line in the movie that was not juxtaposed in the movie, but Nicholson put them together in the [soundtrack album], when Mike says, 'And the same thing goes for Christmas.' ... that's funny, ... very different from the movie ...that was very important and wonderful that he assembled the record differently from the movie. ... It was a different artistic experience.\" The soundtrack album is a cult favorite among the Monkees' fans.\n\nOver the intervening years Head has developed a cult following for its innovative style and anarchic humor. Members of the Monkees, Nesmith in particular, cite the soundtrack album as one of the crowning achievements of the band.\n\nEarly 1969: Tork's resignation, Instant Replay and The Monkees Present\n\nTensions within the group were increasing. Peter Tork, citing exhaustion, quit by buying out the last four years of his Monkees contract at $150,000 per year, equal to about $ per year today. This was shortly after the band's Far East tour in December 1968, after completing work on their 1969 NBC television special, 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee, which rehashed many of the ideas from Head, only with the Monkees playing a strangely second-string role. In the DVD commentary for the television special, Dolenz noted that after filming was complete, Nesmith gave Tork a gold watch as a going-away present, engraved \"From the guys down at work.\" (Tork kept the back, but replaced the watch several times in later years.) Most of the songs from the 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee TV Special would not be officially released until over 40 years later, on the 2010 and 2011 Rhino Handmade Deluxe boxed sets of Head and Instant Replay.\n\nSince the Monkees at this point were producing their own songs with very little of the other band members involvement, they planned a future double album (eventually to be reduced to The Monkees Present) on which each Monkee would separately produce one side of a disc.\n\nIn February 1969, the Monkees' seventh album, Instant Replay, without Tork's involvement beyond playing guitar on \"I Won't Be the Same Without Her\", was released, which reached No. 32 on the charts. The single from the album was \"Tear Drop City\", which peaked at No. 56 on the U.S. Billboard chart and No. 34 on the Australian chart. According to Rhino Handmade's 2011 Deluxe Edition reissue of this album, Davy Jones told Melody Maker, \"Half of the songs were recorded over the last three years, but there are also about six new ones.\" The Monkees wanted to please the original 1966 fans by offering up new recordings of some previously unreleased older styled songs, as well as gain a new audience with what they considered a more mature sound. Nesmith continued in his country-rock vein after offering straight ahead rock and experimental songs on the two prior albums. Nesmith stated in Rhino Handmade's 2011 Deluxe Edition reissue, \"I guess it was the same embryo beating in me that was somewhere in Don Henley and Glenn Frey and Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young. Everybody who was hanging out in those times. I could just feel this happening that there was this thing. So, I headed off to Nashville to see if I couldn't get some of the Nashville country thing into the rock 'n' roll or vice versa. What I found was that Nashville country was not the country that was going to be the basis of country-rock and that it was Western, Southwest country. It was coming much more out of the Southern California scene. I ended up with a lot of Dobro, mandolin, banjo, and things that were hard-core mountain music stuff ... the Nashville cats were so blown out by playin' this kind of music. They loved it, for one thing.\"\n\nDolenz contributed the biggest and longest Monkees' production, \"Shorty Blackwell\", a song inspired by his cat of the same name. Dolenz called it his \"feeble attempt at something to do with Sgt. Pepper.\" Jones contributed an electric guitar rocker, \"You and I.\" Both Jones and Dolenz continued their role of singing on the pop songs. Lyrically, it has a theme of being one of the Monkees' most melancholy albums.\n\nThroughout 1969 the trio appeared as guests on television programs such as The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, The Johnny Cash Show, Hollywood Squares, and Laugh-In. The Monkees also had a contractual obligation to appear in several television commercials with Bugs Bunny for Kool-Aid drink mix as well as Post cereal box singles.\n\nIn April 1969, the single \"Someday Man\" b/w \"Listen to the Band\" was released, which had the unique distinction of the B-side, a Nesmith composed country-rock song, charting higher (#63) than the Jones-sung A-side (#81).\n\nThe final album with Michael Nesmith from the Monkees original incarnation would be their eighth album, The Monkees Present, released in October 1969, which peaked at No. 100 on the Billboard charts. It would include the Nesmith composed country-rock singles \"Listen to the Band\" and \"Good Clean Fun\" (released in September 1969). Other notable songs include the Dolenz composition \"Little Girl\", which featured Louie Shelton on electric guitar, joining Micky on acoustic guitar, along with \"Mommy and Daddy\" (B-side to the \"Good Clean Fun single) in which he sang about America's treatment of the Native Americans and drug abuse, and in an earlier take, released on Rhino Handmade's 2011 Deluxe Edition of Instant Replay, sang about JFK's assassination and the Vietnam war. Jones collaborated with Bill Chadwick on some slower ballads, along with releasing a couple of older upbeat songs from 1966.\n\nIn the summer of 1969 the three Monkees embarked on a tour with the backing of the soul band \"Sam and the Good-Timers\". The concerts for this tour were longer sets than their earlier concert tours, many shows running over two hours. Although the tour was met with some positive critical reception (Billboard in particular praised it), other critics were not favorable of the mixing of the Monkees' pop music with the Goodtimers' R&B approach. Toward the end of the tour, some dates were canceled due to poor ticket sales, and the tour failed to re-establish the band commercially, with no single entering the Top 40 in 1969. Dolenz remarked that the tour \"was like kicking a dead horse. The phenomenon had peaked.\" \n\nApril 1970: Nesmith's resignation and Changes\n\nOn April 14, 1970, Nesmith joined Dolenz and Jones for the last time as part of the original incarnation of the Monkees to film a Kool-Aid commercial, with Nesmith leaving the group to continue recording songs with his own country-rock group called Michael Nesmith & The First National Band, which he had started recording with on February 10, 1970. His first album with his own band was called Magnetic South, and at the time he left the Monkees in April, he was recording songs for his second album with The First National Band, called Loose Salute.\n\nThis left Dolenz and Jones to record the bubblegum pop album Changes as the ninth and final album by the Monkees released during its original incarnation. By this time, Colgems was hardly putting any effort into the project, and they sent Dolenz and Jones to New York for the Changes sessions, to be produced by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim. In comments for the liner notes of the 1994 re-release of Changes, Jones said that he felt they had been tricked into recording an \"Andy Kim album\" under the Monkees name. Except for the two singers' vocal performances, Changes is the only album that fails to win any significant praise from critics looking back 40 years to the Monkees' recording output. The album spawned the single \"Oh My My\", which was accompanied by a music film promo (produced/directed by Dolenz). Dolenz contributed one of his own compositions, \"Midnight Train\", which was used in the re-runs of the Monkees TV series. The \"Oh My My\" b/w \"I Love You Better\" single from the Changes album would be the last single issued under the Monkees name in the United States, until 1986. Originally released in June 1970, Changes would first chart in Billboard's Top 200 during the Monkees' 1986 reunion, staying on the charts for 4 weeks.\n\nSeptember 22, 1970 marked the final recording session by the Monkees in their original incarnation, when Jones and Dolenz recorded \"Do It in the Name of Love\" and \"Lady Jane\". Not mixed until February 19, 1971, and released later that year as a single (\"Do It in the Name Of Love\" b/w \"Lady Jane\"), the two remaining Monkees then lost the rights to use the name in several countries, the U.S. included. The single was not credited to the Monkees in the U.S., but to a misspelled \"Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones\", although in Japan it was issued under the Monkees' name.\n\nJones released a solo album in 1971, titled Davy Jones, featuring the single \"Rainy Jane\" / \"Welcome to My Love\". Both Jones and Dolenz released multiple singles as solo artists in the years following the original break-up of the Monkees. The duo continued to tour throughout most of the 1970s.\n\nReunions and revivals\n\nDolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart\n\nPartly because of repeats of the television series The Monkees on Saturday mornings and in syndication, The Monkees Greatest Hits charted in 1976. The LP, issued by Arista, who by this time had custody of the Monkees' master tapes, courtesy of their corporate owner, Screen Gems, was actually a re-packaging of an earlier (1972) compilation LP called Refocus that had been issued by Arista's previous label imprint, Bell Records, also owned by Screen Gems. Dolenz and Jones took advantage of this, joining ex-Monkees songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to tour the United States. From 1975 to 1977, as the \"Golden Hits of The Monkees\" show (\"The Guys who Wrote 'Em and the Guys who Sang 'Em!\"), they successfully performed in smaller venues such as state fairs and amusement parks, as well as making stops in Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore. They also released an album of new material as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart. Nesmith had not been interested in a reunion. Tork claimed later that he had not been asked, although a Christmas single (credited to Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork due to legal reasons) was produced by Chip Douglas and released on his own label in 1976. The single featured Douglas' and Howard Kaylan's \"Christmas Is My Time Of Year\" (originally recorded by a 1960s group Christmas Spirit), with a B-side of Irving Berlin's \"White Christmas\" (Douglas released a remixed version of the single, with additional overdubbed instruments, in 1986). This was the first (albeit unofficial) Monkees single since 1971. Tork also joined Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart on stage at Disneyland on July 4, 1976, and also joined Dolenz and Jones on stage at the Starwood in Hollywood in 1977.\n\nOther semi-reunions occurred between 1970 and 1986. Tork helped arrange a Dolenz single, \"Easy on You\"/\"Oh Someone\" in 1971. Tork also recorded some unreleased tracks for Nesmith's Countryside label during the 1970s, and Dolenz (by then a successful television director in the United Kingdom) directed a segment of Nesmith's NBC-TV series Television Parts, although the segment in question was not included when the series' six episodes aired during the summer of 1985.\n\nMTV and Nickelodeon reignite Monkeemania\n\nBrushed off by critics during their heyday as manufactured and lacking talent, the Monkees experienced a critical and commercial rehabilitation two decades later. A Monkees TV show marathon (\"Pleasant Valley Sunday\") was broadcast on February 23, 1986, on the then five-year-old MTV video music channel. In February and March, Tork and Jones played together in Australia. Then in May, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork announced a \"20th Anniversary Tour\" produced by David Fishof and they began playing North America in June. Their original albums began selling again as Nickelodeon began to run their old series daily. MTV promotion also helped to resurrect a smaller version of Monkeemania, and tour dates grew from smaller to larger venues and became one of the biggest live acts of 1986 and 1987. A new greatest hits collection was issued, reaching platinum status.\n\nBy now, Nesmith was amenable to a reunion, but forced to sit out most projects because of prior commitments to his Pacific Arts video production company. However, he did appear with the band in a 1986 Christmas medley music video for MTV, and appeared on stage with Dolenz, Jones, and Tork at the Greek Theatre, in Los Angeles, on September 7, 1986. In September 1988, the three rejoined to play Australia again, Europe and then North America, with that string of tours ending in September 1989. Nesmith again returned at the Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, show on July 10, 1989 and took part in a dedication ceremony at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, when the Monkees received a TV star there in 1989.\n\nThe sudden revival of the Monkees in 1986 helped move the first official Monkees single since 1971, \"That Was Then, This Is Now\", to the No. 20 position in Billboard Magazine. The success, however, was not without controversy. Jones had declined to sing on the track, recorded along with two other new songs included in a compilation album, Then & Now... The Best of The Monkees. Some copies of the single and album credit the new songs to \"The Monkees\", others as \"Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork (of the Monkees)\". Reportedly, these recordings were the source of some personal friction between Jones and the others during the 1986 tour; Jones would typically leave the stage when the new songs were performed.\n\nThe 1980s reunion tours were the most lucrative venture the three had ever seen in their days as the Monkees, far surpassing the monies they had made in the 1960s. Nesmith had little financial need to join in Monkees-related projects, mostly as his mother Bette Nesmith Graham was the inventor of Liquid Paper, leaving Nesmith over $25 million upon her death in 1980.\n\nA new album by the touring trio, Pool It! (the Monkees' tenth), appeared the following year and was a moderate success. From 1986 to 1989, the Monkees would conduct major concert tours in the United States, Australia, Japan, and Europe.\n\nNew Monkees\n\nIn 1987, a new television series called New Monkees appeared. Four young musicians were placed in a similar series based on the original show, but \"updated\" for the 1980s. The New Monkees left the air after 13 episodes. (Neither Bob Rafelson nor Bert Schneider were involved in the development or production of the series, although it was produced by \"Straybert Productions\" headed by Steve Blauner, Rafelson and Schneider's partner in BBS Productions.)\n\n1990s reunions\n\nIn the 1990s, the Monkees continued to record new material. In 1993, Dolenz and Jones worked together on a television commercial, and another reunion tour was launched with the two of them in 1994. Rhino Records re-issued all the original LPs on CD, each of which included between three and six bonus tracks of previously unreleased or alternate takes; the first editions came with collectible trading cards.\n\nTheir eleventh album Justus was released in 1996. It was the first since 1968 on which all four original members performed and produced. Justus was produced by the Monkees, all songs were written by one of the four Monkees, and it was recorded using only the four Monkees for all instruments and vocals, which was the inspiration for the album title and spelling (Justus = Just Us).\n\nThe trio of Dolenz, Jones, and Tork reunited again for a successful 30th anniversary tour of American amphitheaters in 1996, while Nesmith joined them onstage in Los Angeles to promote the new songs from Justus. For the first time since the brief 1986 reunion, Nesmith returned to the concert stage for a tour of the United Kingdom in 1997, highlighted by two sold-out concerts at Wembley Arena in London. The full quartet also appeared in an ABC television special titled Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees, which was written and directed by Nesmith and spoofed the original series that had made them famous. Following the UK tour, Nesmith declined to continue future performances with the Monkees, having faced harsh criticism from the British music press for his deteriorating musicianship. Tork noted in DVD commentary that \"In 1966, Nesmith had learned a reasonably good version of the famous 'Last Train to Clarksville' guitar lick, but in 1996, Mike was no longer able to play it\" and so Tork took over the lead guitar parts.\n\nNesmith's departure from the tour was acrimonious. Jones was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as complaining that Nesmith \"made a new album with us. He toured Great Britain with us. Then all of a sudden, he's not here. Later, I hear rumors he's writing a script for our next movie. Oh, really? That's bloody news to me. He's always been this aloof, inaccessible person... the fourth part of the jigsaw puzzle that never quite fit in.\" \n\n2000s reunions\n\nTork, Jones, and Dolenz toured the United States in 1997, after which the group took another hiatus until 2001 when they once again reunited to tour the United States. However, this tour was also accompanied by public sniping. Dolenz and Jones had announced that they had \"fired\" Tork for his constant complaining and threatening to quit. Tork was quoted as saying that, as well as the fact he wanted to tour with his own band, \"Shoe Suede Blues.\" Tork told WENN News he was troubled by the overindulgence in alcohol by other members of the tour crew:\n\nMicky Dolenz and Davy Jones fired me just before the last two shows of our 35th anniversary tour. I'm both happy and sad over the whole thing. I always loved the work onstage—but I just couldn't handle the backstage problems. I'd given them 30 days notice that I was leaving so my position is that I resigned first and then they dropped me. Thank God I don't need the Monkees anymore...I'm a recovering alcoholic and haven't had a drink in several years. I'm not against people drinking—just when they get mean and abusive. I went on the anniversary tour with the agreement that I didn't have to put up with drinking and difficult behavior offstage. When things weren't getting better, I gave the guys notice that I was leaving in 30 days for good. \n\nTork later stated in 2011 that the alcohol played only a small role and Tork then said, \"I take full responsibility for the backstage problems on the 2001 tour. We were getting along pretty well until I had a meltdown. I ticked the other guys off good and proper and it was a serious mistake on my part. I was not in charge of myself to the best of my ability – the way I hope I have become since. I really just behaved inappropriately, honestly. I apologized to them.\" \n\nJones and Dolenz went on to tour the United Kingdom in 2002, but Tork declined to participate. Jones and Dolenz toured the United States one more time as a duo in 2002, and then split to concentrate on their own individual projects. With different Monkees citing different reasons, the group chose not to mark their 40th anniversary in 2006.\n\n2010–2011 reunions\n\nIn October, Jones stated that a reunion marking the band's 45th anniversary was a possibility. Noted Monkees biographer Andrew Sandoval commented in The Hollywood Reporter that he \"spent three years cajoling them to look beyond their recent differences (which included putting aside solo projects to fully commit to The Monkees).\"\n\nAn Evening with The Monkees: The 45th Anniversary Tour commenced on May 12, 2011 in Liverpool, England, before moving to North America in June and July for a total of 43 performances. Sandoval noted, \"Their mixed feelings on the music business and their long and winding relationship weighed heavily, but once they hit the stage, the old magic was apparent. For the next three months...[they brought] the music and memories to fans in the band's grandest stage show in decades. Images from their series and films flashed on a huge screen behind them; even Rolling Stone, whose owner, Jann Wenner, has vowed to keep them out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, gushed.\" Nesmith did not take part in the tour, which grossed approximately $4 million. \n\nOn August 8, 2011, the band cancelled ten last-minute shows due to what was initially reported as \"internal group issues and conflicts\", though Tork later confirmed \"there were some business affairs that couldn't be coordinated correctly. We hit a glitch and there was just this weird dislocation at one point.\" Jones clarified that \"the (45th Anniversary) tour was only supposed to go until July. And it was great, the best time we've had because we're all on the same page now. We gelled onstage and off. But then more dates were being added. And more. And then the next thing we knew, they were talking about Japan, Australia, Brazil, and we were like, 'Wait a second. This is turning into something more than a tour.' We were doing 40 songs a night, plus other material. Some of these shows were 2 hours long. Then there was the travel, getting to the next venue with no time to revive. The audiences were great. But, let's face it, we're not kids.\" \n\nDeath of Jones and reunion with Nesmith\n\nThe 45th anniversary tour would be the last with Jones, who died of a heart attack due to atherosclerosis on February 29, 2012. Soon thereafter, rumors began to circulate that Nesmith would reunite with Dolenz and Tork in the wake of Jones' death. This was confirmed on August 8, 2012, when the surviving trio announced a series of U.S. shows for November and December, commencing in Escondido, California and concluding in New York City. The brief tour marked the first time Nesmith performed with the Monkees since 1997, as well as the first without Jones. Jones' memory was honored throughout the shows via recordings and video. During one point, the band went quiet and a recording of Jones singing \"I Wanna Be Free\" played while footage of him was screening behind the band. For Jones' signature song, \"Daydream Believer\", Dolenz said that the band had discussed who should sing the song and had concluded that it should be the fans, saying \"It doesn't belong to us anymore. It belongs to you.\"\n\nThe Fall 2012 tour was very well received by both fans and critics, resulting in the band scheduling a 24-date summer tour for 2013. Dubbed \"A Midsummer’s Night With the Monkees\", concerts also featured Nesmith, Dolenz, and Tork. \"The reaction to the last tour was euphoric\", Dolenz told Rolling Stone magazine. \"It was pretty apparent there was a demand for another one.\" A third tour with Nesmith would follow in 2014.\n\nIn 2014, the Monkees were inducted into the Pop Music Hall of Fame at the 2014 Monkees Convention. At the convention the band announced a 2014 tour of the Eastern and Midwestern US. \n\nGood Times! and 50th anniversary: 2015-present\n\nDolenz and Tork toured as the Monkees in 2015 without Nesmith's participation. Nesmith stated that he was busy with other ventures, although Dolenz stated \"He's always invited.\" In February 2016, Dolenz announced that the Monkees would be releasing a new album, entitled Good Times!, as a celebration of their 50th Anniversary. Good Times!, produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne. It features unused songs written for the band in the 60s as well as songs by contemporary songwriters. One track includes an archived Jones vocal track. All three surviving members appear on the new album. The album was announced in conjunction with the band's 50th anniversary tour, which will again feature just Dolenz and Tork. \n\nControversies\n\nStudio recordings controversy\n\nControversy over the Monkees' studio abilities hit early in 1967. Dolenz told a reporter that the Wrecking Crew provided the backing tracks for the first two Monkees albums, and that his origin as a drummer was simply that a Monkee had to be tasked with learning the drums since he knew how to play only the guitar. A January 28, 1967 Saturday Evening Post article quoted Nesmith railing against the music creation process. \"Do you know how debilitating it is to sit up and have to duplicate somebody else’s records?\" he asked. \"Tell the world we don’t record our own music... Our records are not our forté,\" he added. The whistle blowing on themselves worked in forcing producer Don Kirshner out of the project and the band taking creative control for its third album. But when the Monkees toured the U.K. in 1967, the story that the band was recording their own music for its current album and playing their own instruments on stage was not the headline.\n\nMaking the front pages of several U.K. and international music papers was that the group members did not always play all of their own instruments or sing all of the backing vocals in the studio during their tour of England. The group was derisively dubbed the \"Pre-Fab Four\", and the London Sunday Mirror called them a \"Disgrace to the Pop World.\" Piling on later that year was tour opener Jimi Hendrix who before he left the tour told Melody Maker magazine, \"Oh God, I hate them! Dishwater....You can't knock anybody for making it, but people like the Monkees?\" Dealing with the controversy on the television series proved challenging. An interview tag at the end of episode No. 31 of their TV show, \"Monkees at the Movies\", which first aired April 1967, where Bob Rafelson asked the group about accusations that they did not play their instruments in concert, to which Nesmith responded, \"I'm fixin' to walk out there in front of fifteen thousand people, man! If I don't play my own instrument, I'm in a lot of trouble!\" But in the \"Devil and Peter Tork\" episode, the episode serves as a parable as a Kirshner-like producer has Tork sign over his soul to be a success as a musician. \n\nIn November 1967, the wave of anti-Monkee sentiment was reaching its peak while the Monkees released their fourth album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd. In liner notes for the 1995 re-release of this album, Nesmith was quoted as saying that after Headquarters, \"The press went into a full-scale war against us, talking about how 'The Monkees are four guys who have no credits, no credibility whatsoever and have been trying to trick us into believing they are a rock band.' Number 1, not only was this not the case; the reverse was true. Number 2, for the press to report with genuine alarm that the Monkees were not a real rock band was looney tunes! It was one of the great goofball moments of the media, but it stuck.\" Davy Jones stated in 1969 to Tiger Beat, \"I get so angry when musicians say, 'Oh, your music is so bad,' because it's not bad to the kids. Those people who talk about 'doing their own thing' are groups that go and play in the clubs that hold 50 people, while we're playing to 10,000 kids. You know, it hurts me to think that anybody thinks we're phony, because we're not. We're only doing what we think is our own thing.\" \n\nIt was reported in Rolling Stone on October 11, 2011 that Tork still feels that the Monkees do not get the respect that they deserve. \"With all due modesty since I had little to do with it, the Monkees' songbook is one of the better songbooks in pop history\", he says. \"Certainly in the top five in terms of breadth and depth. It was revealed that we didn't play our own instruments on the records much at the very moment when the idealism of early Beatlemania in rock was at its peak. So we became the ultimate betrayers. The origins of the group were obvious and everyone understood that, but suddenly some little switch was flipped and all that stuff came crashing down around our ears.\" \n\nTimeline for the studio recordings controversy\n\n* 1962: Jones lands the part of Michael in the stage show Peter Pan, in which he is coached on the tone of his voice. Later that year, he lands the role of the Artful Dodger in the Broadway musical production of Oliver! Nesmith receives his first guitar during Christmas of 1962. He will build his proficiency with it to rehabilitate his hands after they are injured. Tork takes part in folk ensembles. The initial idea for The Monkees is developed\n* 1963: Tork moves to New York's Greenwich Village to play in various folk groups in music \"basket\" houses, where money is collected after each performance. While still performing in the musical Oliver!, Jones makes his first studio recordings of demonstration tapes of his singing. He is also nominated for a Tony award. Nesmith performs solo and with folk groups and releases his first recording.\n* 1964: Dolenz plays guitar and sings in his first band, the Missing Links. Dolenz had started playing Spanish guitar when he was 10–12 years old. Jones signs recording contract with Colpix Records. He appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on the same night as the Beatles. This will bring him to the attention of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. Nesmith wins Headliner of the Year talent contest performing with John London. Tork tours with folk group.\n* 1965: Jones's first singles and album are released. He appears on Dick Clark's Where the Action Is. Nesmith releases more singles and plays with folk group. He records for Colpix. Record World gives one of Nesmith's singles a four star review. He appears on a couple of TV shows performing music. Tork still performs in Greenwich Village clubs. Dolenz sings on stage. At the end of the year, the four Monkees are cast in the TV show. Rafelson: \"It's often been said that the Monkees were manufactured, but the term irritates me just a little bit. The Monkees were more like a Japanese marriage: arranged. In America and elsewhere the divorce rate is pretty high, but in Japan things go better.\" \n* April 1966: The Monkees begin rehearsing as a band to produce music for the upcoming TV Show and records. Nesmith, Dolenz, and Tork were all experienced guitar players, but no one had experience playing the drums. Jones had been a singer on Broadway, but lacked any experience with any musical instruments. Producer Ward Sylvester tells Tork that he would have signed the band even without a TV show.\n* May 1966: Filming for the TV show starts, taking 12 hours a day for the cast of the Monkees. The public is informed in the beginning that the Monkees are \"manufactured\", as seen in this Washington Post report: \"The series stars a fearsome foursome in the Monkees, a wholly manufactured singing group of attractive young men who come off as a combination of the Beatles, the Dead End Kids and the Marx Brothers. Critics will cry foul. Longhairs will demand, outraged, that they be removed from the air. But the kids will adore the Monkees [...] unlike other rock 'n' roll groups, the boys had never performed together before. Indeed, they'd never even met [...] they've been working to create their own sound.\" \n* June 1966: Although the producers want the Monkees to create their own music, they had not progressed enough by this point and still lacked the \"upbeat, young, happy, driving, pulsating sound\" that they desired. Dolenz stated, \"I'm sure that Rafelson and Schneider said in all honesty, 'Yeah, don't worry, when we start going you're gonna record your own tunes and it will be wonderful.' But the things get caught up in the inertia of the moment. NBC gets involved. RCA gets involved. Screen Gems gets involved. Millions and millions of dollars are on the line [...] people aren't as forthcoming. Mike's style was very distinct, country-western, Peter was very folk-rock, neither of which at the time would have been considered mainstream pop. Davy would have done all Broadway tunes [...] I ended up singing the leads [...] pop-rock was more my style.\" However, they used selections of Nesmith's authorship and composition from the beginning. \n* June 10, 1966: The Monkees' first recording sessions take place. These sessions feature members of the Wrecking Crew, a group of studio musicians in Los Angeles who would play on several Monkees album tracks, mostly those produced by Nesmith. These sessions were unsuccessful, however, and most future sessions in 1966 would feature the Candy Store Prophets, a studio band led by Boyce & Hart.\n* June 25, 1966: Nesmith produces his first Monkees track in a recording studio, his two self-composed songs \"All the King's Horses\", \"The Kind of Girl I Could Love\", plus \"I Don't Think You Know Me\", as a way for Raybert Productions to fulfill their promise to him to allow him to produce and record his own music. He is not allowed to play the instruments.\n* July 1966: Various producers from Boyce & Hart to Jack Keller to Nesmith continue to record sessions. Nesmith gets all four members to sing on his productions. On July 18, 1966 Nesmith also gets Tork to play guitar on the songs he is producing for the first time. Sessions continue in this manner, with the hired producers Boyce & Hart and Jack Keller and Monkees member Nesmith producing/recording songs in the studio through November 1966. \n* August 1966: The Monkees' first single is released.\n* September 1966: The Monkees' TV show premieres. \n* October 1966: The Monkees' debut album is released. Group member Nesmith, in particular, is angered when he sees the album cover, because he thinks it makes it look like they played all of the instruments.\n* October 2, 1966: The Monkees give their first public interview, which appears in The New York Times, in which Jones is asked if the big push for the Monkees is fair to the real rock groups, to which he responds, \"... That's the breaks, but you can't fool the people, you really can't.\" \n* October 24, 1966: Newsweek interviews the Monkees. They are asked how the music is created. Davy Jones tells them, \"This isn't a rock 'n' roll group. This is an act.\" \n* December 1966: The Monkees perform live in concert starting December 3, 1966. TV Week in the meantime, interviews Rafelson about why the Monkees' public access to interviews is limited, wondering if it could be related to embarrassing questions regarding their musical prowess, to which Rafelson assures that they do all of their own playing and singing. He also states that interviews are almost impossible due to them spending 12 hours a day filming the TV show, 4 hours recording, rehearsing for concert tours, and spending some weekends making personal appearance tours. During this time frame, the Monkees are generally barred from making television appearances on shows outside of their own, as Raybert fears the group's overexposure. \n* December 27, 1966: The Monkees are again interviewed about their music in Look magazine. Tork responds, \"We have the potential, but there's not time to practice.\" Dolenz says, \"We're advertisers. We're selling the Monkees. It's gotta be that way.\" Nesmith says, \"They're in the middle of something good and they're trying to sell something. They want us to be the Beatles, but we're not. We're us. We're funny.\" \n* December 28, 1966: Weekly Variety reports that the Monkees are selling faster than the Beatles did at their launch.\n* January 1967: The Monkees' second album is released while they were on tour, without the Monkees' knowledge. This upsets Nesmith and Tork, as they had been told that they were going to be doing their own album. Dolenz and Jones are initially indifferent because to them, coming from the acting world, it was just a soundtrack to the TV show and they were doing their job by singing what they were asked to sing. But when they saw how angry Nesmith and Tork were, they too joined in that anger.\n* January 16, 1967: Four months after their first single is released, the Monkees hold their first recording session as a self-contained, fully functioning band.\n* January 28, 1967: Band member Nesmith speaks to the Saturday Evening Post in an expose, stating, \"The music had nothing to do with us. It was totally dishonest. Do you know how debilitating it is to sit up and have to duplicate somebody else's records? That's really what we're doing. The music happened in spite of the Monkees. It was what Kirshner wanted to do. Our records are not our forte. I don't care if we never sell another record. Maybe we were manufactured [...] Tell the world we're synthetic because [...] we are. Tell them the Monkees are wholly man-made overnight, that millions of dollars have been poured into this thing. Tell the world we don't record our own music. But that's us they see on television. That show is really a part of us. They're not seeing something invalid.\" Decades later, Nesmith reflected, \"The press decided they were going to unload on us as being somehow illegitimate, somehow false. That we were making an attempt to dupe the public, when in fact it was me that was making the attempt to maintain the integrity. So, the press went into a full-scale war against us. Telling us the Monkees are four guys who have no credits, no credibility whatsoever, who have been trying to trick us into believing that they are a rock band. Number one, not only was it not the case, the reverse was true. Number two, [for] the press to report with genuine alarm that the Monkees were not a real rock band was looney tunes. It was one of the great goofball moments of the media, but it stuck.\" \n* February 4, 1967: Although the Monkees have continued to play and record their own music for their upcoming album, Jones records some songs with hired producer Jeff Barry. \n* February 1967: Kirshner works behind the Monkees' backs to release another single without the band's knowledge. \n* February 25, 1967: Jones is interviewed for the New Musical Express, and says, \"I can only speak for myself. I am an actor and I have never pretended to be anything else. The public have made me into a rock 'n' roll singer. No one is trying to fool anyone! People have tried to put us down by saying we copied the Beatles. So, all right, maybe the Monkees is a half-hour Hard Day's Night. But now we read that the Who are working on a TV a group. Now who's copying who?\" \n* February 27, 1967: Kirshner is dismissed as Music Coordinator for the Monkees, primarily due to his handling of the third would-be-but-withdrawn single from the Monkees. Lester Sill takes his place. The Monkees continue recording their own songs, with them playing instruments, getting ready for their next album. In the meantime, the Nesmith-penned \"The Girl I Knew Somewhere\" is released as part of the Monkees third single, which features the Monkees playing as a self-contained band, which becomes a top 40 hit.\n* May 1967: The Monkees' first self made album, Headquarters, is released.\n\nAfter Headquarters, the Monkees started using a mixture of themselves playing along with other musicians, including members of the Wrecking Crew and Candy Store Prophets along with other musicians such as Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Harry Nilsson; but they still wrote, sang, produced, and played on their remaining albums, except for their final offering from the original incarnation in 1970, Changes, which was recorded after Nesmith and Tork had left the group and featured Dolenz and Jones singing to the backing tracks of what Jones referred to in the liner notes of the 1994 reissue that album as \"a rejected Andy Kim album\". In the same liner notes, Jones stated that he was unhappy about that recording and claimed that it was not a real album. The final album featured one Dolenz composition.\n\nTork commented on some of the controversy when writing about Jones's death: \"When we first met, I was confronted with a slick, accomplished, young performer, vastly more experienced than I in the ways of show biz, and yes, I was intimidated. Englishness was at a high premium in my world, and his experience dwarfed my entertainer's life as a hippie, basket-passing folk singer on the Greenwich Village coffee house circuit. If anything, I suppose I was selected for the cast of 'The Monkees' TV show partly as a rough-hewn counterpart to David's sophistication. [...] the Monkees—the group now, not the TV series—took a lot of flack for being 'manufactured,' by which our critics meant that we hadn't grown up together, paying our dues, sleeping five to a room, trying to make it as had the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Furthermore, critics said, the Monkees' first albums—remember albums?—were almost entirely recorded by professional studio musicians, with hardly any input from any of us beyond lead vocals. I felt this criticism keenly, coming as I did from the world of the ethical folk singer, basically honoring the standards of the naysayers. We did play as a group live on tour.\" \n\nMeeting the Beatles\n\nCritics of the Monkees observed that they were simply the \"Pre-Fab four\", a made-for-TV knockoff of the Beatles; the Beatles, however, took it in their stride and hosted a party for the Monkees when they visited England. The party occurred during the time when the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; as such, the party inspired the line in the Monkees' tune \"Randy Scouse Git\", written by Dolenz, which read, \"the four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor.\"\n\nGeorge Harrison praised their self-produced musical attempts, saying, \"It's obvious what's happening, there's talent there. They're doing a TV show, it's a difficult chore and I wouldn't be in their shoes for the world. When they get it all sorted out, they might turn out to be the best.\" (Tork was later one of the musicians on Harrison's Wonderwall Music, playing Paul McCartney's five-string banjo.)\n\nNesmith attended the \"A Day in the Life\" sessions at Abbey Road Studios; he can be seen in the Beatles' home movies, including one scene where he is talking with John Lennon. During the conversation, Nesmith had reportedly asked Lennon \"Do you think we're a cheap imitation of the Beatles, your movies and your records?\" to which Lennon assuredly replied, \"I think you're the greatest comic talent since the Marx Brothers. I've never missed one of your programs.\" Nesmith wrote about this encounter on Facebook:\n\nWhen The Beatles were recording Sgt. Peppers, Phyllis and I spent a few days with John and Cynthia at their home, and one in the studio with \"the boys.\" That's where those pictures of John and I come from—the \"Day in the Life\" session. The minute I had the wherewithal—cachet and money—I raced to London and looked up John.\n\nDuring the '60s it seemed to me London was the center of the World and The Beatles were the center of London and the Sgt Pepper session was the center of The Beatles. It was an extraordinary time, I thought, and I wanted to get as close as I could to the heart of it. But like a hurricane the center was not stormy or tumultuous. It was exciting, but it was calm, and to an extent peaceful. The confidence of the art permeated the atmosphere. Serene—and really, really fun. Then I discovered the reason for this. During that time in one of our longer, more reflective, talks I realized that John was not aware of who The Beatles were. Of course he could not be. He was clueless in this regard. He had never seen or experienced them. In the strange paradox of fame, none of The Beatles ever saw The Beatles the way we did. Certainly not the way I did. I loved them beyond my ability to express it. As the years passed and I met more and more exceptional people sitting in the center of their own hurricane I saw they all shared this same sensibility. None of them could actually know the force of their own work.\n\nDolenz was also in the studio during a Sgt. Pepper session, which he mentioned while broadcasting for WCBS-FM in New York (incidentally, he interviewed Ringo Starr on his program). On February 21, 1967, he attended the overdub and mixing session for the Beatles' \"Fixing a Hole\" at EMI's Abbey Road studio 2. \n\nDuring the 1970s, during Lennon's infamous \"lost weekend\", John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon often hung out together, and were collectively known in the press as \"The Hollywood Vampires\". \n\nPaul McCartney can be seen in the 2002 concert film Back in the U.S. singing \"Hey, Hey, We're The Monkees\", the theme from The Monkees show, while backstage.\n\nThe Monkees \"Cuddly Toy\" and \"Daddy's Song\" were written by songwriter Harry Nilsson. \"Cuddly Toy\" would be recorded several months before Nilsson's own debut in October 1967. At the press conference announcing the formation of Apple, the Beatles named Harry Nilsson as both their favorite American artist and as their favorite American group. Derek Taylor, the Beatles's press officer, had introduced them to Harry's music. \n\nIn 1995, Ringo Starr joined Davy, Peter, Micky to film a Pizza Hut commercial. \n\nJulian Lennon was a fan, stating at the time of Davy Jones' passing, \"You did some Great work!\" \n\nRock and Roll Hall of Fame\n\nIn June 2007, Tork complained to the New York Post that Jann Wenner had blackballed the Monkees from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Tork stated:\n\n[Wenner] doesn't care what the rules are and just operates how he sees fit. It is an abuse of power. I don't know whether the Monkees belong in the Hall of Fame, but it's pretty clear that we're not in there because of a personal whim. Jann seems to have taken it harder than everyone else, and now, 40 years later, everybody says, 'What's the big deal? Everybody else does it.' [Uses studio artists or backing bands.] Nobody cares now except him. He feels his moral judgment in 1967 and 1968 is supposed to serve in 2007.\n\nIn a Facebook post, Nesmith stated that he does not know if the Monkees belong in the Hall of Fame because he can only see the impact of the Monkees from the inside, and further stated: \"I can see the HOF (Hall of Fame) is a private enterprise. It seems to operate as a business, and the inductees are there by some action of the owners of the Enterprise. The inductees appear to be chosen at the owner's pleasure. This seems proper to me. It is their business in any case. It does not seem to me that the HOF carries a public mandate, nor should it be compelled to conform to one.\"\n\nIn 1992, Davy Jones spoke to People magazine, stating \"I'm not as wealthy as some entertainers, but I work hard, and I think the best is yet to come. I know I'm never going to make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but maybe there's something else for me in show business. I've been given a talent—however big or little—that has given me many opportunities. I've got to try to use it the best way I can. A lot of people go days without having someone hug them or shake their hand. I get that all the time.\" \n\nIn 2015, Micky Dolenz said, \"As far as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame I’ve never been one to chase awards or anything like that; it’s never been very important to me. I was very proud to win an Emmy for The Monkees, having come out of television as a kid. When we won the Emmy for best TV show in ’66 or ‘67 that was a huge feather in my cap. But I’ve never chased that kind of stuff. I’ve never done a project and thought, “What do I do here to win an award?” Specifically as far as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame I’ve been very flattered that the fans and people have championed the Monkees. Very flattered and honored that they do. If you know anything about the organization, and I’ve done charity work for the foundation, the Hall of Fame is a private club. It’s like a country club and they have the right to do that; that’s their prerogative. That’s their private club. That’s kind of how I feel about it.\" \n\nVarious magazines and news outlets, such as Time, NPR radio, The Christian Science Monitor, Goldmine magazine, Yahoo Music and MSNBC have argued that the Monkees belong in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.\n\nOriginally unreleased recordings\n\nBeginning in 1987, Rhino Records started to make available previously unreleased Monkees recordings on a series of albums called Missing Links. Having numerous quality songwriters, musicians, producers and arrangers—along with high budgets—at their hands while making albums during the 1960s, the band was able to record as many songs as the Beatles in half the time.\n\nThe three volumes of this initial series contained 59 songs. These include the group's first recordings as a self-contained band, including the intended single \"All Of Your Toys,\" Nesmith's Nashville sessions, and alternate versions of songs featured only on the television series. The Listen to the Band box set also contained previously unreleased recordings, as did the 1994-95 series CD album reissues. Rhino/Rhino Handmade's Deluxe Edition reissue series has also included alternate mixes, unreleased songs, and the soundtrack to 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee.\n\nBand members\n\nCurrent\n\n* Micky Dolenz – vocals, drums, moog synthesizer, guitar (1966–1971, 1986–1989, 1993–1997, 2001–2002, 2011–present)\n* Peter Tork – vocals, keyboards, piano, guitar, bass, banjo (1966–1968, 1986–1989, 1995–1997, 2001, 2011–present)\n* Michael Nesmith – guitar, vocals, keyboards (1966–1970, 1986, 1989, 1996–1997, 2012–2014, 2016)\n\nFormer\n\n* Davy Jones – vocals, tambourine, maracas, bass, guitar, drums (1966–1971, 1986–1989, 1993–1997, 2001–2002, 2011–2012; died in 2012)\n\nTimeline \n\nImpact and legacy\n\nThe Monkees, selected specifically to appeal to the youth market as American television's response to the Beatles with their manufactured personae and carefully produced singles, are seen as an original precursor to the modern proliferation of studio and corporation-created bands. But this critical reputation has softened somewhat, with the recognition that the Monkees were neither the first manufactured group nor unusual in this respect. The Monkees also frequently contributed their own songwriting efforts on their albums and saw their musical skills improve. They ultimately became a self-directed group, playing their own instruments and writing many of their own songs.\n\nNoted Monkees and 1960s music historian Andrew Sandoval noted, in The Hollywood Reporter, that the Monkees \"pioneered the music video format [and band member Mike Nesmith dreamed up the prototype for what would become MTV] and paved the way for every boy band that followed in their wake, from New Kids on the Block to 'N Sync to Jonas Brothers, while Davy set the stage for future teen idols David Cassidy and Justin Bieber. As pop stars go, you would be hard pressed to find a successful artist who didn't take a page from the Monkees' playbook, even generations later. Monkee money also enabled Rafelson and Schneider to finance Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, which made Jack Nicholson a star. In fact, the Monkees series was the opening salvo in a revolution that brought on the New Hollywood cinema, an influence rarely acknowledged but no less impactful.\"\n\nThe Chicago Tribune interviewed Davy Jones, who said, \"We touched a lot of musicians, you know. I can't tell you the amount of people that have come up and said, 'I wouldn't have been a musician if it hadn't been for the Monkees.' It baffles me even now,\" Jones added. \"I met a guy from Guns N' Roses, and he was overwhelmed by the meeting, and was just so complimentary.\" \n\nThe Monkees found unlikely fans among musicians of the punk rock period of the mid-1970s. Many of these punk performers had grown up on TV reruns of the series, and sympathized with the anti-industry, anti-Establishment trend of their career. Sex Pistols and Minor Threat both recorded versions of \"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone\" and it was often played live by Toy Love. The Japanese new wave pop group The Plastics recorded a synthesizer and drum-machine version of \"Last Train to Clarksville\" for their 1979 album Welcome Plastics.\n\nGlenn A. Baker, author of Monkeemania: The True Story of the Monkees, described the Monkees as \"rock's first great embarrassment\" in 1986:\n\nLike an illegitimate child in a respectable family, the Monkees are destined to be regarded forever as rock's first great embarrassment; misunderstood and maligned like a mongrel at a ritzy dog show, or a test tube baby at the Vatican. The rise of the pre-fab four coincided with rock's desperate desire to cloak itself with the trappings of respectability, credibility and irreproachable heritage. The fact was ignored that session players were being heavily employed by the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds and other titans of the age. However, what could not be ignored, as rock disdained its pubescent past, was a group of middle-aged Hollywood businessmen had actually assembled their concept of a profitable rock group and foisted it upon the world. What mattered was that the Monkees had success handed to them on a silver plate. Indeed, it was not so much righteous indignation but thinly disguised jealousy which motivated the scornful dismissal of what must, in retrospect, be seen as entertaining, imaginative and highly memorable exercise in pop culture. \n\nMediaite columnist Paul Levinson noted that \"The Monkees were the first example of something created in a medium—in this case, a rock group on television—that jumped off the screen to have big impact in the real world.\"\n\nWhen commenting on the death of Jones on February 29, 2012, Time magazine contributor James Poniewozik praised the television show, saying that \"even if the show never meant to be more than entertainment and a hit-single generator, we shouldn't sell The Monkees short. It was far better TV than it had to be; during an era of formulaic domestic sitcoms and wacky comedies, it was a stylistically ambitious show, with a distinctive visual style, absurdist sense of humor and unusual story structure. Whatever Jones and the Monkees were meant to be, they became creative artists in their own right, and Jones' chipper Brit-pop presence was a big reason they were able to produce work that was commercial, wholesome and yet impressively weird.\n\nBoth the style and substance of the Monkees were imitated by American boy band Big Time Rush (BTR), who performed in their own television series which -- by admission of series creator Scott Fellows -- was heavily influenced by the Monkees. Similar to the Monkees, Big Time Rush featured a \"made-for-tv\" boy band often caught in a series of misadventures, hijinks, and somewhat slapstick comedy. The show, now in reruns but still hugely popular on Teen Nick, is highly stylized and patterned after the Monkees, even capped with similar cartoonish sound effects. Like the Monkees, BTR has also seen critical and commercial success in America and worldwide through album, singles and high TV ratings worldwide.\"\n\nCovers\n\n* Mike Nesmith's individual song publishing opened the way for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band to record \"Mary, Mary\" for their groundbreaking second album, East-West, in 1966---months before the song was recorded by the Monkees for the controversial More of the Monkees second album. \n* Linda Ronstadt would have her first major hit two years later, when her folk-rock group The Stone Poneys recorded Nesmith's \"Different Drum,\" a song they may have found by way of the Greenbriar Boys' earlier version. Except for a comic and brief playing of the song on a Monkees television episode, neither Nesmith nor the Monkees themselves recorded the song.\n* Canadian singer Anne Murray recorded \"Daydream Believer\" on her 1979 album, I'll Always Love You. In 1980, it peaked at No. 1 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart, No. 12 on the pop chart, and No. 3 on the country chart.\n* In 1988, Run–D.M.C. recorded \"Mary, Mary\" on their album Tougher Than Leather.\n* Australian indie-rock bands of the 1980s such as Grooveyard (\"All The King's Horses\"), Prince Vlad & the Gargoyle Impalers (\"Mary, Mary\", \"For Pete's Sake\", \"Circle Sky\"), the Upbeat, and the Mexican Spitfires (\"Mary, Mary\") performed Monkees cover versions.\n* Cassandra Wilson had an indie hit with \"Last Train to Clarksville\" in 1995.\n* The alternative rock group Smash Mouth had a hit with \"I'm a Believer\" in 2001, and their version was featured in the computer-animated movie Shrek.\n* Japanese indie rock band Shonen Knife recorded \"Daydream Believer\".\n* Indie group Carter USM recorded \"Randy Scouse Git\", which is also called \"Alternate Title\".\n* The 1980s psychedelic rock band Bongwater recorded \"You Just May Be The One\" and \"The Porpoise Song\".\n* The Dickies recorded their own version of \"She\" on their 1979 debut album The Incredible Shrinking Dickies. \n* The Monkees also had a big influence on Paul Westerberg, lead singer and songwriter for the Replacements; \"Daydream Believer\" and \"You Just May Be The One\" are staples at his live shows.\n* The British alternative rock band the Wedding Present recorded \"Pleasant Valley Sunday\" in the early 1990s.\n* The Sex Pistols covered \"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone\" in the 1970s.\n* George Benson covered \"Last Train to Clarksville\" in 1968 on his jazz album Shape of Things to Come.\n* Thrash metal band Intruder covered \"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone\" in 1989 on their album A Higher Form of Killing.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nThe band's legacy was strengthened by Rhino Entertainment's acquisition of the Monkees' franchise from Columbia Pictures in the early 1990s. The label has released several Monkees-related projects, including remastered editions of both the original television series and their complete music library, as well as their motion picture Head.\n\nThe highly respected Criterion Collection, whose stated goal is to release \"a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, [and] has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements\" recognized The Monkees film Head as meeting their criteria when they fully restored and released it on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010. They stated that Head was \"way, way ahead of its time\" and \"arguably the most authentically psychedelic film made in 1960s Hollywood\", Head dodged commercial success on its release but has since been reclaimed as one of the great cult objects of its era.\" \n\nIn the book, Hey, Hey We're The Monkees, Rafelson explains, \"[Head] explored techniques on film that hadn't been used before. The first shot of Micky under water is a perfect example. Now you see it on MTV all the time, but it was invented for the movie [...] I got two long-haired kids out of UCLA who created the effects that the established laboratory guys said couldn't be done. We invented double-matted experiences. Polarization hadn't been used in movies before. [...] When it was shown in France, the head of the Cinematheque overly praised the movie as a cinematic masterpiece, and from that point on, this movie began to acquire an underground reputation.\" \n\nOther examples of the Monkees impact:\n* Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys, noted in the Monkees Anthology CD liner notes that \"The Monkees inspired me to write \"Break Away\" with my dad. Thank you for all of the good music.\"\n* Glen Campbell, who was a touring member of the Beach Boys, and a successful solo artist, mentioned in the Monkees Anthology CD liner notes that \"I love the Monkees because I dug their music.\"\n* Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain was a fan of the Monkees, and put their logo on the back of one of his early guitars.\n* U2 was a big fan of the Monkees, and had Davy Jones come out during one of their concerts to sing \"Daydream Believer.\"\n* R.E.M.'s lead singer Michael Stipe had once stated that they would not accept induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame until the Monkees were inducted. (R.E.M. has since been inducted.)\n* In the 1990s, Dolenz, Jones and Tork had minor roles in the family sitcom Boy Meets World. Tork played Topanga's father Jedidiah; Jones played Reginald, an old friend from Europe; Dolenz played Gordy, Mr. Matthews' best friend. In the one episode that the three were in together, they performed \"My Girl\" and \"Not Fade Away.\"\n* In 1991, a feature film called Daydream Believer (known as The Girl Who Came Late in some markets) was released in Australia.\n* In 1995, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork, alongside the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, starred in a Pizza Hut commercial. Starr wants to convince \"the lads\" to reunite in order to promote a new pizza style. In the end, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork appear next to Starr, leading the drummer to say \"oops, wrong lads.\"\n* Jones, Tork and Dolenz also feature memorably as themselves in The Brady Bunch Movie. Jones is invited by Marcia to appear as the surprise star guest at the high school prom. (This was a take-off on a 1971 episode of the original series with Jones and a similar plotline.) After a difficult start, he proves a surprise hit with the modern-day audience, especially the adult chaperones when they realize their girlhood idol is on-stage. Later, the Bradys themselves perform \"Keep On Dancing,\" a 1960s-style \"groovy\" song, in the evening's \"Search for a Star\" talent contest. Everyone is surprised when they win the award until it is revealed that the judging panel consists of Jones, Tork and Dolenz.\n* In The Simpsons episode \"Fear of Flying,\" a flashback to Marge's childhood showed that she had a Monkees lunchbox on her first day of school, only for another girl to taunt her about her love for the band by telling her they did not play their own instruments or write their own songs—and claim that Mike Nesmith's hat was not his own. In the present, Marge notes that the girl was right, however her psychiatrist assures her by saying, \"The Monkees weren't about music, Marge. They were about rebellion, about political and social upheaval!\"\n* In the South Park episode \"Chickenpox,\" a cover of the song \"I'm a Believer,\" recorded by Weezer, plays in the background of a montage depicting the strenuous relationship between Kyle Broflovski and Eric Cartman.\n* The 1999 British Pop band S Club 7's T.V. show Miami 7 featured a very similar storyline to the Monkees TV Show as they were also a manufactured band trying to become famous like the Monkees. It was also the 2nd time a manufactured band had appeared on television in the USA. \n* In 2005, eBay used \"Daydream Believer\" as the theme for a promotional campaign.\n* In 2006, Evergreen used \"Daydream Believer\" in their advertisements; the lyrics were adapted for the product.\n* In 2009, Britain's Got Talent sensation Susan Boyle recorded \"Daydream Believer.\"\n* In 2010, Nick Vernier Band created a digital \"Monkees reunion\" through the release of Mister Bob (featuring The Monkees), a new song produced under license from Rhino Entertainment, containing vocal samples from the band's recording \"Zilch.\"\n* In 2011, \"Mister Bob\" was released as a single to coincide with the Monkees's 45th Anniversary Tour.\n* In 2012, the television show Breaking Bad featured the song \"Goin' Down\" as the soundtrack to a meth cooking montage.\n* In 2013, the closing song of Mad Men Season 6, Episode 12 is the Monkees' \"Porpoise Song\", also known as the theme from their 1968 psychedelic film (co-written by a young Jack Nicholson), \"Head\".\n\nNotable achievements\n\n* Had the top-charting American single of 1967 (\"I'm a Believer\"). (Billboard number-one for seven weeks) with \"Daydream Believer\" tied for third. I'm a Believer was listed as the #48 song on the Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Chart that was released in August 2008. The August 2013 updated 55th Anniversary Chart shows the song at #57. \n* Gave the Jimi Hendrix Experience their first U.S. concert tour exposure as an opening act in July 1967. Jimi Hendrix's heavy psychedelic guitar and sexual overtones did not go over well with the teenage girls in the audience, which eventually led to his leaving the tour early. \n* Gene Roddenberry was inspired to introduce the character of Chekov in his Star Trek TV series in response to the popularity of Davy Jones, complete with hairstyle and appearance mimicking that of Jones. \n* Introduced Tim Buckley to a national audience, via his appearance in the series finale, \"The Frodis Caper\" (aka \"Mijacogeo\").\n* Last music artist to win the MTV Friday Night Video Fights by defeating Bon Jovi 51% to 49%.\n* First music artist to win two Emmy Awards.\n* Had seven albums on the Billboard top 200 chart at the same time (six were re-issues during 1986-1987).\n* One of the first artists achieving number-one hits in the United States and United Kingdom simultaneously.\n* The only recording act to have four No. 1 albums in a 12-month (changed from 1 year to avoid confusion with a calendar year) span. \n* Held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for 31 consecutive weeks, 37 weeks total. \n* Held the record for the longest stay at No. 1 for a debut record album until 1982 when Men at Work's debut record album Business As Usual broke that record.\n* Received their star on the Hollywood Walk of fame in July 1989. All 4 members were present for the ceremony.\n* In 2008, the Monkees were inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.\n* In 2014 the Monkees were inducted into America's Pop Music Hall of Fame. \n* The Music Business Association (Music Biz) honored The Monkees with an Outstanding Achievement Award celebrating their 50th anniversary on May 16, 2016. \n\nDiscography\n\n* The Monkees (1966)\n* More of The Monkees (1967)\n* Headquarters (1967)\n* Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (1967)\n* The Birds, The Bees & the Monkees (1968)\n* Head (1968)\n* Instant Replay (1969)\n* The Monkees Present (1969)\n* Changes (1970)\n* Pool It! (1987)\n* Justus (1996)\n* Good Times! (2016)\n\nTours\n\n* North American Tour (1966–67)\n* British Tour (1967)\n* Pacific Rim Tour (1968)\n* North American Tour (1969) (Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith)\n* The Golden Hits of The Monkees (1975–77) (Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart)\n* Sounds of The Monkees (1986; 1987) (Jones, Tork)\n* 20th Anniversary World Tour (1986) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* Here We Come Again Tour (1987–88) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* The Monkees Live (1989) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* The Monkees Summer Tour (1989) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* Micky and Davy: Together Again (1994–95) (Dolenz, Jones)\n* Monkees: The 30th Anniversary Tour (1996) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* Justus Tour (1997)\n* North American Tour (1997) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* Monkeemania Returns Tour (2001–2002) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* An Evening with The Monkees: The 45th Anniversary Tour (2011) (Dolenz, Jones, Tork)\n* An Evening with The Monkees (Fall 2012) (Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork)\n* A Midsummer's Night with the Monkees (Summer 2013) (Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork)\n* The Monkees Live in Concert (Spring 2014) (Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork)\n* An Evening with the Monkees (2015) (Dolenz, Tork)\n* 50th Anniversary Tour (2016) (Dolenz, Tork)\n\nComics\n\nThere was also \"The Monkees\" comic published in the United States by Dell Comics, which ran for seventeen issues from 1967 to 1969. In the United Kingdom, a Daily Mirror \"Crazy Cartoon Book\" featured four comic stories as well as four photos of The Monkees, all in black and white; it was published in 1967.\n\nBiopic\n\nIn 2000, VH-1 produced the television biopic Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story. In 2002, the movie was released on DVD, and featured both commentaries and interviews with Dolenz, Jones and Tork. The aired version did differ from the DVD release as the TV version had an extended scene with all four Monkees meeting the Beatles but with a shortened Cleveland concert segment. It was also available on VHS.\n\nMusical\n\nA stage musical opened in the UK at the Manchester Opera House on Friday March 30, 2012, and was dedicated to Davy Jones (the Jones family attended the official opening on April 3). The production is a Jukebox musical and starred Stephen Kirwan, Ben Evans, Tom Parsons and Oliver Savile as actors playing the parts of the Monkees (respectively Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith, Tork) who are hired by an unscrupulous businessman to go on a world tour pretending to be the real band. The show includes 18 Monkees songs plus numbers by other 60s artists. It ran in Manchester as part of the \"Manchester Gets it First\" program until April 14, 2012 before a UK tour. Following its Manchester run, the show appeared in the Glasgow King's Theatre and the Sunderland Empire Theatre.\n\nBibliography\n\n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n* \n*"
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Who had the noels Spy Hook and Spy Line published in the 80s?
|
tc_112
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Spy Hook is a 1988 spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the first novel in the second of three trilogies about Bernard Samson, a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Spy Hook is part of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy, being succeeded by Spy Line and Spy Sinker. This trilogy is preceded by the Game, Set and Match trilogy and followed by the final Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy. Deighton's novel Winter (1987) is a prequel to the nine novels, covering the years 1900-1945 and providing the backstory to some of the characters.\n\nPlot summary\n\nThe novel begins with Bernard Sampson visiting his old friend and ex-SIS colleague in Washington named Jim Prettyman as part of an investigation regarding some missing funds. Soon after, Prettyman is murdered in a mugging.\n\nAll his allies start losing interest in the investigation, and after digging deeper Bernard is sent to America once again, where it is revealed that Brett has not indeed died (as hinted at the end of the first trilogy, and discussed in this book.) but is in fact in rehabilitation. Bernard returns to Europe, where he confronts a man called \"Dodo\" and is saved from an untimely death by Prettyman, who it turns out has gone under \"deep-cover\".\n\nBernard then takes his evidence to the Director General, who in a surprise turn of events orders his arrest, which thanks to some quick thinking by Werner Volkmann, Bernard evades for the while.\n\nThe novel concludes with Bernard seeking an explanation from Frank Harrington, before disappearing into the night.",
"Spy Line is a 1989 spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the second novel in the second of three trilogies about Bernard Samson, a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Spy Line is part of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy, being preceded by Spy Hook and followed Spy Sinker. This trilogy is preceded by the Game, Set and Match trilogy and followed by the final Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy. Deighton's novel Winter (1987) is a prequel to the nine novels, covering the years 1900-1945 and providing the backstory to some of the characters.\n\nPlot summary\n\nThe novel starts with Bernard Samson in hiding in Berlin after the events in the first book of the series. He is soon found by the SIS and is invited by Frank Harrington to sit in on a debriefing of an undercover agent, where it is revealed that Eric Stinnes has been smuggling drugs into East Germany.\n\nBernard is eventually recalled to London, and sent on a mission to Vienna to pick up a package from a stamp auction. This is revealed to be a Russian passport, which he uses to meet his wife Fiona, whom it is now revealed is a double agent (It is not made clear for how long Bernard knew this).\n\nFinally, Fiona attempts to escape from East Germany, whereupon Eric Stinnes, and Fiona's sister Tessa are both killed. Bernard and Fiona escape back to the other side of the wall and are transported to America for debriefing."
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In which country was Ursula Andrews born?
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tc_114
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"Ursula Andress (born 19 March 1936) is a Swiss film and television actress, former model and sex symbol, who has appeared in American, British and Italian films. She is best known for her breakthrough role as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. She later starred as Vesper Lynd in the Bond-parody Casino Royale. Her other films include Fun in Acapulco, She, The Blue Max, Perfect Friday, The Sensuous Nurse, Slave of the Cannibal God, The Fifth Musketeer and Clash of the Titans.\n\nBackground \n\nAndress, the third of six children, was born in Ostermundigen, Canton of Bern, Switzerland to Anna, a gardener, and Rolf Andress, a German diplomat who was expelled from Switzerland for political reasons. He disappeared during World War II. She has a brother and four sisters.\n\nAt 18, Andress left Switzerland and went to Rome, Italy where she was a walk-on in three nondescript Italian films. Within a year she came to California and was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures, but the contract resulted in no acting roles due to her inability to learn English at the time. \n\nCareer \n\nAndress became famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond's woman of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie. In what became an iconic moment in cinematic and fashion history, she rose out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini sporting a large diving knife on her hip. Due to her heavy Swiss-German accent, her character's voice was provided by Nikki van der Zyl, while the calypso was sung by Diana Coupland. The scene made Andress a \"quintessential\" Bond girl. Andress later said that she owed her career to that white bikini: \"This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent.\" The bikini she wore in the film sold at auction in 2001 for £41,125 ($59,755). In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted #1 in \"the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments\". Andress won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in 1964 for her appearance in the film. \n\nAndress co-starred with Elvis Presley in the 1963 musical film Fun in Acapulco, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963), opposite Marcello Mastroianni in The 10th Victim (1965), alongside John Richardson in She (1965), and as the countess in The Blue Max (1966). She also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, played by Peter Sellers, to carry out a mission. Later, she worked with fellow former Bond girls Claudine Auger in Anyone Can Play (1968), Barbara Bach in Stateline Motel (1975), and Luciana Paluzzi in The Sensuous Nurse (1975).\n\nIn 1965, she posed nude for Playboy; it would be the first of seven times she was pictured in the magazine over the next fifteen years. When asked why she had agreed to do the Playboy shoot, Andress replied coolly, \"Because I'm beautiful.\" She went on to appear nude or semi-nude in nearly all of her film roles between 1969 and 1979, earning her the nickname \"Ursula Undress.\" \n\nOther films from this period of her career include the West African diamond-searching adventure The Southern Star (1969) with George Seagal, the crime caper Perfect Friday (1970) with Stanley Baker and David Warner, the western Red Sun (1972) with Charles Bronson and Alain Delon, as Joséphine de Beauharnais in the swashbuckling spoof The Loves and Times of Scaramouche (1976) with Michael Sarrazin, the cult favorite Slave of the Cannibal God (1978) with Stacey Keach, and as Louise de La Vallière in The Fifth Musketeer (1979) with Beau Bridges.\n\nShe played Aphrodite in 1981's Clash of the Titans, where she worked with Laurence Olivier. During the making of the film, Andress linked up with leading man Harry Hamlin, who became the father of her child. In 1982, she portrayed Mabel Dodge in the adventure-drama film Red Bells. On television, she participated in the 1986 Emmy-winning miniseries Peter the Great, and joined the cast of the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest for a three-episode arc in 1988 as an exotic foreigner who assists David Selby in retrieving Dana Sparks from a white slave ring.\n\nSince the beginning of the 1990s, her acting appearances have been rare. In 1995, Andress was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the \"100 Sexiest Stars in film history.\" Her last role to date was playing \"Madonna\" in the low-budget 2005 Swiss feature ' (English title: The Bird Preachers).\n\nPersonal life \n\nAndress dated film icon James Dean shortly before his death in 1955. That same year, she began an affair with actor/director John Derek, a married father-of-two who walked out on his wife, Pati Behrs, and their family to be with 19-year-old Andress. They wed in 1957 in Las Vegas, but divorced in 1966 after she became involved with Jean-Paul Belmondo while filming Up to His Ears. Her relationship with Belmondo ended in 1972. Andress also dated Ryan O'Neal, Marcello Mastroianni, and John DeLorean. One of her longest romances was with Fabio Testi. The two lived together for several years and had a torrid love scene in Stateline Motel.\n\nAndress was in a relationship with American actor Harry Hamlin after meeting on the set of Clash of the Titans in 1979. She gave birth to their son, Dimitri Hamlin, on 19 May 1980. Although an engagement was announced, the couple never married. They broke up in 1983. Andress then dated Brazilian soccer player Paulo Roberto Falcão, realtor Stan Herman (second ex-husband of her close friend Linda Evans ) and singer Julio Iglesias. In 1986 she began a long-term relationship with Fausto Fagone, a student. They were reported to have broken up in 1994. \n\nOn 18 May 2006, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Swiss Consulate General in Scotland, Andress celebrated her 70th birthday on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh in the company of an international crowd of celebrities.\n\nFilmography"
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What was CBS TV news broadcaster Walter Cronkite's stock closing phrase?
|
tc_115
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"CBS (an initialism of the network's former name, the Columbia Broadcasting System) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City (at the CBS Broadcast Center) and Los Angeles (at CBS Television City and the CBS Studio Center).\n\nCBS is sometimes referred to as the \"Eye Network\", in reference to the company's iconic logo, in use since 1951. It has also been called the \"Tiffany Network\", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of its founder William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950. \n\nThe network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc., a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, and eventually one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks. In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, and eventually adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies, and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television, radio and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom.\n\nCBS continues to operate the CBS Radio network, which now mainly provides news and features content for its portfolio of owned-and-operated radio stations in large and mid-sized markets, and affiliated radio stations in various other markets. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated television stations throughout the United States.\n\nHistory\n\nRadio years\n\nThe origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the \"United Independent Broadcasters\" network in Chicago by New York City talent-agent Arthur Judson. The fledgling network soon needed additional investors though, and the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers of Columbia Records, rescued it in April 1927; as a result, the network was renamed the \"Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System\" on September 18 of that year. Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and fifteen affiliates. \n\nOperational costs were steep, particularly the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, and by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.Barnouw, Tower, p. 223 In early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchenheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-old William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to \"Columbia Broadcasting System\". He believed in the power of radio advertising since his family's \"La Palina\" cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio.Barnouw, Tower, p. 224 By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchenheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business. Page numbers in this article refer to the first paperback edition, May 1981\n\nTurnaround: Paley's first year\n\nDuring Louchenheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A.H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC (no relation to the current WABC), which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the signal relocated to 860 kHz.Bergreen, p. 56. The station changed frequencies again, to 880 kHz, in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s 1941 reassignment of stations; in 1946, WABC was renamed WCBS. The physical plant was relocated also – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where much of CBS's programming would originate. By the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates.Bergreen, p. 59\n\nPaley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures, who planned to move into radio in response to RCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies.Bergreen, p. 61 The deal came to fruition in September 1929: Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time. The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back by March 1, 1932 for a flat $5 million, provided CBS had earned $2 million during 1931 and 1932. For a brief time there was talk that the network might be renamed \"Paramount Radio\", but it only lasted a month – the 1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling. It galvanized Paley and his troops, who \"had no alternative but to turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years.... This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born.\" The near-bankrupt movie studio sold its CBS shares back to CBS in 1932.Barnouw, Tower, p. 261 In the first year of Paley's watch, CBS's gross earnings more than tripled, going from $1.4 million to $4.7 million.Halberstam, David (1979). The Powers That Be. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-7-02-527021-2. p. 25\n\nMuch of the increase was a result of Paley's second upgrade to the CBS business plan – improved affiliate relations. There were two types of program at the time: sponsored and sustaining, i.e., unsponsored. Rival NBC paid affiliates for every sponsored show they carried and charged them for every sustaining show they ran. It was onerous for small and medium stations, and resulted in both unhappy affiliates and limited carriage of sustaining programs. Paley had a different idea, designed to get CBS programs emanating from as many radio sets as possible:Halberstam, p. 25 he would give the sustaining programs away for free, provided the station would run every sponsored show, and accept CBS's check for doing so.Barnow, Golden, p. 57 CBS soon had more affiliates than either NBC Red or NBC Blue. \n\nPaley was a man who valued style and taste,Halberstam, pp. 26–27 and in 1929, once he had his affiliates happy and his company's creditworthiness on the mend, he relocated his concern to sleek, new 485 Madison Avenue, the \"heart of the advertising community, right where Paley wanted his company to be\"Bergreen, p. 60 and where it would stay until its move to its own Eero Saarinen-designed headquarters, the CBS Building, in 1965. When his new landlords expressed skepticism about the network and its fly-by-night reputation, Paley overcame their qualms by inking a lease for $1.5 million.\n\nCBS takes on the Red and the Blue (1930s)\n\nSince NBC was the broadcast arm of radio set manufacturer RCA, its chief David Sarnoff approached his decisions as both a broadcaster and as a hardware executive; NBC's affiliates had the latest RCA equipment, and were often the best-established stations, or were on \"clear channel\" frequencies. Yet Sarnoff's affiliates were mistrustful of him. Paley had no such split loyalties: his – and his affiliates' – success rose and fell with the quality of CBS programming.\n\nPaley had an innate, pitch-perfect, sense of entertainment, \"a gift of the gods, an ear totally pure\",Halberstam, p. 26 wrote David Halberstam. \"[He] knew what was good and would sell, what was bad and would sell, and what was good and would not sell, and he never confused one with another.\"Halberstam, p. 24 As the 1930s loomed, Paley set about building the CBS talent stable. The network became the home of many popular musical and comedy stars, among them Jack Benny, (\"Your Canada Dry Humorist\"), Al Jolson, George Burns & Gracie Allen, and Kate Smith, whom Paley personally selected for his family's La Palina Hour because she was not the type of woman to provoke jealousy in American wives.Bergreen, p. 69 When, on a mid-ocean voyage, Paley heard a phonograph record of a young unknown crooner, he rushed to the ship's radio room and \"cabled\" New York to sign Bing Crosby immediately to a contract for a daily radio show. \n\nWhile the CBS prime-time lineup featured music, comedy and variety shows, the daytime schedule was a direct conduit into American homes – and into the hearts and minds of American women; for many, it was the bulk of their adult human contact during the course of the day. CBS time salesmen recognized early on that this intimate connection could be a bonanza for advertisers of female-interest products.Bergreen, p. 63 Starting in 1930, astrologer Evangeline Adams would consult the heavens on behalf of listeners who sent in their birthdays, a description of their problems – and a box-top from sponsor Forhan's toothpaste.Barnouw, Tower, p. 240 The low-key murmuring of smooth-voiced Tony Wons, backed by a tender violin, \"made him a soul mate to millions of women\"Barnouw, Tower, pp. 240–241 on behalf of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company, whose cellophane-wrapped Camel cigarettes were \"as fresh as the dew that dawn spills on a field of clover\".Barnouw, Tower, p. 241 The most popular radio-friend of all was M. Sayle Taylor, The Voice Of Experience, though his name was never uttered on air. Women mailed descriptions of the most intimate of relationship problems to The Voice in the tens of thousands per week; sponsors Musterole ointment and Haley's M–O laxative enjoyed sales increases of several hundred percent in just the first month of The Voice Of Experiences run.Barnouw, Tower, p. 242\n\nAs the decade progressed, a new genre joined the daytime lineup: serial dramas – soap operas, so named for the products that sponsored them, by way of the ad agencies that actually produced them. Although the form, usually in quarter-hour episodes, proliferated widely in the mid- and late 1930s, they all had the same basic premise: that characters \"fell into two categories: 1) those in trouble and 2) those who helped people in trouble. The helping-hand figures were usually older.\"Barnouw, Golden, p. 96 At CBS, Just Plain Bill brought human insight and Anacin pain reliever into households; Your Family and Mine came courtesy of Sealtest Dairy products; Bachelor's Children first hawked Old Dutch Cleanser, then Wonder Bread; Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories was sponsored by Spry Vegetable Shortening. Our Gal Sunday (Anacin again), The Romance of Helen Trent (Angélus cosmetics), Big Sister (Rinso laundry soap) and many others filled the daytime ether. \n\nThanks to its daytime and primetime schedules, CBS prospered in the 1930s. In 1935, gross sales were $19.3 million, yielding a profit of $2.27 million.Barnouw, Golden, p. 62 By 1937, the network took in $28.7 million and had 114 affiliates, almost all of which cleared 100% of network-fed programming, thus keeping ratings, and revenue, high. In 1938, CBS even acquired the American Record Corporation, parent of its one-time investor Columbia Records. \n\nIn 1938, NBC and CBS each opened studios in Hollywood to attract the entertainment industry's top talent to their networks – NBC at Radio City on Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street, CBS two blocks away at Columbia Square.Bergreen, p. 99\n\nCBS launches an independent news division\n\nThe extraordinary potential of radio news showed itself in 1930, when CBS suddenly found itself with a live telephone connection to a prisoner called \"The Deacon\" who described, from the inside and in real time, a riot and conflagration at the Ohio Penitentiary; for CBS, it was \"a shocking journalistic coup\".Bergreen, p. 105 Yet as late as 1934, there was still no regularly scheduled newscast on network radio: \"Most sponsors did not want network news programming; those that did were inclined to expect veto rights over it.\"Barnouw, Golden, p. 17 There had been a longstanding wariness between radio and the newspapers as well; the papers had rightly concluded that the upstart radio business would compete with them on two counts – advertising dollars and news coverage. By 1933, they fought back, many no longer publishing radio schedules for readers' convenience, or allowing \"their\" news to be read on the air for radio's profit.Barnouw, Golden, p. 18 Radio, in turn, pushed back when urban department stores, newspapers' largest advertisers and themselves owners of many radio stations, threatened to withhold their ads from print.Barnouw, Golden, p. 22 A short-lived attempted truce in 1933 even saw the papers proposing that radio be forbidden from running news before 9:30 a.m., and then only after 9:00 p.m. – and that no news story could air until it was 12 hours old.Barnouw, Golden, p. 21\n\nIt was in this climate that Paley set out to \"enhance the prestige of CBS, to make it seem in the public mind the more advanced, dignified and socially aware network\".Bergreen, p. 90 He did it through sustaining programming like the New York Philharmonic, the thoughtful drama of Norman Corwin – and an in-house news division to gather and present news, free of fickle suppliers like newspapers and wire services. In the fall of 1934, CBS launched an independent news division, shaped in its first years by Paley's vice-president, former New York Times columnist Ed Klauber, and news director Paul White. Since there was no blueprint or precedent for real-time news coverage, early efforts of the new division used the shortwave link-up CBS had been using for five yearsBarnouw, Tower, pp. 245–246 to bring live feeds of European events to its American air.\n\nA key early hire was Edward R. Murrow in 1935; his first corporate title was Director of Talks. He was mentored in microphone technique by Robert Trout, the lone full-time member of the News Division, and quickly found himself in a growing rivalry with boss White.Bergreen, p. 107 Murrow was glad to \"leave the hothouse atmosphere of the New York office behind\"Bergreen, p. 109 when he was dispatched to London as CBS's European Director in 1937, a time when the growing Hitler menace underscored the need for a robust European Bureau. Halberstam described Murrow in London as \"the right man in the right place in the right era\".Halberstam, p. 38 Murrow began assembling the staff of broadcast journalists – including William L. Shirer, Charles Collingwood, Bill Downs, and Eric Sevareid – who would become known as \"Murrow's Boys\". They were \"in [Murrow's] own image, sartorially impeccable, literate, often liberal, and prima donnas all\".Bergreen, p. 110 They covered history in the making, and sometimes made it themselves: on March 12, 1938, Hitler boldly annexed nearby Austria and Murrow and Boys quickly assembled coverage with Shirer in London, Edgar Ansel Mowrer in Paris, Pierre Huss in Berlin, Frank Gervasi in Rome and Trout in New York.Barnouw, Golden, p. 78 This bore the News Round-Up format, which is still ubiquitous today in broadcast news.\n\nMurrow's nightly reports from the rooftops during the dark days of the London Blitz galvanized American listeners: even before Pearl Harbor, the conflict became \"the story of the survival of Western civilization, the most heroic of all possible wars and stories. He was indeed reporting on the survival of the English-speaking peoples.\"Halberstam, p. 39 With his \"manly, tormented voice\",Bergreen, p. 112 Murrow contained and mastered the panic and danger he felt, thereby communicating it all the more effectively to his audience. Using his trademark self-reference \"This reporter\",Barnouw, Golden, p. 140 he did not so much report news as interpret it, combining simplicity of expression with subtlety of nuance. Murrow himself said he tried \"to describe things in terms that make sense to the truck driver without insulting the intelligence of the professor\". When he returned home for a visit late in 1941, Paley threw an \"extraordinarily elaborate reception\"Bergreen, p. 114 for Murrow at the Waldorf-Astoria. Of course, its goal was more than just honoring CBS's latest \"star\" – it was an announcement to the world that Mr. Paley's network was finally more than just a pipeline carrying other people's programming: it had now become a cultural force in its own right.Bergreen, pp. 114–115\n\nOnce the war was over and Murrow returned for good, it was as \"a superstar with prestige and freedom and respect within his profession and within his company\".Halberstam, p. 40 He possessed enormous capital within that company, and as the unknown form of television news loomed large, he would spend it freely, first in radio news, then in television, taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy first, then eventually William S. Paley himself,Barnouw, Golden, p. 276 and with a foe that formidable, even the vast Murrow account would soon run dry.\n\nPanic: The War of the Worlds radio broadcast\n\nOn October 30, 1938, CBS gained a taste of infamy when The Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, performed by Orson Welles. Its unique format, a contemporary version of the story in the form of faux news broadcasts, had panicked many listeners into believing invaders from Mars were actually invading and devastating Grover's Mill, New Jersey, despite three disclaimers during the broadcast that it was a work of fiction. The flood of publicity after the broadcast had two effects: an FCC ban on faux news bulletins within dramatic programming, and sponsorship for The Mercury Theatre on the Air – the former sustaining program became The Campbell Playhouse to sell soup.Barnouw, Golden, p. 88 Welles, for his part, summarized the episode as \"the Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying 'Boo!'\"Bergreen, p. 96\n\nCBS recruits Edmund A. Chester\n\nBefore the onset of World War II, in 1940, CBS recruited Edmund A. Chester from his position as Bureau Chief for Latin America at the Associated Press to serve as Director of Latin American Relations and Director of Short Wave Broadcasts for the CBS radio network. In this capacity, Mr. Chester coordinated the development of the Network of the Americas (La Cadena de las Americas) with the Department of State, the Office for Inter-American Affairs (as chaired by Nelson Rockefeller) and Voice of America. This network provided vital news and cultural programming throughout South America and Central America during the crucial World War II era and fostered diplomatic relations between the United States and the less developed nations of the continent. It featured such popular radio broadcasts as Viva América which showcased leading musical talent from both North and South America, accompanied by the CBS Pan American Orchestra under the musical direction of Alfredo Antonini. The post-war era also marked the beginning of CBS's dominance in the field of radio as well. \n\nZenith of network radio (1940s)\n\nAs 1939 wound down, Bill Paley announced that 1940 would \"be the greatest year in the history of radio in the United States.\"Barnouw, Golden, p. 139 He turned out to be right by more than anyone could imagine: the decade of the 1940s would indeed be the apogee of network radio by every gauge. Nearly 100% of the advertisers who made sponsorship deals in 1939 renewed their contracts for 1940; manufacturers of farm tractors made radios standard equipment on their machines.Barnouw, Golden, p. 138 Wartime rationing of paper limited the size of newspapers – and effectively advertisements – and when papers turned them away, they migrated to radio sponsorship.Barnouw, Golden, p. 165 A 1942 act by Congress made advertising expenses a tax benefit and that sent even automobile and tire manufacturers – who had no products to sell since they had been converted to war production – scurrying to sponsor symphony orchestras and serious drama on radio.Barnouw, Golden, p. 166 In 1940, only one-third of radio programs were sponsored, while two-thirds were sustaining; by the middle of the decade, the statistics had swapped – two out of three shows now had cash-paying sponsors and only one-third were sustaining.Bergreen, p. 167\n\nThe CBS of the 1940s was vastly different from that of the early days; many of the old guard veterans had died, retired or simply left the network.Bergreen, p.168 No change was greater than that in Paley himself: he had become difficult to work for, and had \"gradually shifted from leader to despot\". He spent much of his time seeking social connections and in cultural pursuits; his \"hope was that CBS could somehow learn to run itself\". His brief to an interior designer remodeling his townhouse included a requirement for closets that would accommodate 300 suits, 100 shirts and had special racks for a hundred neckties.Halberstam, p. 31\n\nAs Paley grew more remote, he installed a series of buffer executives who sequentially assumed more and more power at CBS: first Ed Klauber, then Paul Kesten, and finally Frank Stanton. Second only to Paley as the author of CBS's style and ambitions in its first half-century, Stanton was \"a magnificent mandarin who functioned as company superintendent, spokesman, and image-maker\".Bergreen, p. 169 He had come to the network in 1933 after sending copies of his Ph.D. thesis \"A Critique Of Present Methods and a New Plan for Studying Radio Listening Behavior\" to CBS top brass and they responded with a job offer.Bergreen, p. 170 He scored an early hit with his study \"Memory for Advertising Copy Presented Visually vs. Orally,\" which CBS salesmen used to great effect bringing in new sponsors. In 1946, Paley appointed Stanton as President of CBS and promoted himself to Chairman. Stanton's colorful, but impeccable, wardrobe – slate-blue pinstripe suit, ecru shirt, robin's egg blue necktie with splashes of saffron – made him, in the mind of one sardonic CBS vice-president, \"the greatest argument we have for color television\".Bergreen, p. 171\n\nDespite the influx of advertisers and their cash, or perhaps because of them, the 1940s were not without bumps for the radio networks. The biggest challenge came in the form of the FCC's chain broadcasting investigation – the \"monopoly probe\", as it was often called.Barnouw, Golden, p. 168 Though it started in 1938, the investigation only gathered steam in 1940 under new-broom chairman James L. Fly.Barnouw, Golden, pp. 168–169 By the time the smoke had cleared in 1943, NBC had already spun off its Blue Network, which became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). CBS was also hit, though not as severely: Paley's brilliant 1928 affiliate contract which had given CBS first claim on local stations' air during sponsored time – the network option – came under attack as being restrictive to local programming.Barnouw, Golden, p. 171 The final compromise permitted the network option for three out of four hours during certain dayparts, but the new regulations had virtually no practical effect, since most all stations accepted the network feed, especially the sponsored hours that earned them money. Fly's panel also forbade networks from owning artists' representation bureaus, so CBS sold its bureau to Music Corporation of America and it became Management Corporation of America.Barnouw, Golden, p. 172\n\nOn the air, the war had an impact on almost every show. Variety shows wove patriotism through their comedy and music segments; dramas and soaps had characters join the service and go off to fight. Even before hostilities commenced in Europe, one of the most played songs on radio was Irving Berlin's \"God Bless America\", popularized by CBS personality Kate Smith.Barnouw, Golden, p. 155 Although an Office of Censorship sprang up within days of Pearl Harbor, censorship would be totally voluntary. A few shows submitted scripts for review; most did not.Barnouw, Golden, p. 156 The guidelines that the Office did issue banned weather reports (including announcement of sports rainouts), news about troop, ship or plane movements, war production and live man-on-the-street interviews. The ban on ad-libbing caused quizzes, game shows and amateur hours to wither for the duration.\n\nSurprising was \"the granite permanence\" of the shows at the top of the ratings.Barnouw, Golden, p. 284 The vaudevillians and musicians who were hugely popular after the war were the same stars who had been huge in the 1930s: Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Burns and Allen, and Edgar Bergen all had been on the radio almost as long as there had been network radio.Barnouw, Golden, p. 285 A notable exception to this was relative newcomer Arthur Godfrey who, as late as 1942, was still doing a local morning show in Washington, D.C.Bergreen, p. 179 Godfrey, who had been a cemetery-lot salesman and a cab driver, pioneered the style of talking directly to the listener as an individual, with a singular \"you\" rather than phrases like \"Now, folks...\" or \"Yes, friends...\".Bergreen, p. 180 His combined shows contributed as much as 12% of all CBS revenues; by 1948, he was pulling down $500,000 a year.\n\nIn 1947, Paley, still the undisputed \"head talent scout\" of CBS, led a much-publicized \"talent raid\" on NBC. One day, while Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll were hard at work at NBC writing their venerable Amos and Andy show, a knock came on the door; it was Paley himself, with an astonishing offer: \"Whatever you are getting now I will give you twice as much.\"Bergreen, p. 181 Capturing NBC's cornerstone show was enough of a coup, but Paley repeated in 1948 with longtime NBC stars Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy and Red Skelton, as well as former CBS defectors Jack Benny, radio's top-rated comedian, and Burns and Allen. Paley achieved this rout with a legal agreement reminiscent of his 1928 contract that caused some NBC radio affiliates to jump ship and join CBS. CBS would buy the stars' names as a property, in exchange for a large lump sum and a salary.Barnouw, p. 245 The plan relied on the vastly different tax rates between income and capital gains, so not only would the stars enjoy more than twice their income after taxes, but CBS would preclude any NBC counterattack because CBS owned the performers' names.\n\nAs a result of this, Paley got in 1949 something he had sought for 20 years: CBS finally beat NBC in the ratings.Bergreen, p. 183 But it was not just to one-up rival Sarnoff that Paley led his talent raid; he, and all of radio, had their eye on the coming force that threw a shadow over radio throughout the 1940s – television.\n\nPrime time radio gives way to television (1950s)\n\nFrank Stanton, President 1946-1971;\nLouis G. Cowan, President 1957-1959;\nJames Thomas Aubrey, President 1959-1965\n\nIn the spring of 1940, CBS staff engineer Peter Goldmark devised a system for color television that CBS management hoped would leapfrog the network over NBC and its existing black-and-white RCA system.Bergreen, p. 153. Goldmark also invented the 33-1/3 r.p.m. microgroove Long-Play phonograph record that made the RCA-Victor 78s quickly obsolete. The CBS system \"gave brilliant and stable colors\", while NBC's was \"crude and unstable but 'compatible'\".Barnouw, Golden, p. 243 Ultimately, the FCC rejected the CBS system because it was incompatible with RCA's; that, and the fact that CBS had moved to secure many UHF, not VHF, television licenses, left CBS flatfooted in the early television age.Bergreen, pp. 155–157. Shortly after ruling in favor of NBC, FCC chairman Charles Denny resigned from the FCC to become vice president and general counsel of NBC: Barnouw, Golden, p. 243 In 1946, only 6,000 television sets were in operation, most in greater New York City where there were already three stations; by 1949, the number had increased to 3 million sets, and by 1951, had risen to 12 million.Bergreen, pp. 158–159 64 American cities had television stations, though most of them only had one.Barnouw, Golden, p. 295\n\nRadio continued to be the backbone of the company, at least in the early 1950s, but it was \"a strange, twilight period\". NBC's venerable Fred Allen saw his ratings plummet when he was pitted against upstart ABC's game show Stop The Music!; within weeks, he was dropped by longtime sponsor Ford Motor Company and was shortly gone from the scene.Barnouw, Golden, pp. 287–288 Radio powerhouse Bob Hope's ratings plunged from a 23.8 share in 1949 to 5.4 in 1953.Barnouw, Golden, p. 288 By 1952, \"death seemed imminent for network radio\" in its familiar form;Barnouw, Golden, p. 290 most telling of all, the big sponsors were eager for the switch.\n\nGradually, as the television network took shape, radio stars began to migrate to the new medium. Many programs ran on both media while making the transition. The radio soap opera The Guiding Light moved to television in 1952 and ran another 57 years; Burns & Allen, back \"home\" from NBC, made the move in 1950; Lucille Ball a year later; Our Miss Brooks in 1952 (though it continued simultaneously on radio for its full television life). The high-rated Jack Benny Program ended its radio run in 1955, and Edgar Bergen's Sunday night show went off the air in 1957. When CBS announced in 1956 that its radio operations had lost money, while the television network had made money,Bergreen, p. 230 it was clear where the future lay. When the soap opera Ma Perkins went off the air on November 25, 1960, only eight, relatively minor series remained. Prime time radio ended on September 30, 1962, when Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense aired for the final time.\n\nCBS's radio programming after 1972\n\nThe retirement of Arthur Godfrey in April 1972 marked the end of long-form programming on CBS radio; programming thereafter consisted of hourly news summaries and news features, known in the 1970s as Dimension, and commentaries, including the Spectrum series that evolved into the \"Point/Counterpoint\" feature on the television network's 60 Minutes and First Line Report, a news and analysis feature delivered by CBS correspondents. The network also continued to offer traditional radio programming through its weeknightly CBS Radio Mystery Theater, the lone sustained holdout of dramatic programming, from 1974 to 1982, though shorter runs were given to the General Mills Radio Adventure Theater and the Sears Radio Theater in the 1970s; otherwise, most new dramatic radio was carried on public and to some extent religious stations.Dunning, p. 143 The CBS Radio Network continues to this day, offering hourly newscasts, including its centerpiece CBS World News Roundup in the morning and evening, weekend sister program CBS News Weekend Roundup, the news-related feature segment The Osgood File, What's In the News, a one-minute summary of one story, and various other segments such as commentary from Seattle radio personality Dave Ross, tip segments from various other sources, and technology coverage from CBS Interactive property CNET.\n\nCBS is the last of the original Big Four radio networks to continue to be owned by its founding company, although the CBS parent itself ceased to exist when it was acquired by Westinghouse Electric in 1995, CBS radio continues to be operated by CBS. In contrast, ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007 (and is now a part of Cumulus Media) while Mutual (now defunct) and NBC Radio were acquired by Westwood One in the 1980s (Westwood One and CBS were under common ownership from 1993 to 2007; the former would be acquired outright by Dial Global in October 2011).\n\nTelevision years: expansion and growth\n\nCBS's involvement in television dates back to the opening of experimental station W2XAB in New York City on July 21, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s. Its initial broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The station boasted the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week.\n\nAnnouncer-director Bill Schudt was the station's only paid employee; all other talent was volunteer. W2XAB pioneered program development including small-scale dramatic acts, monologues, pantomime, and the use of projection slides to simulate sets. Engineer Bill Lodge devised the first synchronized sound wave for a television station in 1932, enabling W2XAB to broadcast picture and sound on a single shortwave channel instead of the two previously needed. On November 8, 1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on February 20, 1933, as monochrome television transmission standards were in flux, and in the process of changing from a mechanical to an all-electronic system. W2XAB returned to the air with an all-electronic system in 1939 from a new studio complex in Grand Central Station and a transmitter atop the Chrysler Building, broadcasting on channel 2. W2XAB transmitted the first color broadcast in the United States on August 28, 1940. \n\nOn June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. The station went on the air at 2:30 p.m. on July 1, one hour after rival WNBT (channel 1, formerly W2XBS and now WNBC), making it the second authorized fully commercial television station in the United States. The FCC issued permits to CBS and NBC at the same time, and intended WNBT and WCBW to sign on simultaneously on July 1, so no one station could claim to be the \"first\".\n\nDuring the World War II years, commercial television broadcasting was reduced dramatically. Toward the end of the war, commercial television began to ramp up again, with an increased level of programming evident from 1944 to 1947 on the three New York television stations which operated in those years (the local stations of NBC, CBS and DuMont). But as RCA and DuMont raced to establish networks and offer upgraded programming, CBS lagged, advocating an industry-wide shift and restart to UHF for their incompatible (with black and white) color system; the FCC putting an indefinite \"freeze\" on television licenses that lasted until 1952 also did not help matters. Only in 1950, when NBC was dominant in television and black and white transmission was widespread, did CBS begin to buy or build their own stations (outside of New York City) in Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities. Up to that point, CBS programming was seen on such stations as KTTV in Los Angeles, which CBS – as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in that market – quickly purchased a 50% interest in that station, partnering with the Los Angeles Times newspaper. CBS then sold its interest in KTTV (now the West Coast flagship of the Fox network) and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after CBS's existing Los Angeles radio property, KNX), later to become KCBS-TV. In 1953, CBS bought pioneer television station WBKB in Chicago, which had been signed on by former investor Paramount Pictures (and would become a sister company to CBS again decades later) as a commercial station in 1946, and changed that station's call sign to WBBM-TV, moving the CBS affiliation away from WGN-TV.\n\nWCBS-TV would ultimately be the only station (as of 2013) built and signed on by CBS. The rest of the stations would be acquired by CBS, either in an ownership stake or outright purchase. In television's early years, the network bought Washington, D.C. affiliate WOIC (now WUSA) in a joint venture with The Washington Post in 1950, only to sell its stake to the Post in 1954 due to then-tighter FCC ownership regulations. CBS would also temporarily return to relying on its own UHF technology by owning WXIX in Milwaukee (now CW affiliate WVTV) and WHCT in Hartford, Connecticut (now Univision affiliate WUVN), but as UHF was not viable for broadcasting at the time (due to the fact that most television sets of the time were not equipped with UHF tuners), CBS decided to sell those stations off and affiliate with VHF stations WITI and WTIC-TV (now WFSB), respectively (ironically, CBS would later be forced back onto UHF in Milwaukee due to the affiliation agreement with New World Communications that resulted in WITI disaffiliating from the network in 1994 to join Fox; it is now affiliated with WDJT-TV in that market). More long-term, CBS bought stations in Philadelphia (WCAU, now owned by NBC) and St. Louis (KMOX-TV, now KMOV), but CBS would eventually sell these stations off as well; before buying KMOX-TV, CBS had attempted to purchase and sign on the channel 11 license in St. Louis, now KPLR-TV. \n\nCBS did attempt to sign on a station in Pittsburgh after the \"freeze\" was lifted, as that city was then the sixth-largest market but only had one commercial VHF station in DuMont-owned WDTV, while the rest were either on UHF (the modern-day WPGH-TV and WINP-TV) or public television (WQED). Although the FCC turned down CBS's request to buy the channel 9 license in nearby Steubenville, Ohio and move it to Pittsburgh (that station, initially CBS affiliate WSTV-TV, is now NBC affiliate WTOV-TV), CBS did score a major coup when Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric (a co-founder of NBC with RCA) bought WDTV from struggling DuMont and opted to affiliate the now-recalled KDKA-TV with CBS instead of NBC (like KDKA radio) due to NBC extorting and coercing Westinghouse to trade KYW radio and WPTZ (now KYW-TV) for Cleveland stations WTAM, WTAM-FM (now WMJI), and WNBK (now WKYC); the trade ended up being reversed in 1965 by order of the FCC and the United States Department of Justice after an eight-year investigation. Had CBS not been able to affiliate with KDKA-TV, it would have affiliated with eventual NBC affiliate WIIC-TV (now WPXI) once it signed on in 1957 instead. This coup would eventually lead to a much stronger relationship between Westinghouse and CBS decades later.\n\nProgramming (1945-1970)\n\nThe \"talent raid\" on NBC of the mid-1940s had brought over established radio stars, who became stars of CBS television programs as well. One reluctant CBS star refused to bring her radio show, My Favorite Husband, to television unless the network would recast the show with her real-life husband in the lead.\n\nI Love Lucy debuted in October 1951, and was an immediate sensation, with 11 million out of a population of 15 million Television sets watching (73% share). Paley and network president Frank Stanton had so little faith in the future of Lucille Ball's series, that they granted her wish and allowed her husband, Desi Arnaz, to take financial control of the comedy's production. This was the making of the Ball-Arnaz Desilu empire, and became the template for series production to this day; it also served as the template for some television conventions that continue to exist including the use of a multiple cameras to film scenes, the use of a studio audience and the airing of past episodes for syndication to other television outlets. \n\nAs television came to the forefront of American entertainment and information, CBS dominated television as it once had radio. In 1953, the CBS television network would make its first profit, and would maintain dominance on television between 1955 and 1976 as well. By the late 1950s, the network often controlled seven or eight of the slots on the \"top ten\" ratings list with well-respected shows like Route 66.\n\nDuring the Presidency of James T. Aubrey (1958-1965), CBS was able to balance prestigious television projects (befitting the Tiffany Network image), with more low culture, broad appeal programs. So the network had challenging fare like The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series), The Defenders (1961 TV series), and East Side/West Side, as well as The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and Gilligan's Island. \n\nThis success would continue for many years, with CBS being bumped from first place only due to the rise of ABC in the mid-1970s. Perhaps because of its status as the top-rated network, during the late 1960s and early 1970s CBS felt freer to gamble with controversial properties like the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and All in the Family (and its many spinoffs) during this period.\n\nProgramming: \"Rural purge\" and success in the 1970s and early-mid 1980s (1971–86)\n\nBy the end of the 1960s, CBS was very successful in television ratings, but many of its shows (including The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry R.F.D., Petticoat Junction, Hee Haw and Green Acres) were appealing more to older and more rural audiences and less to the young, urban and more affluent audiences that advertisers sought to target. Fred Silverman (who would later head ABC, and then later NBC) made the decision to cancel most of those otherwise hit shows by mid-1971 in what became colloquially referred to as the \"Rural Purge\", with Green Acres cast member Pat Buttram remarking that the network cancelled \"anything with a tree in it\". \n\nWhile the \"rural\" shows got the axe, new hits, like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Kojak and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour took their place on the network's schedule and kept CBS at the top of the ratings through the early 1970s. The majority of these hits were overseen by then East Coast vice president Alan Wagner. 60 Minutes also moved to the 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot on Sundays in 1976 and became the first ever prime time television news program to enter the Nielsen Top 10 in 1978.\n\nOne of CBS's most popular shows during the period was M*A*S*H, a dramedy that ran for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983 and was based on the hit Robert Altman film; as with the film, the series was set during the Korean War in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. The 2½-hour series finale, in its initial airing on February 28, 1983, had peak viewership of up to 125 million Americans (77% of all television viewership in the U.S. that night), which established it as the all-time most watched single U.S. television episode; it also held the ubiquitous distinction of having the largest single-night primetime viewership of any television program in U.S. history until it was surpassed by the Super Bowl, which have taken the record consistently since 2010 (through the annual championship game's alternating telecasts by CBS and rival networks Fox and NBC).\n\nSilverman also first developed his strategy of spinning new shows off from established hit series while at CBS, with Rhoda and Phyllis spun from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude and The Jeffersons spun from All in the Family and Good Times from Maude. After Silverman's departure, CBS dropped behind ABC for second place in the 1976–77 season, but still rated strongly, based on its earlier hits and some new ones: One Day at a Time, Alice, Lou Grant, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Dukes of Hazzard (a suspiciously \"rural\" series) and, the biggest hit of the early 1980s, Dallas, the latter of which holds the record for the all-time most watched non-series finale single U.S. television episode - the November 21, 1980 primetime telecast of the resolution episode of the internationally prominent \"Who Shot J.R.?\" cliffhanger.\n\nBy 1982, ABC had run out of steam, NBC was in dire straits with many failed programming efforts greenlighted by Silverman during his tenure as network president (a four-year run which began in 1978), and CBS once more nosed ahead, courtesy of the major success of Dallas (and its spin-off Knots Landing), as well as hits in Falcon Crest, Magnum, P.I., Simon & Simon and 60 Minutes. CBS also acquired the broadcast rights to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in 1982 (taking over for NBC), which the network has broadcast every March since. CBS was takeover the Dennis B. Kane's production company and formed new company CBS/Kane Productions International (CKPI). The network managed to pull out a few new hits over the next couple of years – namely Kate & Allie, Newhart, Cagney & Lacey, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Murder, She Wrote – however, this resurgence would be short-lived. CBS had become mired in debt as a result of a failed takeover effort by Ted Turner, which CBS chairman Thomas Wyman successfully helped to fend off. The network sold its St. Louis owned-and-operated station KMOX-TV, and allowed the purchase of a large portion of its shares (under 25 percent) by Loew's Inc. chairman Laurence Tisch. Consequently, collaboration between Paley and Tisch led to the slow dismissal of Wyman, with Tisch taking over as chief operating officer, and Paley returning as chairman.\n\nProgramming: Tiffany Network in distress (1986–2002)\n\nBy the end of the 1987–88 season, CBS had fallen to third place behind both ABC and NBC for the first time, and had some major rebuilding to do.\n\nIn 1984, The Cosby Show and Miami Vice debuted on NBC and immediately garnered high ratings, helping to bring that network back to first place by the 1985–86 season with a slate that included several other hits (such as Amen, Family Ties, Cheers, The Golden Girls, L.A. Law and 227). ABC had in turn also rebounded with hits such as Dynasty, Who's the Boss?, Hotel, Growing Pains, The Wonder Years, and Roseanne. \nIronically, some of the groundwork had been laid as CBS fell in the ratings, with hits Simon & Simon, Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote, Kate & Allie and Newhart still on the schedule from the most recent resurgence, and future hits Designing Women, Murphy Brown, Jake and the Fatman and newsmagazine 48 Hours having debuted during the late 1980s. The network was also still getting decent ratings for 60 Minutes, Dallas and Knots Landing; however, the ratings for Dallas were a far cry from what they were in the early 1980s. During the early 1990s, the network would bolster its sports lineup by obtaining the broadcast television rights to Major League Baseball from ABC and NBC and the Winter Olympics from ABC.\n\nUnder network president Jeff Sagansky, the network was able to earn strong ratings from new shows Diagnosis: Murder, Touched by an Angel, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Walker, Texas Ranger, and a resurgent Jake and the Fatman during this period, and CBS was able to reclaim the first place crown briefly, in the 1992–93 season; however, a drawback for the network during this time-frame was that its programming slate skewed towards an older demographic than ABC, NBC or even Fox, with its relatively limited presence at that time; a joke even floated around that CBS was \"the network for the living dead\" during this period. In 1993, the network made a breakthrough in establishing a successful late-night talk show franchise to compete with NBC's The Tonight Show when it signed David Letterman away from NBC after the Late Night host was passed over as Johnny Carson's successor on Tonight in favor of Jay Leno.\n\nDespite having success with Late Show with David Letterman, 1993 saw the network suffer to a time where television changed forever. The network lost the rights to two major sports leagues: the network terminated its contract with Major League Baseball (after losing approximately US$500 million over a four-year span), with the league reaching a new contract with NBC and ABC. Then on December 17 of that year, in a move that surprised many media analysts and television viewers, Fox – then a fledgling network that in its then-seven years on the air had begun to accrue several popular programs in the Nielsen Top 20 alongside its established counterparts – outbid CBS for the broadcast rights to the National Football Conference, stripping the elder network of National Football League game telecasts for the first time since CBS began broadcasting games from the pre-merger NFL in 1955; Fox bid $1.58 billion for the NFC television rights, significantly higher than CBS' reported offer of $290 million to retain the contract. \n\nThe acquisition of the NFC rights, which took effect with the 1994 NFL season, and which led to CBS being nicknamed \"Can't Broadcast Sports\", resulted in Fox striking a series of affiliation deals with longtime affiliates of each of the Big Three networks; CBS bore the brunt of the switches, with many of its existing affiliates being lured away by Fox (especially those owned by New World Communications, which Fox struck its largest affiliation deal with) while most of the stations that CBS ended up affiliating with to replace the previous affiliates it lost to Fox were former Fox affiliates and independent stations, most of which had limited to no local news presence prior to joining CBS. The network attempted to fill the loss of NFL by going after the rights to the National Hockey League; however, when CBS countered with a bid, Fox also outbid the network for the NHL rights. \n\nThe loss of the NFL, along with an ill-fated effort to court younger viewers, led to a drop in CBS' ratings. One of the shows that was affected was the Late Show with David Letterman, which saw its viewership decline in large part due to the affiliation switches, at times even landing in third place in its timeslot behind ABC's Nightline; as a result, NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which the Late Show often dominated over during the first two years of that show's run, became the top-rated late-night talk show. Still, CBS was able to produce some hits during the mid-1990s, such as The Nanny, JAG (which moved to the network from NBC), Cosby, Cybill, Touched by an Angel and Everybody Loves Raymond.\n\nCBS attempted to court families on Fridays with the launch of a family-oriented comedy block, the \"CBS Block Party\", in the 1997–98 season (consisting of Family Matters, Step by Step, Meego and The Gregory Hines Show, all but the latter coming from Miller-Boyett Productions, which had maintained a relationship with ABC during the late 1980s and 1990s). The lineup failed to compete against ABC's \"TGIF\" lineup (which saw its own viewership erode that season): Meego and Hines were cancelled by November, while Family Matters and Step by Step were put on hiatus and ended their runs in the summer of 1998. That winter, CBS aired its last Olympic Games to date with its telecast of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano; NBC, which had already held the rights to the Summer Olympics since 1988, took over coverage of the Winter Olympics beginning with the 2002 Games.\n\nThe building blocks for the network's return to the top of the ratings were put in place in 1997, when CBS regained the NFL through its acquisition of the broadcast television rights to the American Football Conference (stripping that package from NBC after 32 years), effective with the 1998 season. The contract was struck shortly before the AFC's emergence as the dominant NFL conference over the NFC, spurred in part by the turnaround of the New England Patriots in the 2000s. With the help of the AFC package, CBS surpassed NBC for first place in the 1999–2000 season; however, it was beaten by ABC the following year. The network gained additional hits in the late 1990s and early 2000s with series such as The King of Queens, Nash Bridges, Judging Amy, Becker and Yes, Dear.\n\nProgramming: Return to first place and rivalry with Fox (2002–present)\n\nAnother turning point for CBS came in the summer of 2000 when it debuted the summer reality shows Survivor and Big Brother, which became surprise summer hits for the network. In January 2001, CBS debuted the second season of Survivor after its broadcast of Super Bowl XXXV and scheduled it on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time; it also moved the investigative crime drama CSI (which had debuted that fall in the Friday 9:00 p.m. time slot) to follow Survivor at 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The pairing of the two shows was both able to chip away at and eventually beat NBC's Thursday night lineup, and attract younger viewers to the network.\n\nDuring the 2000s, CBS found additional successes with a slew of police procedurals (several of which were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) including Cold Case, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, NCIS and The Mentalist, along with CSI spinoffs CSI: Miami and CSI: NY as well as sitcoms Still Standing, Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Rules of Engagement and The Big Bang Theory. The network's programming slate, buoyed largely by the success of CSI, briefly led the network to retake first place in the ratings from NBC in the 2002–03 season. The decade also saw CBS finally make ratings headway on Friday nights, a perennial weak spot for the network, with a focus toward drama series such as Ghost Whisperer and the relatively short-lived but critically acclaimed Joan of Arcadia.\n\nCBS became the most watched American broadcast television network once again in the 2005–06 season, an achievement that the network proclaimed in on-air promotions as being \"America's Most Watched Network\" (a term it would use again in the 2011–12 season). This lasted until the 2007–08 season, when Fox overtook CBS for first, becoming the first non-Big Three network to earn the title as the most watched network overall in the United States; despite CBS' continued strong lineup, Fox's first-place finish that season was primarily due to its reliance on American Idol (the longest reigning #1 prime time U.S. television program from 2004 to 2011). CBS retook its place as the top-rated network in the 2008–09 season, where it has remained every season since. Fox and CBS, both having ranked as the highest rated of the major broadcast networks during the 2000s, tend to nearly equal one another in the 18–34, 18–49 and 25–54 demographics, with either network alternating in placing first in either of these groups by very close margins. NCIS, which has been the flagship of CBS' Tuesday lineup for much of its run, became the network's highest-rated drama by the 2007–08 season.\n\nThe 2010s saw additional hits for the network including drama series The Good Wife; police procedurals Person of Interest, Blue Bloods, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0 and NCIS spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles; reality series Undercover Boss; and sitcoms 2 Broke Girls and Mike & Molly. The Big Bang Theory, one of several sitcoms from veteran writer/producer Chuck Lorre, started off with modest ratings but saw its viewership skyrocket (earning per episode ratings of up to 17 million viewers) to become the top-rated network sitcom in the U.S. by the 2010–11 season, as well as the second most watched U.S. television program starting from the 2013-14 season, when the series became the anchor of the network's Thursday lineup. Meanwhile, the Lorre-produced series it overtook for the position, Two and a Half Men, saw its ratings decline to respectable levels for its final four seasons following the 2011 firing of original star Charlie Sheen (due to a dispute with Lorre) and the addition of Ashton Kutcher as its primary lead.\n\nUntil 2012, CBS ranked in second place among adults 18-49, but after the ratings declines Fox experienced during the 2012–13 fall season, the network was able to take the top spot in the demographic as well as in total viewership (for the fifth year in a row) by the start of 2013. At the end of the 2012–13 season, the tenth season of NCIS took the top spot among the season's most watched network programs, which gave CBS its top-rated show after American Idol ended its eight-year nationwide primetime lead (with NBC Sunday Night Football taking over the top spot from Idol the year before and from NCIS the year after), for the first time since the 2002–03 season (when CSI: Crime Scene Investigation led Nielsen's seasonal prime time network ratings).\n\nThe strength of its 2013–14 slate led to a surplus of series on CBS' 2014–15 schedule, with 21 series held over from the previous season, along with eight new series including moderate hits in Madam Secretary, NCIS: New Orleans and Scorpion. Also, midseason hits The Odd Couple reboot and CSI spinoff CSI: Cyber. The network also expanded its NFL coverage through a partnership with NFL Network to carry Thursday Night Football games during the first eight weeks of the NFL season. \n\nCBS television news operations\n\nUpon becoming commercial station WCBW in 1941, the pioneer CBS television station in New York City broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, WCBW (which was usually off-the-air on Sundays to give the engineers a day off), took to the air at 8:45 p.m. that evening with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the station's Grand Central Station studios during the evening, and give information and commentary on the attack. Although WCBW's special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes, that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941 and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the FCC, the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 \"was unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time\". Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war.\n\nIn May 1942, WCBW (like almost all television stations) sharply cut back its live program schedule and cancelled its newscasts, as the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily due to the fact that much of the staff had either joined the service or were redeployed to war-related technical research, and to prolong the life of the early, unstable cameras which were now impossible to repair due to the lack of parts available during wartime. In May 1944, as the war began to turn in favor of the Allies, WCBW reopened its studios and resumed production of its newscasts, which were briefly anchored by Ned Calmer, and then by Everett Holles. After the war, WCBW (which changed its call letters to WCBS-TV in 1946) introduced expanded news programs on its schedule – first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by Douglas Edwards. On May 3, 1948, Edwards began anchoring CBS Television News, a regular 15-minute nightly newscast on the rudimentary CBS television network, including WCBS-TV. Airing every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., it was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program featuring an anchor (the nightly Lowell Thomas NBC radio network newscast was simulcast on television locally on NBC's WNBT (now WNBC) for a time in the early 1940s and Hubbell, Calmer, Holles and Boulton on WCBW in the early and mid-1940s, but these were local television broadcasts seen only in the New York City market).\n\nThe NBC television network's offering at the time NBC Television Newsreel (premiering in February 1948) was simply film footage with voice narration to provide illustration of the stories.\n\nIn 1949, CBS offered the first live television coverage of the proceedings of the United Nations General Assembly. This journalistic tour-de-force was under the direction of Edmund A. Chester, who was appointed to the post of Director for News, Special Events and Sports at CBS Television in 1948.\n\nIn 1950, the nightly newscast was retitled Douglas Edwards with the News, and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting, \"Good evening everyone, coast to coast\" to begin each edition. The broadcast was renamed the CBS Evening News when Walter Cronkite replaced Edwards in 1962. Edwards remained with CBS News as anchor/reporter for various daytime television and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988.\n\nColor technology (1953–1967)\n\nAlthough CBS Television was the first with a working color television system, the network lost out to RCA in 1953, due in part because the CBS color system was incompatible with existing black-and-white sets. Although RCA – then-parent company of NBC – made its color system available to CBS, the network was not interested in boosting RCA's profits and televised only a few specials in color for the rest of the decade.\n\nThe specials included the Ford Star Jubilee programs (which included the first telecast ever of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)'s 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz) as well as the 1957 telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella; Cole Porter's musical version of Aladdin; and Playhouse 90s only color broadcast, the 1958 production of The Nutcracker, featuring choreography by George Balanchine. The Nutcracker telecast was based on the famous production staged annually since 1954 in New York, and performed by the New York City Ballet. CBS would later show two other versions of the ballet, a semi-forgotten one-hour German-American version hosted by Eddie Albert, shown annually for three years beginning in 1965, and the well-loved Mikhail Baryshnikov production from 1977 to 1981 (this production later moved to PBS).\n\nBeginning in 1959, The Wizard of Oz, now telecast by CBS as a family special in its own right (after the cancellation of Ford Star Jubilee), became an annual tradition on color television. However, it was the success of NBC's 1955 telecast of the musical Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, the most watched television special of its time, that inspired CBS to telecast The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella and Aladdin.\n\nFrom 1960 to 1965, the CBS television network limited its color broadcasts to only a few special presentations such as The Wizard of Oz, and only then if the sponsor would pay for it. Red Skelton was the first CBS host to telecast his weekly programs in color, using a converted movie studio, in the early 1960s; he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the network to use his facility for other programs, and was then forced to sell it. Color was being pushed hard by rival NBC; even ABC had several color programs, beginning in the fall of 1962; however, those were limited because of financial and technical issues that the network was going through at the time. One particularly notable television special aired by CBS during this era was the Charles Collingwood-hosted tour of the White House with First Lady Jackie Kennedy, which was broadcast in black-and-white.\n\nBeginning in 1963, at least one CBS show, The Lucy Show, began filming in color at the insistence of its star and producer Lucille Ball; she realized that color episodes would command more money when they were eventually sold into syndication, but even it was broadcast in black and white through the end of the 1964–65 season. This would all change by the mid-1960s, when market pressure forced CBS Television to begin adding color programs to its regular schedule for the 1965–66 season and complete the transition to the format during the 1966–67 season. By the fall of 1967, nearly all of CBS's television programs were in color, as was the case with those aired by NBC and ABC. A notable exception was The Twentieth Century, which consisted mostly of newsreel archival footage, though even this program used at least some color footage by the late 1960s.\n\nIn 1965, CBS telecast a new color version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. This version, starring Lesley Ann Warren and Stuart Damon in the roles formerly played by Julie Andrews and Jon Cypher, was shot on videotape rather than being telecast live, and would become an annual tradition on the network for the next nine years.\n\nIn 1967, NBC outbid CBS for the rights to the annual telecast of The Wizard of Oz, with the film moving to NBC beginning the following year. However, the network quickly realized their mistake in allowing what was then one of its prime ratings winners to be acquired by another network, and by 1976, CBS reacquired the television rights to the film, with the network continuing to broadcast it through the end of 1997. CBS aired The Wizard of Oz twice in 1991, in March and again the night before Thanksgiving. Thereafter, it was broadcast on the night before Thanksgiving.\n\nBy the end of the 1960s, CBS was broadcasting virtually its entire programming lineup in color.\n\nConglomerate\n\nPrior to the 1960s, CBS's acquisitions had been related mainly to its broadcasting business; these had included the purchases of American Record Corporation and Hytron. During the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS operated a CBS-Columbia division, manufacturing phonographs, radios and television sets; however, the company had problems with product quality, which partly hindered any possibility of success in that field. In 1955, CBS purchased animation studio Terrytoons Inc. from its founder Paul Terry, not only acquiring Terry's backlog of cartoons for the network but continuing the studio's ongoing contract to provide theatrical cartoons for 20th Century Fox well into the 1960s.\n\nDuring the 1960s, CBS began an effort to diversify its portfolio, and looked for suitable investments. In 1965, it acquired electric guitar maker Fender from Leo Fender, who agreed to sell his company due to health problems. The purchase also included that of Rhodes electric pianos, which had already been acquired by Fender. This and other acquisitions led to a restructuring of the corporation into various operating groups and divisions; the quality of the products manufactured by these acquired companies fell dramatically, resulting in the terms \"pre-CBS\" to refer to products of higher, sought after quality and \"CBS\" for products of mass-produced lower quality.\n\nIn other diversification attempts, CBS would buy (and later sell) a varied number of other properties including sports teams (especially the New York Yankees baseball club), book and magazine publishers (Fawcett Publications including Woman's Day, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston), map-makers and toy manufacturers (Gabriel Toys, Child Guidance, Wonder Products, Gym Dandy and Ideal). CBS developed an early home video system called EVR (Electronic Video Recording), but was never able to launch it successfully.\n\nAs William Paley aged, he tried to find the one person who could follow in his footsteps. However, numerous successors-in-waiting came and went. By the mid-1980s, investor Laurence Tisch had begun to acquire substantial holdings in CBS. Eventually he gained Paley's confidence, and with his support, took control of CBS in 1986. Tisch's primary interest was turning profits. When CBS faltered, underperforming units were given the axe. Among the first properties to be jettisoned was the Columbia Records group, which had been part of the company since 1938. In 1986, Tisch also shut down the CBS Technology Center in Stamford, which had started in New York City in the 1930s as CBS Laboratories and evolved to be the company's technology research and development unit.\n\nColumbia Records\n\nColumbia Records was a record label acquired by CBS in 1938. In 1962, CBS launched CBS Records International to market Columbia recordings outside of North America, where the Columbia name was controlled by other entities. In 1966, CBS Records was made a separate subsidiary of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. CBS sold the CBS Records Group to Sony on November 17, 1987, initiating the Japanese buying spree of U.S. companies (such as MCA, Pebble Beach Co., Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building) that continued into the 1990s. The record label company was rechristened Sony Music Entertainment in 1991, as Sony had a short term license on the CBS name.\n\nSony purchased from EMI its rights to the Columbia Records name outside the U.S., Canada, Spain and Japan. Sony now uses Columbia Records as a label name in all countries except Japan, where Sony Records remains their flagship label. Sony acquired the Spanish rights when Sony Music merged with Bertelsmann subsidiary BMG in 2004 as Sony BMG, co-owned by Sony and Bertelsmann; Sony bought out BMG's share in 2008. CBS Corporation formed a new record label named CBS Records in 2006.\n\nPublishing\n\nCBS entered the publishing business in 1967 by acquiring Holt, Rinehart & Winston, a publisher of trade books and textbooks as well as the magazine Field & Stream. The following year, CBS acquired the medical publishing company Saunders and merged it into Holt, Rinehart & Winston. In 1971, CBS acquired Bond/Parkhurst, the publisher of Road & Track and Cycle World. CBS greatly expanded its magazine business by purchasing Fawcett Publications in 1974, bringing in such magazines as Woman's Day. In 1984, it acquired the majority of the publications owned by Ziff Davis.\n\nCBS sold its book publishing businesses in 1985. The educational publishing division, which retained the Holt, Rinehart & Winston name, was sold to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; the trade book division, renamed Henry Holt and Company, was sold to the West German publisher Holtzbrinck. CBS exited the magazine business through the sale of the unit to its executive Peter Diamandis, who later sold the magazines to Hachette Filipacchi Médias in 1988, forming Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.\n\nCBS Musical Instruments division\n\nForming the CBS Musical Instruments division, the company also acquired Fender (1965–1983), Electro-Music Inc. (Leslie speakers) (1965–1980), Rogers Drums (1966–1983), Steinway pianos (1972–), Gemeinhardt flutes, Lyon & Healy harps (in the late 1970s), Rodgers (institutional) organs, and Gulbransen home organs. The company's last musical instrument manufacturer purchase was its 1981 acquisition of the assets of then-bankrupt ARP Instruments, a developer of electronic synthesizers.\n\nBetween 1965 and 1985, the quality of Fender guitars and amplifiers declined significantly. Encouraged by outraged Fender fans, CBS Musical Instruments division executives executed a leveraged buyout in 1985 and created Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. At the same time, CBS divested itself of Rodgers, along with Steinway and Gemeinhardt, all of which were purchased by Steinway Musical Properties. The other musical instrument manufacturing properties were also liquidated.\n\nFilm production\n\nCBS made a brief, unsuccessful move into film production in the late 1960s, through the creation of Cinema Center Films. This profit-free unit was shut down in 1972; the distribution rights to the Cinema Center library today rest with Paramount Pictures for home video (via CBS Home Entertainment) and theatrical release, and with CBS Television Distribution for television syndication (most other ancillary rights remain with CBS). The studio released such films as the 1969 Steve McQueen drama The Reivers and the 1970 Albert Finney musical Scrooge.\n\nTen years after Cinema Center ceased operations, in 1982, CBS made another attempt at a venture in the film industry, in a joint venture with Columbia Pictures and HBO called TriStar Pictures. Despite releasing such box office successes as The Natural, Places in the Heart and Rambo: First Blood Part II, CBS felt the studio was not making a profit and in 1985, sold its stake in TriStar to Columbia Pictures' then-corporate parent The Coca-Cola Company. \n\nIn 2007, CBS Corporation announced its intent to get back into the feature film business, slowly launching CBS Films and hiring key executives in the spring of 2008 to start up the new venture. The CBS Films name was actually used previously in 1953, when it was briefly used for CBS's distributor of off-network and first-run syndicated programming to local television stations in the United States and internationally.\n\nHome video\n\nCBS entered into the home video market, when it partnered with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to form MGM/CBS Home Video in 1978; the joint venture was dissolved by 1982. CBS later partnered with another studio, 20th Century Fox, to form CBS/Fox Video. CBS's duty was to release some of the film title released by TriStar Pictures under the CBS/Fox Video label.\n\nGabriel Toys\n\nCBS entered the video game market briefly, through its acquisition of Gabriel Toys (renamed CBS Toys), publishing several arcade adaptations and original titles under the name \"CBS Electronics\", for the Atari 2600, and other consoles and computers; it also produced one of the first karaoke recording/players. CBS Electronics also distributed all Coleco-related video game products in Canada, including the ColecoVision. CBS later sold Gabriel Toys to View-Master, which eventually ended up as part of Mattel.\n\nNew owners\n\nBy the early 1990s, profits had fallen as a result of competition from cable television and video rentals, and in consequence of the high cost of programming. About 20 former CBS affiliates switched to the rapidly rising Fox network in the mid-1990s, while many television markets across the United States (KDFX in Palm Springs, California and KECY in Yuma, Arizona were reportedly the first to switch in August 1994) lost their CBS affiliate for a while. The network's ratings were acceptable, but it struggled with an image of stodginess. Laurence Tisch lost interest and sought a new buyer.\n\nWestinghouse Electric Corporation\n\nIn the mid-1990s, CBS formed an affiliate relationship with Westinghouse Electric Corporation as a partial result of losing many longtime affiliates owned by New World Communications through an affiliation agreement with Fox that New World signed in May 1994. The New World deal resulted in CBS affiliating with UHF stations in Detroit and Cleveland – former Fox affiliate WOIO and low-rated ethnic independent WGPR-TV (now WWJ-TV), the latter of which was purchased by the network – after a failed attempt to woo the respective longtime ABC affiliates in those markets, WXYZ-TV and WEWS-TV (the latter of which had previously been a CBS affiliate from 1947 to 1955) to respectively replace departing affiliates WJBK and WJW-TV, a situation that the E. W. Scripps Company actually used as leverage to sign a group-wide affiliation deal with ABC that kept the network on WXYZ and WEWS. \n\nIncluded in the Scripps deal was Baltimore NBC affiliate WMAR-TV (which had been affiliated with CBS from 1948 to 1981), displacing longtime ABC affiliate WJZ-TV, despite the fact that Westinghouse-owned WJZ-TV had long been the Baltimore market's dominant station while WMAR-TV had long been in a distant third and even nearly lost its license in 1991. This did not sit well with Westinghouse, who even before the New World deal was already seeking a group-wide affiliation deal of its own, but accelerated the process after the Scripps-ABC agreement. \n\nIn 1994, Westinghouse signed a long-term deal to affiliate all five of its television stations with CBS. Of the other four stations, two of the stations (KPIX in San Francisco and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh) were already longtime affiliates of the network, while two others (KYW-TV in Philadelphia and WBZ-TV in Boston) were longtime affiliates of NBC. The network decided to sell off existing O&O in Philadelphia, WCAU, which would eventually be purchased by NBC, despite at the time being much higher rated locally than KYW-TV. While WJZ-TV and WBZ-TV switched to CBS in January 1995, the swap was delayed in Philadelphia when CBS discovered that an outright sale of channel 10 would have forced it to pay massive taxes on the proceeds from the deal. To solve this problem, CBS, NBC and Group W entered into a complex ownership/affiliation deal in the summer of 1995. NBC traded KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City to CBS in return for WCAU, which for legal reasons would be an even trade. CBS then traded controlling interest in KCNC and KUTV to Group W in return for a minority stake in KYW-TV. As compensation for the loss of stations, NBC and CBS traded transmitter facilities in Miami, with NBC-owned WTVJ moving to channel 6 and CBS-owned WCIX moving to channel 4 as WFOR-TV. \n\nOn August 1, 1995, Westinghouse Electric Company acquired CBS outright for $5.4 billion. As one of the major broadcasting group owners of commercial radio and television stations (as Group W) since 1920, Westinghouse sought to transition from a station operator into a major media company with its purchase of CBS. Except for KUTV (which CBS sold to Four Points Media Group in 2007, and is now owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group), all of the stations involved in the initial Westinghouse deal as well as WWJ-TV remain owned-and-operated stations of the network to this day.\n\nWestinghouse's acquisition of CBS had the effect of suddenly turning the combined company's all-news radio stations in New York City (WCBS and WINS) and Los Angeles (KNX and KFWB) from bitter rivals to sister stations. While KFWB switched from all-news to news/talk in 2009, WINS and WCBS remain all-news stations, with WINS (which pioneered the all-news format in 1965) concentrating its news coverage on the five core New York City boroughs and WCBS, with its much more powerful signal, covering the surrounding tri-state metropolitan area. In Chicago, the situation started out with Westinghouse's WMAQ beginning to feature long-form stories and discussions about the news, along with a business news focus to differentiate from WBBM until 2000, when an FCC ownership situation had CBS Radio deciding to move its all sports WSCR to WMAQ's signal to sell off the former WSCR facility.\n\nIn 1997, Westinghouse acquired the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, owner of more than 150 radio stations, for $4.9 billion. Also that year, Westinghouse created CBS Cable, a division formed through the acquisition of two existing cable channels from the Gaylord Entertainment Company (The Nashville Network (now Spike) and Country Music Television) and starting a new one (CBS Eye on People, which was later sold to Discovery Communications). CBS also owned the Spanish-language news network CBS Telenoticias.\n\nFollowing the Infinity purchase, operation and sales responsibilities for the CBS Radio Network was handed to Infinity, which turned management over to Westwood One, a major radio program syndicator that Infinity managed which had previously purchased the Mutual Broadcasting System, NBC's radio networks and the rights to use the \"NBC Radio Networks\" name. For a time, CBS Radio, NBC Radio Networks and CNN's radio news services were all under the Westwood One umbrella. , Westwood One continues to distribute CBS radio programming, but as a self-managed company that put itself up for sale and found a buyer for a significant amount of its stock.\n\nAlso in 1997, Westinghouse changed its name to CBS Corporation, and corporate headquarters were moved from Pittsburgh to New York City. To underline the change in emphasis, all non-entertainment assets were put up for sale. Another 90 radio stations were added to Infinity's portfolio in 1998 with the acquisition of American Radio Systems Corporation for $2.6 billion.\n\nIn 1999, CBS paid $2.5 billion to acquire King World Productions, a television syndication company whose programs included The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. By the end of 1999, all pre-CBS elements of Westinghouse's industrial past (beyond retaining rights to the name for brand licensing purposes) were gone.\n\nViacom\n\nBy the 1990s, CBS had become a broadcasting giant; however, in 1999, entertainment conglomerate Viacom – a company that ironically was created by CBS in 1952 as CBS Films, Inc. to syndicate old CBS series and was spun off under the Viacom name in 1971 – announced it was taking over its former parent in a deal valued at $37 billion. Following completion of this effort in 2000, Viacom became the second-largest entertainment company in the world. Coincidentally, Viacom had purchased Paramount Pictures, which had once invested in CBS, in 1994.\n\nCBS Corporation and CBS Studios\n\nHaving assembled all the elements of a communications empire, Viacom found that the promised synergy was not there; in 2005, Viacom announced that it would split the company into two separately operated but commonly controlled entities. CBS became the center of a new company, CBS Corporation. The legal successor to the old Viacom, the company's properties included the broadcasting entities (CBS and UPN, the latter of which later merged with Time Warner-owned The WB to form The CW; the Viacom Television Stations Group, which became CBS Television Stations; and CBS Radio); Paramount Television's production operations (now known as CBS Television Studios); Viacom Outdoor advertising (renamed CBS Outdoor); Showtime Networks; Simon & Schuster; and Paramount Parks, which the company sold in May 2006. The other company, which retained the Viacom name, kept Paramount Pictures, assorted MTV Networks, BET Networks, and Famous Music (the latter of which was sold to Sony/ATV Music Publishing in May 2007).\n\nAs a result of the Viacom/CBS corporate split, as well as other acquisitions over recent years, CBS (under the moniker CBS Studios) owns a massive film and television library spanning nine decades; these include not acquired material from Viacom and CBS in-house productions and network programs, as well as programs originally aired on competing networks. Shows and other material in this library include among others, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O (both the original and current remake), Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, The Love Boat, Little House on the Prairie (U.S. television rights only), Cheers, Becker, Family Ties, Happy Days and its spin-offs, The Brady Bunch, Star Trek, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (distribution rights on behalf of copyright holder Lucasfilm), Evening Shade, Duckman, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spin-offs, the CBS theatrical library (including My Fair Lady and Scrooge), and the entire Terrytoons library from 1921 forward.\n\nBoth CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are owned by National Amusements, the Sumner Redstone-owned company that controlled the original Viacom prior to the split. As such, Paramount Home Media Distribution (formerly Paramount Home Entertainment) continues to handle DVD and Blu-ray distribution for the CBS library.\n\nProgramming\n\n, CBS provides 87½ hours of regularly scheduled network programming each week. The network provides 22 hours of prime time programming to affiliated stations Monday through Saturdays from 8:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific (7:00–10:00 p.m. in all other time zones) and Sundays from 7:00–11:00 p.m. (6:00–10:00 p.m. elsewhere).\n\nDaytime programming is also provided from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. weekdays (with a half-hour break at 12:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific for CBS stations to air local newscasts or syndicated programs; usage of the 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. hours for network programming vary depending on the affiliate and on time zone) featuring the game shows The Price Is Right and Let's Make a Deal, soap operas The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and talk show The Talk. CBS News programming includes CBS This Morning from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. weekdays and Saturdays; nightly editions of CBS Evening News (whose weekend editions are occasionally subject to abbreviation or preemption due to sports telecasts overrunning into the program's timeslot), the Sunday political talk show Face the Nation, early morning news programs Up to the Minute and CBS Morning News and the newsmagazines 60 Minutes, CBS News Sunday Morning and 48 Hours. Late nights feature the weeknight talk shows The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden.\n\nSports programming is also provided weekend afternoons at any time between 12:00 and 7:00 p.m. (9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Pacific Time). Due to the unpredictable length of sporting events, CBS will occasionally delay scheduled primetime programs to allow the programs to air in their entirety (this is particularly prevalent on Sunday evenings during the NFL season, on weeks when CBS is scheduled to broadcast a late afternoon game). In addition to rights to sports events from the NFL, PGA and NCAA among other major sports organizations, CBS broadcasts the CBS Sports Spectacular, a sports anthology series which fills certain weekend afternoon time slots prior to – or in some cases, in lieu of – a major sporting event.\n\nDaytime\n\nCBS's daytime schedule (the longest among the major networks, in terms of total time, at 4½ hours) is the home of the long-running game show The Price Is Right, which began production in 1972 and is the longest continuously running daytime game show on network television. After being hosted by Bob Barker for 35 years, the show has been hosted since 2007 by actor/comedian Drew Carey. The network is also home to the current incarnation of Let's Make a Deal, hosted by singer/comedian Wayne Brady, which originated in 1964 on NBC and was revived by CBS in 2009 (after a 19-year absence as a regular series). , CBS is the only commercial broadcast network that continues to broadcast daytime game shows. Notable game shows that once aired as part of the network's daytime lineup include Match Game, Tattletales, The $10/25,000 Pyramid, Press Your Luck, Card Sharks, Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune. Past game shows that have had both daytime and prime time runs on the network include Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth and Password. Two long-running prime time-only games were the panel shows What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret.\n\nThe network is also home to The Talk, a panel talk show similar in format to ABC's The View, which debuted in October 2010 (, the program is hosted by moderator Julie Chen, series creator/executive producer Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Aisha Tyler and Sheryl Underwood).\n\n, CBS Daytime airs two daytime soap operas each weekday: the hour-long series The Young and the Restless and half-hour series The Bold and the Beautiful. CBS has aired the most soap operas out of the Big Three networks, carrying 3½ hours of soaps on its daytime lineup from 1982 to 2009. After Guiding Light ended in September 2009, ABC overtook CBS as the network with the most daily hours dedicated to soap operas; however, CBS reclaimed this distinction in January 2012, following the conclusion of two of ABC's three remaining soap operas, All My Children and One Life to Live, which were cancelled the year before. Other than Guiding Light, notable daytime soap operas that once aired on CBS include As the World Turns, Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, The Secret Storm, The Edge of Night and Capitol.\n\nChildren's programming\n\nCBS broadcast the live-action series Captain Kangaroo on weekday mornings from 1955 to 1982, and on Saturdays through 1984. From 1971 to 1986, CBS News produced a series of one-minute segments titled In the News, which aired between other Saturday morning programs. Otherwise, in regards to children's programming, CBS has aired mostly animated series for children, such as reruns of Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as the original version of Scooby-Doo, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, Garfield and Friends, and the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In 1997, CBS premiered Wheel 2000 (a children's version of the syndicated game show Wheel of Fortune), which aired simultaneously on the Game Show Network.\n\nIn September 1998, CBS began contracting the time period out to other companies to provide programming and material for its Saturday morning schedule. The first of these outsourced blocks was the CBS Kidshow, which ran until 2000 and featured programming from Canadian studio Nelvana (such as Anatole, Mythic Warriors, Rescue Heroes and Flying Rhino Junior High). \n\nAfter its agreement with Nelvana ended, the network then entered into a deal with Nickelodeon (which by the time of the deal was a corporate sister to CBS, through the latter's then parent company Viacom, as a result of its 2000 merger with CBS Corporation) to air programming from its Nick Jr. block beginning in September 2000, under the banner Nick Jr. on CBS. From 2002 to 2005, live-action and animated Nickelodeon series aimed at older children also aired as part of the block, under the sub-brand Nick on CBS.\n\nFollowing the Viacom-CBS split that resulted in the network deciding to discontinue the Nickelodeon content deal, in March 2006, CBS entered into a three-year agreement with DIC Entertainment (which was acquired later that year by the Cookie Jar Group, which assumed the rights to the deal) to program the Saturday morning time slot, as part of a deal which included distribution of select tape delayed Formula One auto races. The KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS replaced Nick Jr. on CBS that September, with the inaugural lineup featuring two new first-run live-action programs, one animated series that originally aired in syndication in 2005 and three shows produced prior to 2006. In mid-2007, KOL (the children's service of AOL) withdrew sponsorship from CBS's Saturday morning block, which was subsequently renamed KEWLopolis. Complimenting CBS's 2007 lineup was Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Sushi Pack. On February 24, 2009, it was announced that CBS renewed its contract with Cookie Jar for another three seasons, running through 2012. On September 19, 2009, KEWLopolis was renamed Cookie Jar TV. \n\nOn July 24, 2013, CBS entered into an agreement with Litton Entertainment (which already programmed a syndicated Saturday morning block exclusive to ABC stations and would later produce a block for CBS sister network The CW that debuted the following year) to launch a new Saturday morning block featuring live-action reality-based lifestyle, wildlife and sports series. The Litton-produced \"CBS Dream Team\" block, which is aimed at teenagers 13 to 16 years old, debuted on September 28, 2013, replacing Cookie Jar TV. \n\nSpecials\n\nAnimated primetime holiday specials\n\nCBS was the original broadcast network home of the animated primetime holiday specials based on the Peanuts comic strip, beginning with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. Over 30 holiday Peanuts specials (each for a specific holiday such as Halloween) were broadcast on CBS from that time until 2000, when the broadcast rights were acquired by ABC. CBS also aired several primetime animated specials based on the works of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), beginning with How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1966, as well as several specials based on the Garfield comic strip during the 1980s (which led to Garfield getting his own Saturday morning cartoon on the network, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995). Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced in stop motion by the Rankin/Bass studio, has been another annual holiday staple of CBS since 1972; however, that special originated on NBC in 1964. As of 2011, Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman are the only two pre-1990 animated specials remaining on CBS; the broadcast rights to the Charlie Brown specials and The Grinch are now held by ABC, while that network's cable sister ABC Family owns the rights to the Garfield specials.\n\nAll of these animated specials, from 1973 to 1990, began with a fondly remembered seven-second animated opening sequence, in which the words \"A CBS Special Presentation\" were displayed in colorful lettering (the ITC Avant Garde typeface, widely used in the 1970s, was used for the title logo). The word \"SPECIAL\", in all caps and repeated multiple times in multiple colors, slowly zoomed out from the frame in a spinning counterclockwise motion against a black background, and rapidly zoomed back into frame as a single word, in white, at the end; the sequence was accompanied by a jazzy though majestic up-tempo fanfare with dramatic horns and percussion (which was edited incidental music from the CBS crime drama Hawaii Five-O, titled \"Call to Danger\" on the Capitol Records soundtrack LP). This opening sequence appeared immediately before all CBS specials of the period (such as the Miss USA pageants and the annual presentation of the Kennedy Center Honors), in addition to animated specials (this opening was presumably designed by, or under the supervision of, longtime CBS creative director Lou Dorfsman, who oversaw print and on-air graphics for CBS for nearly 30 years, replacing William Golden, who died in 1959).\n\nClassical music specials\n\nCBS was also responsible for airing the series of Young People's Concerts conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Telecast every few months between 1958 and 1972, first in black-and-white and then broadcast in color beginning in 1966, these programs introduced millions of children to classical music through the eloquent commentaries by Maestro Bernstein. The specials were nominated for several Emmy Awards, and were among the first programs ever broadcast from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.\n\nOver the years, CBS has broadcast three different productions of Tchaikovsky's famous ballet The Nutcracker – two live telecasts of the George Balanchine New York City Ballet production in 1957 and 1958 respectively, a little-known German-American filmed production in 1965 (which was subsequently repeated three times and starred Edward Villella, Patricia McBride and Melissa Hayden), and beginning in 1977, the Mikhail Baryshnikov staging of the ballet, starring the Russian dancer along with Gelsey Kirkland – a version that would become a television classic, and remains so today (the broadcast of this production later moved to PBS).\n\nIn April 1986, CBS presented a slightly abbreviated version of Horowitz in Moscow, a live piano recital by legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, which marked Horowitz's return to Russia after more than 60 years. The recital was televised as an episode of CBS News Sunday Morning (televised at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., as the recital was performed simultaneously at 4:00 p.m. in Russia). It was so successful that CBS repeated it a mere two months later by popular demand, this time on videotape, rather than live. In later years, the program was shown as a standalone special on PBS; the current DVD of the telecast omits the commentary by Charles Kuralt, but includes additional selections not heard on the CBS telecast.\n\nIn 1986, CBS telecast Carnegie Hall: The Grand Reopening in primetime, in what was now a rare move for a commercial broadcast network, since most primetime classical music specials were relegated to PBS and A&E by this time. The program was a concert commemorating the re-opening of Carnegie Hall after its complete renovation. It featured, along with luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, popular music artists such as Frank Sinatra.\n\nCinderella\n\nIn order to compete with NBC, which produced the now-legendary televised version of the Mary Martin Broadway production of Peter Pan, CBS responded with a musical production of Cinderella, with music composed by Richard Rodgers and a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Based upon the classic French fairy tale of the same title, it is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ever to have been written for television. It was originally broadcast live in color on CBS on March 31, 1957 as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, who played the title role; that broadcast was seen by over 100 million people. It was subsequently remade by CBS in 1965, with Lesley Ann Warren, Stuart Damon, Ginger Rogers and Walter Pidgeon among its stars; the remake also included a new song, \"Loneliness of Evening\", which was originally composed in 1949 for South Pacific, but was not performed in that musical. This version was rebroadcast several times on CBS into the early 1970s, and is occasionally broadcast on various cable networks to this day; both versions are available on DVD.\n\nNational Geographic\n\nCBS was also the original broadcast home for the primetime specials produced by the National Geographic Society. The Geographic series in the U.S. started on CBS in 1964, before moving to ABC in 1973 (the specials subsequently moved to PBS – under the production of Pittsburgh member station WQED – in 1975 and NBC in 1995, before returning to PBS in 2000). The specials have featured stories on many scientific figures such as Louis Leakey, Jacques Cousteau and Jane Goodall, that not only featured their work but helped make them internationally known and accessible to millions. A majority of the specials were narrated by various actors, notably Alexander Scourby during the CBS run. The success of the specials led in part to the creation of the National Geographic Channel, a cable channel launched in January 2001 as a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and Fox Cable Networks. The specials' distinctive theme music, by Elmer Bernstein, was also adopted by the National Geographic Channel.\n\nOther notable specials\n\nFrom 1949 to 2002, the Pillsbury Bake-Off, an annual national cooking contest, was broadcast on CBS as a special. Hosts for the broadcast included Arthur Godfrey, Art Linkletter, Bob Barker, Gary Collins, Willard Scott (although under contract with CBS' rival NBC) and Alex Trebek.\n\nThe Miss USA beauty pageant aired on CBS from 1963 to 2002; during a large portion of that period, the telecast was often emceed by the host of one of the network's game shows. John Charles Daly hosted the show from 1963 to 1966, succeeded by Bob Barker from 1967 to 1987 (at which point Barker, an animal rights activist who eventually convinced producers of The Price Is Right to cease offering fur coats as prizes on the program, quit in a dispute over their use), Alan Thicke in 1988, Dick Clark from 1989 to 1993, and Bob Goen from 1994 to 1996. The pageant's highest viewership was recorded in the early 1980s, when it regularly topped the Nielsen ratings on the week of its broadcast. Viewership dropped sharply throughout the 1990s and 2000s, from an estimated viewership of 20 million to an average of 7 million from 2000 to 2001. In 2002, Donald Trump (owner of the Miss USA pageant's governing body, the Miss Universe Organization) brokered a new deal with NBC, giving it half-ownership of the Miss USA, Miss Universe and Miss Teen USA pageants and moving them to that network as part of an initial five-year contract, which began in 2003 and ended in 2015 after 12 years amid Trump's controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants during the launch of his 2016 campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination. \n\nOn June 1, 1977, it was announced that Elvis Presley had signed a deal with CBS to appear in a new television special. Under the agreement, CBS would videotape Presley's concerts during the summer of 1977; the special was filmed during Presley's final tour at stops in Omaha, Nebraska (on June 19) and Rapid City, South Dakota (on June 21 of that year). CBS aired the special, Elvis in Concert, on October 3, 1977, nearly two months after Presley's death in his Graceland mansion on August 16.\n\nStations\n\n, CBS has 16 owned-and-operated stations, and current and pending affiliation agreements with 222 additional television stations encompassing 49 states, the District of Columbia, two U.S. possessions, Bermuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The network has a national reach of 96.37% of all households in the United States (or 301,123,135 Americans with at least one television set). Currently, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Delaware are the only U.S. states where CBS does not have a locally licensed affiliate (New Jersey is served by New York City O&O WCBS-TV and Philadelphia O&O KYW-TV; Delaware is served by KYW and Salisbury, Maryland affiliate WBOC-TV; and New Hampshire is served by Boston O&O WBZ-TV and Burlington, Vermont affiliate WCAX-TV).\n\nAs a newer broadcast network, CBS maintains affiliations with low-power stations (broadcasting either in analog or digital) in a few markets, such as Harrisonburg, Virginia (WSVF-CD), Palm Springs, California (KPSP-CD) and Parkersburg, West Virginia (WIYE-LD). In some markets, including both of those mentioned, these stations also maintain digital simulcasts on a subchannel of a co-owned/co-managed full-power television station. CBS also maintains a sizeable number of subchannel-only affiliations, the majority of which are with stations in cities located outside of the 50 largest Nielsen-designated markets; the largest CBS subchannel affiliate by market size is KOGG in Wailuku, Hawaii, which serves as a repeater of Honolulu affiliate KGMB (the sister station of KOGG parent KHNL).\n\nMedia General is the largest operator of CBS stations by numerical total, owning 26 CBS affiliates; Tegna Media is the largest operator of CBS stations in terms of overall market reach, owning 11 CBS-affiliated stations (including affiliates in the larger markets in Houston, Tampa and Washington, D.C.).\n\nRelated services\n\nVideo-on-demand services\n\nCBS provides video on demand access for delayed viewing of the network's programming through various means, including via its website at CBS.com; the network's apps for iOS, Android and newer version Windows devices; a traditional VOD service called CBS on Demand available on most traditional cable and IPTV providers; and through content deals with Amazon Video (which holds exclusive streaming rights to two CBS drama series, Extant and Under the Dome) and Netflix. Notably, however, CBS is the only major broadcast network that does not provide recent episodes of its programming on Hulu (sister network The CW does offer its programming on the streaming service, albeit on a one-week delay after becoming available on the network's website on Hulu's free service, with users of its subscription service being granted access to newer episodes of CW series eight hours after their initial broadcast), due to concerns over cannibalizing viewership of some of the network's most prominent programs; however, episode back catalogs of certain past and present CBS series are available on the service through an agreement with CBS Television Distribution. \n\nUpon the release of the app in March 2013, CBS restricted streaming of the most recent episode of any of the network's program on its streaming app for Apple iOS devices until eight days after their initial broadcast, in order to encourage live or same-week (via both DVR and cable on demand) viewing; programming selections on the app were limited until the release of its Google Play and Windows 8 apps in October 2013, expanded the selections to include full episodes of all CBS series to which the network does not license the streaming rights to other services. \n\nCBS All Access\n\nOn October 28, 2014, CBS launched CBS All Access, an over-the-top subscription streaming service – available for $5.99 per month – that allows users to view past and present episodes of CBS shows. Announced on October 16, 2014 (one day after HBO announced the launch of its over-the-top service HBO Now) as the first OTT offering by an USA broadcast television network, the service initially encompassed the network's existing streaming portal at CBS.com and its mobile app for smartphones and tablet computers; CBS All Access became available on Roku on April 7, 2015, and on Chromecast on May 14, 2015. In addition to providing full-length episodes of CBS programs, the service allows live programming streams of local CBS affiliates in 124 markets reaching 75% of the United States (including stations owned by Tribune Broadcasting, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, Tegna Media, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Media General, Meredith Corporation, Griffin Communications, Raycom Media, Capitol Broadcasting Company and Cox Media Group); however due to the absence of streaming rights, certain sports events (such as NFL game telecasts) are not streamed on the service. Owned-and-operated stations of the network owned by CBS Television Stations were the first stations to offer streams of their programming on the service.\n\nThe most recent episodes of the network's shows are usually made available on CBS.com and CBS All Access the day after their original broadcast. In addition, CBS All Access provides complete back catalogs of most of its current series (with the exception of certain series, such as The Big Bang Theory, to which CBS does not hold streaming rights as the show is produced by Warner Bros.) as well as a wide selection of episodes of classic series from the CBS Television Distribution program library – including shows previously owned by Paramount Television prior to CBS' acquisition of its program library through the CBS-Viacom split (including the complete episode catalog of shows like Star Trek, Cheers, MacGyver, Twin Peaks and CSI: Miami) to subscribers of the service. CBS All Access also carries behind-the-scenes features from CBS programs and special events, and (beginning with the 17th season in June 2015) live feeds and special content from the reality series Big Brother.\n\nOn November 2, 2015, it was announced that the first CBS All Access original series will be a new Star Trek series in January 2017, which will be unrelated to the 2016 feature film Star Trek Beyond. \n\nOn May 18, 2016, it was announced that The Good Wife would get a spin-off series that would be released exclusively on CBS All Access in spring 2017. \n\nCBS HD\n\nCBS's master feed is transmitted in 1080i high definition, the native resolution format for CBS Corporation's television properties. However, seven of its affiliates transmit the network's programming in 720p HD, while seven others carry the network feed in 480i standard definition either due to technical considerations for affiliates of other major networks that carry CBS programming on a digital subchannel or because a primary feed CBS affiliate has not yet upgraded their transmission equipment to allow content to be presented in HD.\n\nCBS began its conversion to high definition with the launch of its simulcast feed, CBS HD, on September 1998 at the start of the 1998–99 season. That year, the network aired the first NFL game ever broadcast in high-definition, with the telecast of the New York Jets–Buffalo Bills game on November 8. The network gradually converted much of its existing programming from standard-definition to high definition beginning with the 2000–01 season, with select shows among that season's slate of freshmen scripted series being broadcast in HD from their debuts. The Young and the Restless became the first daytime soap opera to broadcast in HD on June 27, 2001. \n\nCBS' 14-year conversion to an entirely high definition schedule ended in 2014, with Big Brother and Let's Make a Deal becoming the final two network series to convert from 4:3 standard definition to HD (in contrast, NBC, Fox and The CW were already airing their entire programming schedules – outside of Saturday mornings – in high definition by the 2010–11 season, while ABC was broadcasting its entire schedule in HD by the 2011–12 midseason). All of the network's programming has been presented in full HD since then (with the exception of certain holiday specials produced prior to 2005 – such as the Rankin-Bass specials – which continue to be presented in 4:3 SD, although some have been remastered for HD broadcast).\n\nBrand identity\n\nLogos\n\nThe CBS television network's initial logo, used from the 1940s to 1951, consisted of an oval spotlight which shone on the block letters \"C-B-S\". The present-day Eye device was conceived by William Golden, based on a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign as well as a Shaker drawing (while commonly attributed to Golden, there is speculation that at least some design work on the symbol may have been done by another CBS staff designer, Georg Olden, one of the first African-Americans to attract some attention in the postwar graphic design field). The Eye device made its broadcast debut on October 20, 1951. The following season, as Golden prepared a new \"ident\", CBS President Frank Stanton insisted on keeping the Eye device and using it as much as possible (Golden died unexpectedly in 1959, and was replaced by one of his top assistants, Lou Dorfsman, who would go on to oversee all print and on-air graphics for CBS for the next 30 years).\n\nThe CBS eye has since become an American icon. While the symbol's settings have changed, the Eye device itself has not been redesigned in its entire history. As part of a new graphical identity created by Trollbäck + Company that was introduced by the television network in 2006, the eye was placed in a \"trademark\" position on show titles, days of the week and descriptive words, an approach highly respecting the value of the design. The logo is alternately known as the Eyemark, which was also the name of CBS's domestic and international syndication divisions in the mid-to-late 1990s before the King World acquisition and Viacom merger.\n\nThe eye logo has frequently been copied or borrowed by television networks around the world. Notable examples include the Austrian Broadcasting System (ORF), which formerly used a red version of the eye logo; Associated Television (ATV) in the United Kingdom; Frecuencia Latina in Peru; Fuji Television in Japan; Rede Bandeirantes and Rede Globo in Brazil; and Saeta TV Channel 10 in Uruguay.\n\nThe network celebrated the 60th anniversary of the introduction of the Eye logo in October 2011, featuring special IDs shown during the network's prime time lineup of logo versions from previous CBS image campaigns. \n\nImage campaigns\n\n1980s\n\nThrough the years, CBS has developed several notable image campaigns, and several of the network's most well-known slogans were introduced in the 1980s. The \"Reach for the Stars\" campaign used during the 1981–82 season feature a space theme used to capitalize on both CBS's stellar improvement in the ratings and the historic launch of the space shuttle Columbia. 1982's \"Great Moments\" juxtaposed scenes from classic CBS programs such as I Love Lucy with scenes from the network's then-current classics such as Dallas and M*A*S*H. From 1983 to 1986, CBS (by now firmly atop the ratings) featured a campaign based on the slogan \"We've Got the Touch\". Vocals for the campaign's jingle were contributed by Richie Havens (1983–84; one occasion in 1984–85) and Kenny Rogers (1985–86).\n\nThe 1986–87 season ushered in the \"Share the Spirit of CBS\" campaign, the network's first to completely use computer graphics and DVE effects. Unlike most network campaign promos, the full-length version of \"Share the Spirit\" not only showed a brief clip preview of each new fall series, but also utilized CGI effects to map out the entire fall schedule by night. The success of that campaign led to the 1987–88 \"CBS Spirit\" (or \"CBSPIRIT\") campaign. Like with its predecessor campaign, most \"CBSpirit\" promos utilized a procession of clips from the network's programs. However, the new graphic motif was a swirling (or \"swishing\") blue line, that was used to represent \"the spirit.\" The full length promo, like the previous year, had a special portion that identified new fall shows, but the mapped-out fall schedule shot was abandoned.\n\nFor the 1988–89 season, CBS unveiled a new image campaign, officially known as \"Television You Can Feel\", but more commonly identified as \"You Can Feel It On CBS\". The goal was to convey a more sensual, new-age image through distinguished, advanced-looking computer graphics and soothing music, backgrounding images and clips of emotionally powerful scenes and characters. However, it was this season in which CBS began its ratings freefall, the deepest in the network's history. CBS ended the decade with \"Get Ready for CBS,\" introduced with the 1989–90 season. The initial version was a very ambitious campaign that attempted to elevate CBS out of last place (among the major networks); the motif centered around network stars interacting with each other in a remote studio set, getting ready for photo and television shoots, as well as for the new season on CBS. The high-energy promo song and the campaign's practices saw many customized variations by all of CBS' owned-and-operated stations and affiliates, which participated in the campaign per a network mandate. In addition, for the first time in history, CBS became the first broadcast network to partner with a national retailer (in this case, Kmart) to encourage viewership, with the \"CBS/Kmart Get Ready Giveaway\".\n\n1990s\n\nFor the 1990–91 season, the campaign featured a new jingle performed by The Temptations, which offered an altered version of their hit \"Get Ready\". The early 1990s featured less-than-memorable campaigns, with simplified taglines such as \"This is CBS\" (1992) and \"You're On CBS\" (1995). Eventually, the promotions department gained momentum again late in the decade with \"Welcome Home to a CBS Night\" (1996–1997), simplified to Welcome Home (1997–1999) and succeeded by the spin-off campaign \"The Address is CBS\" (1999–2000). During the 1992 season for the end-of-show network identification sequence, a three-note sound mark was introduced, which was eventually adapted into the network's IDs and production company vanity cards following the closing credits of most of its programs during the \"Welcome Home\" era.\n\n2000s\n\nThroughout the first decade of the 21st century, CBS's ratings resurgence was backed by the network's \"It's All Here\" campaign (which introduced updated versions of the 1992 sound mark used during certain promotions and production company vanity cards during the closing credits of programs); in 2005, the network's strategy led to the proclamation that it was \"America's Most Watched Network\". The network's 2006 campaign introduced the slogan \"We Are CBS\", with Don LaFontaine providing the voiceover for the IDs (as well as certain network promos) during this period. In 2009, the network introduced a campaign entitled \"Only CBS,\" in which network promotions proclaim several unique qualities it has (the slogan was also used in program promotions following the announcement of the timeslot of a particular program). The \"America's Most Watched Network\" was re-introduced by CBS in 2011, used alongside the \"Only CBS\" slogan. \n\nPromos\n\nEspecially during the 1960s, CBS as well as its two major network competitors, NBC, and ABC, utilized elaborate promos during the summer months to promote their upcoming fall schedules. In 1961, CBS took the unusual step of airing a program titled CBS Fall Preview Special: Seven Wonderful Nights, using stars of several CBS shows – such as Ed Sullivan (The Ed Sullivan Show), Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), and Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale (Perry Mason) – to promote the upcoming fall lineup, instead the network's continuity announcers, showing previews of the entire lineup for one specific day of the week. Fall preview specials hosted by network stars would become commonplace among the broadcast networks in subsequent years.\n\nInternational broadcasts\n\nCBS programs are shown outside the United States, through various branded international networks and content agreements, and in two North American countries, through U.S.-based CBS stations.\nIndia\n\nIn India, CBS network programming is carried in Dish TV, Airtel, Reliance, DD Free Dish, Sun Direct Ability in All India\n\nCanada\n\nIn Canada, CBS network programming is carried on cable, satellite and IPTV providers in Canada through affiliates and owned-and-operated stations of the network that are located within proximity to the Canada–United States border (such as KIRO-TV/Seattle, KDLH/Duluth, Minnesota, WWJ-TV/Detroit and WIVB-TV/Buffalo, New York), some of which may also be receivable over-the-air in parts of southern Canada depending on the signal coverage of the station. Most programming is generally the same as it airs in the United States; however, some CBS programming on U.S.-based affiliates permitted for carriage by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by Canadian cable and satellite providers are subject to simultaneous substitutions, a practice in which a pay television provider supplants an American station's signal with a feed from a Canadian station/network airing a particular program in the same time slot to protect domestic advertising revenue.\n\nMexico\n\nCBS programming is available in Mexico through affiliates in markets located within proximity to the Mexico–United States border (such as KSWT/Yuma, Arizona; KVTV/Laredo, Texas; KDBC-TV/El Paso, Texas; KGBT-TV/Harlingen, Texas; and KFMB-TV/San Diego), whose signals are readily receivable over-the-air in border areas of northern Mexico.\n\nGuam\n\nIn the U.S. territory of Guam, the network is affiliated with low-power station KUAM-LP in Hagåtña. Entertainment and non-breaking news programming is shown day and date on a one-day tape delay, as Guam is located on the west side of the International Date Line (for example, NCIS, which airs on Tuesday nights, is carried Wednesdays on KUAM-LP, and is advertised by the station as airing on the latter night in on-air promotions), with live programming and breaking news coverage airing as scheduled, meaning live sports coverage often airs early in the morning.\n\nEurope\n\nCBS News programs are broadcast for a few hours a day on Orbit News in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Sky News broadcasts the CBS Evening News on its channels serving the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Italy.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nOn September 14, 2009, the international arm of CBS, CBS Studios International, reached a joint venture deal with Chellomedia to launch six CBS-branded channels in the United Kingdom – which would respectively replace Zone Romantica, Zone Thriller, Zone Horror and Zone Reality, as well as timeshift services Zone Horror +1 and Zone Reality +1 – during the fourth quarter of that year. On October 1, 2009, it was announced that the first four channels, CBS Reality, CBS Reality +1, CBS Drama and CBS Action, would launch on November 16 – respectively replacing Zone Reality, Zone Reality +1, Zone Romantica and Zone Thriller. On April 5, 2010, Zone Horror and Zone Horror +1 were rebranded as Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1. \n\nAustralia\n\nIn Australia, Network Ten (which CBS owns 33% of its shares) maintains a distribution agreement with CBS Television Distribution that gives the network rights to carry programs such as Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Phil, Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NCIS and Scorpion. Nine Network maintains the rights to story content sourced from 60 Minutes, used on the domestic program of the same title, while reports provided by Network Ten are used in the United States by CBS for supplementary coverage of Australian topics. Network Ten's sister digital channels One and Eleven also carry CBS programming.\n\nAsia\n\nBermuda\n\nIn Bermuda, CBS maintains an affiliation with Hamilton-based ZBM-TV, locally owned by Bermuda Broadcasting Company.\n\nHong Kong\n\nIn Hong Kong, the CBS Evening News was broadcast live during the early morning hours on ATV; networks in that country maintains agreement to rebroadcast portions of the program 12 hours after the initial broadcast to provide additional content in the event that their affiliates have insufficient news content to fill time during their local news programs.\n\nPhilippines\n\nIn the Philippines, the CBS Evening News is broadcast on satellite network Q-TV (a sister channel of GMA Network), while CBS This Morning is shown in that country on the Lifestyle Network. The Late Show with David Letterman is broadcast by Studio 23 and Maxx, which are both owned by ABS-CBN. 60 Minutes is currently broadcast on CNN Philippines (formerly Talktv, Solar News Channel and 9TV ) as a part of their Stories block, which includes documentaries and is broadcast on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. before CNN Philippines Nightly News with replays in a capacity as a stand-alone program on Saturdays at 8:00 a.m. & 5:00 pm and Sundays at 6:00 a.m, all in local time (UTC + 8).\n\nIndia\n\nIn India, CBS maintained a brand licensing agreement with Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. for three CBS-branded channels: Big CBS Prime, Big CBS Spark and Big CBS Love. These channels were shut down in late November 2013.\n\nControversies\n\nBrown & Williamson interview\n\nIn 1995, CBS refused to air a 60 Minutes segment that featured an interview with a former president of research and development for Brown & Williamson, the U.S.'s third largest tobacco company. The controversy raised questions about the legal roles in decision-making and whether journalistic standards should be compromised despite legal pressures and threats. The decision nevertheless sent shockwaves throughout the television industry, the journalism community, and the country. This incident was the basis for the 1999 Michael Mann-directed drama film, The Insider.\n\nBernard Goldberg\n\nIn 2001, Bernard Goldberg, who served as a correspondent for CBS News for 28 years, authored Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. The book heavily criticized the media, and some CBS anchors and correspondents in particular (such as Dan Rather). Goldberg accused CBS of having a liberal bias in most of their news coverage; Goldberg now works as a commentator for Fox News.\n\nSuper Bowl XXXVIII halftime show incident\n\nIn 2004, the Federal Communications Commission imposed a record $550,000 fine, the largest fine ever for a violation of federal decency laws, against CBS for an incident during its broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVIII in which singer Janet Jackson's right breast (which was partially covered by a piece of nipple jewelry) was briefly and accidentally exposed by guest performer Justin Timberlake at the end of a duet performance of Timberlake's 2003 single \"Rock Your Body\" during the halftime show (produced by then sister cable network MTV). Following the incident, CBS apologized to its viewers and denied foreknowledge of the incident, which was televised live. The incident resulted in a period of increased regulation of broadcast television and radio outlets (including self-imposed content regulation by networks and syndicators), which raised concerns surrounding censorship and freedom of speech, and resulted in the FCC voting to increase its maximum fine for indecency violations from US$27,500 to US$325,000. In 2008, a Philadelphia federal court annulled the fine imposed on CBS, labelling it \"arbitrary and capricious\". \n\nKillan documents controversy\n\nOn September 8, 2004, less than two months before the Presidential election in which he defeated Democratic candidate John Kerry, CBS aired a controversial episode of 60 Minutes Wednesday, which questioned then-President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973. Following allegations of forgery, CBS News admitted that four of the documents used in the story had not been properly authenticated and admitted that their source, Bill Burkett, had admitted to having \"deliberately misled\" a CBS News producer who worked on the report, about the documents' origins out of a confidentiality promise to the actual source. The following January, CBS fired four people connected to the preparation of the segment. Former CBS news anchor Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and former corporate parent Viacom in September 2007, contending the story, and his termination (he resigned as CBS News chief anchor in 2005), were mishandled. Parts of the suit were dismissed in 2008; subsequently in 2010, the entire suit was dismissed and Rather's motion to appeal was denied. \n\nJohn Batiste firing\n\nIn 2007, retired Army Major Gen. and CBS News consultant John Batiste appeared in a political ad for VoteVets.org that was critical of President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. Two days later, CBS stated that appearing in the ad violated Batiste's contract with the network, which was terminated as a result. \n\nHopper controversy\n\nIn January 2013, CNET named Dish Network's \"Hopper with Sling\" digital video recorder as a nominee for the CES \"Best in Show\" award (which is decided by CNET on behalf of its organizers, the Consumer Electronics Association), and named it the winner in a vote by the site's staff. However, CBS division CBS Interactive disqualified the Hopper, and vetoed the results as CBS was in active litigation with Dish Network over its AutoHop technology (which allows users to skip commercial advertisements during recorded programs). CNET announced that it would no longer review any product or service provided by companies that CBS Corporation was in litigation with. The \"Best in Show\" award was instead given to the Razer Edge tablet. On January 14, 2013, CNET editor-in-chief Lindsey Turrentine said in a statement that its staff was in an \"impossible\" situation due to the conflict of interest posed by the lawsuit, and promised to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. The conflict also prompted the resignation of CNET senior writer Greg Sandoval. As a result of the controversy, the CEA announced on January 31, 2013 that CNET will no longer decide the CES Best in Show award winner due to the interference of CBS (with the position being offered to other technology publications), and the \"Best in Show\" award was jointly awarded to both the Hopper with Sling and Razer Edge. \n\nPresidents of CBS Entertainment",
"Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as \"the most trusted man in America\" after being so named in an opinion poll. He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson's Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase \"And that's the way it is,\" followed by the broadcast's date.\n\nEarly life and education \n\nWalter Leland Cronkite, Jr., was born on November 4, 1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of Helen Lena (née Fritsche; August 1892 – November 1993), and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite (September 1893 – May 1973), a dentist. He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father's side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt. \n\nCronkite lived in Kansas City, Missouri, until he was ten, when his family moved to Houston, Texas. He attended junior high school at Lanier Junior High School (now Lanier Middle School) and high school at San Jacinto High School, where he edited the high school newspaper. He was a member of the Boy Scouts. He attended college at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), entering in the Fall term of 1933, where he worked on the Daily Texan and became a member of the Nu chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He also was a member of the Houston chapter of DeMolay, a Masonic fraternal organization for boys. While attending UT, Cronkite had his first taste of performance, appearing in a play with fellow student Eli Wallach.\n\nCareer \n\nHe dropped out of college in his junior year, in the fall term of 1935, after starting a series of newspaper reporting jobs covering news and sports. He entered broadcasting as a radio announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1936, he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth Maxwell (known by her nickname \"Betsy\"), while working as the sports announcer for KCMO (AM) in Kansas City, Missouri. His broadcast name was \"Walter Wilcox\". He would explain later that radio stations at the time did not want people to use their real names for fear of taking their listeners with them if they left. In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937. He became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe. \n\nWith his name now established, he received a job offer from Edward R. Murrow at CBS News to join the Murrow Boys team of war correspondents, relieving Bill Downs as the head of the Moscow bureau. CBS offered Cronkite $125 a week along with \"commercial fees\" amounting to $25 for almost every time Cronkite reported on air. Up to that point, he had been making $57.50 per week at UP, but he had reservations about broadcasting. He initially accepted the offer. When he informed his boss Harrison Salisbury, UP countered with a raise of $17.50 per week; Hugh Baillie also offered him an extra $20 per week to stay. Cronkite ultimately accepted the UP offer, a move which angered Murrow and drove a wedge between them that would last for years. \n\nCronkite was one of eight journalists selected by the United States Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress part of group called the Writing 69th, and during a mission fired a machine gun at a German fighter. He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow from 1946 to 1948. \n\nEarly years at CBS \n\nIn 1950, Cronkite joined CBS News in its young and growing television division, again recruited by Murrow. Cronkite began working at WTOP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.. He originally served as anchor of the network's 15-minute late-Sunday-evening newscast Up To the Minute, which followed What's My Line? at 11:00 pm ET from 1951 through 1962.\n\nAlthough it was widely reported that the term \"anchor\" was coined to describe Cronkite's role at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, marking the first nationally televised convention coverage, other news presenters bore the title before him. Cronkite anchored the network's coverage of the 1952 presidential election as well as later conventions. In 1964 he was temporarily replaced by the team of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd; this proved to be a mistake, and Cronkite returned to the anchor chair for future political conventions. \n\nFrom 1953 to 1957, Cronkite hosted the CBS program You Are There, which reenacted historical events, using the format of a news report. His famous last line for these programs was: \"What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... and you were there.\" In 1971, the show was revived and redesigned to attract an audience of teenagers and young adults on Saturday mornings. He also hosted The Twentieth Century, a documentary series about important historical events of the century comprised almost exclusively of newsreel footage and interviews. It became a long-running hit (it was renamed The 20th Century in 1967). Cronkite also hosted It's News to Me, a game show based on news events.\n\nDuring the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956 Cronkite hosted the CBS news-discussion series Pick the Winner.\n\nAnother of his network assignments was The Morning Show, CBS' short-lived challenge to NBC's Today in 1954. His on-air duties included interviewing guests and chatting with a lion puppet named Charlemane about the news. He considered this discourse with a puppet as \"one of the highlights\" of the show. He added, \"A puppet can render opinions on people and things that a human commentator would not feel free to utter. I was and I am proud of it.\" Cronkite also angered the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the show's sponsor, by grammatically correcting its advertising slogan. Instead of saying \"Winston tastes good like a cigarette should\" verbatim, he substituted \"as\" for \"like.\" \n\nHe was the lead broadcaster of the network's coverage of the 1960 Winter Olympics, the first-ever time such an event was televised in the United States. He replaced Jim McKay, who had suffered a mental breakdown. \n\nAnchor of the CBS Evening News \n\nOn April 16, 1962, Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS Evening News (initially Walter Cronkite with the News), a job in which he became an American icon. The program expanded from 15 to 30 minutes on September 2, 1963, making Cronkite the anchor of American network television's first nightly half-hour news program. \n\nDuring the early part of his tenure anchoring the CBS Evening News, Cronkite competed against NBC's anchor team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, who anchored the Huntley-Brinkley Report. For most of the 1960s, the Huntley-Brinkley Report had more viewers than Cronkite's broadcast. This began to change in the late 1960s, as RCA made a corporate decision not to fund NBC News at the levels CBS funded CBS News. Consequently, CBS News acquired a reputation for greater accuracy and depth in its broadcast journalism. This reputation meshed nicely with Cronkite's wire service experience, and in 1967 the CBS Evening News began to surpass The Huntley-Brinkley Report in viewership during the summer months.\n\nIn 1969, during the Apollo 11 (with co-host and former astronaut Wally Schirra) and Apollo 13 moon missions, Cronkite received the best ratings and made CBS the most-watched television network for the missions. In 1970, when Huntley retired, the CBS Evening News finally dominated the American TV news viewing audience. Although NBC finally settled on the skilled and well-respected broadcast journalist John Chancellor, Cronkite proved to be more popular and continued to be top-rated until his retirement in 1981.\n\nOne of Cronkite's trademarks was ending the CBS Evening News with the phrase \"...And that's the way it is,\" followed by the date. Keeping to standards of objective journalism, he omitted this phrase on nights when he ended the newscast with opinion or commentary. Beginning with January 16, 1980, Day 50 of the Iran hostage crisis, Cronkite added the length of the hostages' captivity to the show's closing in order to remind the audience of the unresolved situation, ending only on Day 444, January 20, 1981. \n\nHistoric moments as anchor \n\nKennedy's assassination\n\nCronkite is vividly remembered for breaking the news of the death of President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. Cronkite had been standing at the United Press International wire machine in the CBS newsroom as the bulletin of the President's shooting broke and he clamored to get on the air to break the news as he wanted CBS to be the first network to do so. \n\nThere was a problem facing the crew in the newsroom, however. There was no television camera in the studio at the time as the technical crew was working on it. Eventually the camera was retrieved and brought back to the newsroom. Because of the magnitude of the story and the continuous flow of information coming from various sources, time was of the essence and the camera would take at least twenty minutes to become operational under normal circumstances. The decision was made to dispatch Cronkite to the CBS Radio Network booth to report the events and play the audio over the television airwaves while the crew worked on the camera to see if they could get it set up quicker.\n\nMeanwhile, CBS was ten minutes into its live broadcast of the soap opera As the World Turns (ATWT), which had begun at the very minute of the shooting. A \"CBS News Bulletin\" bumper slide abruptly broke into the broadcast at 1:40 pm EST. Over the slide, Cronkite began reading what would be the first of three audio-only bulletins that were filed in the next twenty minutes: \n\nWhile Cronkite was reading this bulletin, a second one arrived, mentioning the severity of Kennedy's wounds:\n\nJust before the bulletin cut out, a CBS News staffer was heard saying \"Connally too,\" apparently having just heard the news that Texas Governor John Connally had also been shot while riding in the presidential limousine with his wife Nellie and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.\n\nCBS then rejoined the telecast of ATWT during a commercial break, which was followed by show announcer Dan McCullough's usual fee plug for the first half of the program and the network's 1:45 pm station identification break. Just before the second half of ATWT was to begin, the network broke in with the bumper slide a second time. This bulletin saw Cronkite report in greater detail about the assassination attempt on the President, while also breaking the news of Governor Connally's shooting.\n\nCronkite then recapped the events as they had happened: that the President and Governor Connally had been shot and were in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital, and no one knew their condition as yet. CBS then decided to return to ATWT, which was now midway through its second segment.\n\nThe cast had continued to perform live while Cronkite's bulletins broke into the broadcast, unaware of the unfolding events in Dallas. ATWT then took another scheduled commercial break. The segment before the break would be the last anyone would see of any network's programming until Tuesday, November 26. During the commercial, the bumper slide interrupted the proceedings again and Cronkite updated the viewers on the situation in Dallas. This bulletin went into more detail than the other two, revealing that Kennedy had been shot in the head, Connally in the chest. Cronkite remained on the air for the next ten minutes, continuing to read bulletins as they were handed to him, and recapping the events as they were known. He also related a report given to reporters by Texas Congressman Albert Thomas that the President and Governor were still alive, the first indication of their condition. At 2:00 EST, with the top of the hour station break looming, Cronkite told the audience that there would be a brief pause so that all of CBS' affiliates, including those in the Mountain and Pacific time zones which were not on the same schedule, could join the network. He then left the radio booth and went to the anchor desk in the newsroom.\n\nWithin twenty seconds of the announcement, every CBS affiliate except Dallas' KRLD (which was providing local coverage) was airing the network's feed. The camera was finally operational by this time and enabled the audience to see Cronkite, who was clad in shirt and tie but without his suit coat, given the urgent nature of the story. Cronkite reminded the audience, again, of the attempt made on the life of the President and tossed to KRLD news director Eddie Barker at the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was supposed to be making a speech before he was shot. Barker relayed information that Kennedy's condition was extremely critical. Then, after a prayer for Kennedy, Barker quoted an unofficial report that the President was dead but stressed it was not confirmed.\n\nAfter several minutes, the coverage came back to the CBS newsroom where Cronkite reported that the President had been given blood transfusions and two priests had been called into the room. He also played an audio report from KRLD that someone had been arrested in the assassination attempt at the Texas School Book Depository. Back in Dallas Barker announced another report of the death of the President, mentioning that it came from a reliable source. Before the network left KRLD's feed for good, Barker first announced, then retracted, a confirmation of Kennedy's death.\n\nCBS cut back to Cronkite reporting that one of the priests had administered last rites to the president. In the next few minutes, several more bulletins reporting that Kennedy had died were given to Cronkite, including one from CBS's own correspondent Dan Rather that had been reported as confirmation of Kennedy's demise by CBS Radio. As these bulletins came into the newsroom, it was becoming clearer that Kennedy had in fact lost his life. Cronkite, however, stressed that these bulletins were simply reports and not any official confirmation of the President's condition; some of his colleagues recounted in 2013 that his early career as a wire service reporter taught him to wait for official word before reporting a story. Still, as more word came in, Cronkite seemed to be resigned to the fact that it was only a matter of time before the assassination was confirmed. He appeared to concede this when, several minutes after he received the Rather report, he received word that the two priests who gave the last rites to Kennedy told reporters on the scene that he was dead. Cronkite said that report \"seems to be as close to official as we can get\", but would not declare it as such. Nor did he do so with a report from Washington, DC that came moments later, which said that government sources were now reporting the President was dead (this information was passed on to ABC as well, which took it as official confirmation and reported it as such; NBC did not report this information at all and chose instead to rely on reports from Charles Murphy and Robert MacNeil to confirm their suspicions).\n\nAt 2:38 pm EST, while filling in time with some observations about the security presence in Dallas, which had been increased due to a disastrous visit by United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson to the city earlier in 1963, Cronkite was handed a new bulletin. After looking it over for a moment, he took off his glasses, and made the official announcement:\n\nAfter making that announcement, Cronkite paused briefly, put his glasses back on, and swallowed hard to maintain his composure. With noticeable emotion in his voice he intoned the next sentence of the news report:\n\nWith emotion still in his voice and eyes watering, Cronkite once again recapped the events after collecting himself, incorporating some wire photos of the visit and explaining the significance of the pictures now that Kennedy was dead. He reminded the viewers that Vice President Johnson was now the President and was to be sworn in (which had occurred just as Cronkite received the bulletin confirming the President's death), that Governor Connally's condition was still unknown, and that there was no report of whether the assassin had been captured. He then handed the anchor position to Charles Collingwood, who had just entered the newsroom, took his suit coat, and left the room for a while.\n\nAt about 3:30 pm EST, Cronkite came back into the newsroom to relay some new information. The two major pieces of information involved the Oath of Office being administered to Vice President Johnson, which officially made him the thirty- sixth President, and that Dallas police had arrested a man named Lee Harvey Oswald whom they suspected had fired the fatal shots. After that, Cronkite left again to begin preparing for that night's CBS Evening News, which he returned to anchor as normal. For the next three days, along with his colleagues, Cronkite continued to report segments of uninterrupted coverage of the assassination, including the announcement of Oswald's death on Sunday. The next day, on the day of the funeral, Cronkite concluded the CBS Evening News with the following assessment about the events of the last four dark days:\n\nReferring to his coverage of Kennedy's assassination, in a 2006 TV interview with Nick Clooney, Cronkite recalled:\n\"I choked up, I really had a little trouble...my eyes got a little wet...[what Kennedy had represented] was just all lost to us. Fortunately, I grabbed hold before I was actually [crying].\" \n\nIn a 2003 CBS special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Cronkite recalled his reaction upon having the death confirmed to him, he said:\n\nVietnam War \n\nIn mid-February 1968, on the urging of his executive producer Ernest Leiser, Cronkite and Leiser journeyed to Vietnam to cover the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. They were invited to dine with General Creighton Abrams, the current commander of all forces in Vietnam, whom Cronkite knew from World War II. According to Leiser, Abrams told Cronkite, \"we cannot win this Goddamned war, and we ought to find a dignified way out.\" \n\nUpon return, Cronkite and Leiser wrote separate editorial reports based on that trip. Cronkite, an excellent writer, preferred Leiser's text over his own.\nOn February 27, 1968, Cronkite closed \"Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?\" with that editorial report:\n\nFollowing Cronkite's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is claimed by some to have said, \"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.\" This account has been questioned in a book on journalistic accuracy. At the time the editorial aired, Johnson was in Austin, Texas attending Texas Governor John Connally's birthday gala and was giving a speech in his honor.\n\nIn his book This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV, CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer, who was serving as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when Cronkite's editorial aired, acknowledged that Johnson did not see the original broadcast but also defended the allegation that Johnson had made the remark. According to Schieffer, Johnson's aide George Christian \"told me that the President apparently saw some clips of it the next day\" and that \"That's when he made the remark about Cronkite. But he knew then that it would take more than Americans were willing to give it.\" When asked about the remark during a 1979 interview, Christian claimed he had no recollection about what the President had said. In his 1996 memoir A Reporter's Life, Cronkite claimed he was at first unsure about how much of an impact his editorial report had on Johnson's decision to drop his bid for re-election and that he was eventually convinced the President made the statement when fellow journalist, and former aide to Johnson, Bill Moyers told him that \"the president flipped off the set and said 'If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.\" \n\nSeveral weeks later, Johnson, who sought to preserve his legacy and was now convinced his declining health could not withstand growing public criticism, announced he would not seek reelection.\n\nDuring the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, \"I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.\"\n\nOther historic events \n\nThe first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic program, was broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23, 1962, at 3:00 pm EDT, and Cronkite was one of the main presenters in this multinational broadcast. The broadcast was made possible in Europe by Eurovision and in North America by NBC, CBS, ABC, and the CBC. The first public broadcast featured CBS's Cronkite and NBC's Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC's Richard Dimbleby in Brussels. Cronkite was in the New York studio at Rockefeller Plaza as the first pictures to be transmitted and received were the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The first segment included a televised major league baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. From there, the video switched first to Washington, D.C.; then to Cape Canaveral, Florida; then to Quebec City, Quebec, and finally to Stratford, Ontario. The Washington segment included a press conference with President Kennedy, talking about the price of the American dollar, which was causing concern in Europe. This broadcast inaugurated live, intercontinental news coverage, which was perfected later in the sixties with Early Bird and other Intelsat satellites.\n\nGeneral of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower returned to his former Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) headquarters for an interview by Cronkite on the CBS News Special Report D-Day + 20, telecast on June 6, 1964.\n\nCronkite is also remembered for his coverage of the United States space program, and at times was visibly enthusiastic, rubbing his hands together on camera with a smile and uttering, \"Whew...boy\" on July 20, 1969, when the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission put the first men on the Moon. \n\nAccording to the 2006 PBS documentary on Cronkite, there was \"nothing new\" in his reports on the Watergate affair; however, Cronkite brought together a wide range of reporting, and his credibility and status is credited by many with pushing the Watergate story to the forefront with the American public, ultimately resulting in the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon on August 9, 1974. Cronkite had anchored the CBS coverage of Nixon's address, announcing his impending resignation, the night before. \n\nThe January 22, 1973, broadcast of The CBS Evening News saw Cronkite break the news of the death of another notable American political figure. At approximately 6:38 pm Eastern Time, while a pre-recorded report on the Vietnam peace talks in Paris that were reported as having been successful was being played for the audience, Cronkite received a telephone call in the studio while off camera from Tom Johnson, who was the spokesman for former President Lyndon B. Johnson and who at the time was also in charge of KTBC, Austin, Texas' then-CBS affiliate which the former President owned. During the course of the conversation, the production staff cut away from the report back to the live camera in studio as Cronkite was still on the phone. After he was made aware that he was back on camera, Cronkite held up a finger to let everyone watching know he required a moment to let Johnson finish talking. Once Cronkite got what he needed, he thanked Johnson and asked him to stay on the line. He then turned to the camera and began to relay what Johnson had said to him.\n\nDuring the final ten minutes of that broadcast, Cronkite reported on the death, giving a retrospective on the life of nation's 36th president, and announced that CBS would air a special on Lyndon Johnson later that evening. This story was re-told on a 2007 CBS-TV special honoring Cronkite's 90th birthday. \n\nNBC-TV's Garrick Utley, anchoring NBC Nightly News that evening, also interrupted his newscast in order to break the story, doing so about three minutes after Cronkite on CBS. The news was not reported on that night's ABC Evening News, which was anchored by Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner, because ABC at the time fed their newscast live at 6:00 pm Eastern instead of 6:30 to get a head start on CBS and NBC for those stations that aired ABC Evening News live (although not every affiliate did) \n\nOn December 10, 1963, Cronkite introduced The Beatles to the United States by airing a four-minute story about the band on CBS Evening News. This was originally broadcast on November 22, 1963, on the CBS Morning News, and was going to be shown again on the CBS Evening News, but the assassination of John F. Kennedy prevented the broadcast at that time. \n\nRetirement \n\nOn February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the CBS Evening News; at the time, CBS had a policy of mandatory retirement by age 65. Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a \"comfortable old shoe\" to his audience. His last day in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather. \n\nCronkite's farewell statement:\n\nOther activities \n\nReporting \n\nAs he had promised on his last show as anchor in 1981, Cronkite continued to broadcast occasionally as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN, and NPR into the 21st century; one such occasion was Cronkite anchoring the second space flight by John Glenn in 1998 as he had Glenn's first in 1962. In 1983, he reported on the British General Election for the ITV current affairs series World In Action, interviewing, among many others, the victorious Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Cronkite hosted the annual Vienna New Year's Concert on PBS from 1985 to 2008, succeeded by Julie Andrews in 2009. For many years, until 2002, he was also the host of the annual Kennedy Center Honors.\n\nIn 1998, Cronkite hosted the 90-minute documentary, Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, produced by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. The film documented Silicon Valley's rise from the origin of Stanford University to the current high-technology powerhouse. The documentary was broadcast on PBS throughout the United States and in 26 countries. Prior to 2004, he could also be seen in the opening movie 'Back to Neverland' shown in the Walt Disney World attraction, The Magic of Disney Animation, interviewing Robin Williams as if he is still on the CBS News channel, ending his on-camera time with his famous catchphrase. In the featurette, Cronkite describes the steps taken in the creation of an animated film, while Robin Williams becomes an animated character (and even becomes Walter Cronkite, impersonating his voice). He also was shown inviting Disney guests and tourists to the Disney Classics Theater.\n\nOn May 21, 1999, Walter Cronkite participated in a panel discussion on Integrity in the Media with Ben Bradlee and Mike McCurry at the Connecticut Forum in Hartford, Connecticut. Cronkite provided a particularly funny anecdote about taking a picture from a house in Houston, Texas, where a newsworthy event occurred and being praised for getting a unique photograph, only to find out later that the city desk had provided him with the wrong address. \n\nVoice-overs \n\nCronkite narrated the IMAX film about the Space Shuttle, The Dream is Alive, released in 1985. From May 26, 1986, to August 15, 1994, he was the narrator's voice in the EPCOT Center attraction, Spaceship Earth, at Walt Disney World. He provided the pivotal voice of Captain Neweyes in the 1993 animated film We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, delivering his trademark line at the end. In 1995, he made an appearance on Broadway, providing the voice of the titular book in the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.\n\nCronkite was a finalist for NASA's Journalist in Space program, which mirrored the Teacher in Space Project, an opportunity that was suspended after the Challenger disaster in 1986. He recorded voice-overs for the 1995 film Apollo 13, modifying the script he was given to make it more \"Cronkitian.\" In 2002, Cronkite was the voice of Benjamin Franklin in the educational television cartoon Liberty's Kids, which included a news segment ending with the same phrase he did back on the CBS Evening News. His distinctive voice provided the narration for the television ads of the University of Texas at Austin, his alma mater, with its 'We're Texas' ad campaign. \n\nCronkite voiced Tim's grandpa in the BrainPOP episode about aging.[http://www.brainpop.com/health/geneticsgrowthanddevelopment/aging/ BrainPOP|Health|Learn about Aging]\n\nHe held amateur radio operator license KB2GSD and narrated a 2003 American Radio Relay League documentary explaining amateur radio's role in disaster relief. the video tells Amateur Radio's public service story to non-hams, focusing on ham radio's part in helping various agencies respond to wildfires in the Western US during 2002, ham radio in space and the role Amateur Radio plays in emergency communications. \"Dozens of radio amateurs helped the police and fire departments and other emergency services maintain communications in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC,\" narrator Cronkite intoned in reference to ham radio's response on September 11, 2001. Unusually, Cronkite was a Novice-class licensee—the entry level license—for his entire, and long, tenure in the hobby.\n\nOn February 15, 2005, he went into the studio at CBS to record narration for WCC Chatham Radio, a documentary about Guglielmo Marconi and his Chatham station, which became the busiest ship-to-shore wireless station in North America from 1914 to 1994. The documentary was directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films and premiered at the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center in April 2005. In 2006, Cronkite hosted the World War One Living History Project, a program honoring America's final handful of veterans from the First World War. The program was created by Treehouse Productions and aired on NPR on November 11, 2006. In May 2009, Legacy of War, produced by PBS, was released. Cronkite chronicles, over archive footage, the events following World War II that resulted in America's rise as the dominant world power. \n\nPrior to his death, \"Uncle Walter\" hosted a number of TV specials and was featured in interviews about the times and events that occurred during his career as America's \"most trusted\" man. In July 2006, the 90-minute documentary Walter Cronkite: Witness to History aired on PBS. The special was narrated by Katie Couric, who assumed the CBS Evening News anchor chair in September 2006. Cronkite provided the voiceover introduction to Couric's CBS Evening News, which began on September 5, 2006. Cronkite's voiceover was notably not used on introducing the broadcast reporting his funeral – no voiceover was used on this occasion.\n\nTV and movie appearances \n\nCronkite made a cameo appearance on a 1974 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which he met with Lou Grant in his office. Ted Baxter, who at first tried to convince Cronkite that he (Baxter) was as good a newsman as Eric Sevareid, pleaded with Cronkite to hire him for the network news, at least to give sport scores, and gave an example: \"The North Stars 3, the Kings Oh!\" Cronkite turned to Grant and said, \"I'm gonna get you for this!\" Cronkite later said that he was disappointed that his scene was filmed in one take, since he had hoped to sit down and chat with the cast.\n\nIn the late 1980s and again in the 1990s, Cronkite appeared on the news-oriented situation comedy Murphy Brown as himself. Both episodes were written by the Emmy-award winning team of Tom Seeley and Norm Gunzenhauser. In 1991, he hosted on A&E the TV documentary Dinosaur!, not related to the documentary of the same title hosted by Christopher Reeve on CBS six years earlier. In 1995, he narrated the World Liberty Concert held in the Netherlands.\n\nCronkite appeared briefly in the 2005 dramatic documentary The American Ruling Class written by Lewis Lapham, the 2000 film Thirteen Days, reporting on the Cuban missile crisis, and provided the opening synopsis of the American Space Program leading to the events in Apollo 13 for the Ron Howard film of the same name.\n\nPolitical activism \n\nCronkite wrote a syndicated opinion column for King Features Syndicate. In 2005 and 2006, he contributed to The Huffington Post. Cronkite was the honorary chairman of The Interfaith Alliance. In 2006, he presented the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award to actor and activist George Clooney on behalf of his organization at its annual dinner in New York. \n\nCronkite was a vocal advocate for free airtime for political candidates. He worked with the Alliance for Better Campaigns and Common Cause, for instance, on an unsuccessful lobbying effort to have an amendment added to the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required TV broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates. Cronkite criticized the present system of campaign finance which allows elections to \"be purchased\" by special interests, and he noted that all the European democracies \"provide their candidates with extensive free airtime.\" \"In fact,\" Cronkite pointed out, \"of all the major nations worldwide that profess to have democracies, only seven – just seven – do not offer free airtime\" This put the United States on a list with Ecuador, Honduras, Malaysia, Taiwan, Tanzania, and Trinidad and Tobago. Cronkite concluded that \"The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy.\" During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. \"What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime.\"\n\nHe was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.\n\nIn 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of limited world government on the American federalist model, writing fund-raising letters for the World Federalist Association (now Citizens for Global Solutions). In accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the ceremony at the United Nations, Cronkite said:\n\n\"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen.\" \n\nCronkite contrasted his support for accountable global government with the opposition to it by politically active Christian fundamentalists in the United States:\n\n\"Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience. They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me... I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan.\"\n\nIn 2003, Cronkite, who owned property on Martha's Vineyard, became involved in a long-running debate over his opposition to the construction of a wind farm in that area. In his column, he repeatedly condemned President George W. Bush and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cronkite appeared in the 2004 Robert Greenwald film Outfoxed, where he offered commentary on what he said were unethical and overtly political practices at the Fox News Channel. Cronkite remarked that when Fox News was founded by Rupert Murdoch, \"it was intended to be a conservative organization – beyond that; a far-right-wing organization\". In January 2006, during a press conference to promote the PBS documentary about his career, Cronkite said that he felt the same way about America's presence in Iraq as he had about their presence in Vietnam in 1968 and that he felt America should recall its troops. \n\nCronkite spoke out against the War on Drugs in support of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing a fundraising letter and appearing in advertisements on behalf of the DPA. In the letter, Cronkite wrote: \"Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure.\"\n\nPersonal life \n\nCronkite was married for nearly sixty-five years to Mary Elizabeth 'Betsy' Maxwell Cronkite (January 25, 1916 – March 15, 2005), from March 30, 1940, until her death from cancer. They had three children: Nancy Cronkite, Mary Kathleen (Kathy) Cronkite, and Walter Leland (Chip) Cronkite III (who is married to actress Deborah Rush).\nA grandson, Walter Cronkite IV, now works at CBS. \n\nIn late 2005, Cronkite began dating opera singer Joanna Simon, Carly Simon's older sister. Of their relationship, Cronkite stated in an interview for the New York Post in January 2006: \"We are keeping company, as the old phrase used to be.\" \n\nCronkite was an accomplished sailor and enjoyed sailing coastal waters of the United States in his custom-built 48-foot Sunward \"WYNTJE\". Cronkite was a member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, with the honorary rank of commodore. Throughout the 1950s, he was an aspiring sports car racer, even racing in the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring. \n\nCronkite was reported to be a fan of the game Diplomacy, which was John F. Kennedy's and Henry Kissinger's favorite game. \n\nDeath \n\nIn June 2009, Cronkite was reported to be terminally ill. He died on July 17, 2009, at his home in New York City, at the age of 92. He is believed to have died from cerebrovascular disease. \nCronkite's funeral took place on July 23, 2009, at St. Bartholomew's Church in midtown Manhattan, New York. At his funeral, his friends noted his love of music, including, recently, drumming. He was cremated and his remains buried next to his wife, Betsy, in the family plot at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City. \n\nLegacy \n\nPublic credibility and trustworthiness \n\nFor many years, until a decade after he left his post as anchor, Cronkite was considered one of the most trusted figures in the United States. For most of his 19 years as anchor, he was the \"predominant news voice in America.\" Affectionately known as \"Uncle Walter,\" he covered many of the important news events of the era so effectively that his image and voice are closely associated with the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the Watergate scandal. USA Today wrote that \"few TV figures have ever had as much power as Cronkite did at his height.\" Enjoying the cult of personality surrounding Cronkite in those years, CBS allowed some good-natured fun-poking at its star anchorman in some episodes of the network's popular situation comedy All in the Family, during which the lead character Archie Bunker would sometimes complain about the newsman, calling him \"Pinko Cronkite.\"\n\nCronkite trained himself to speak at a rate of 124 words per minute in his newscasts, so that viewers could clearly understand him. In contrast, Americans average about 165 words per minute, and fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute. \n\nAwards and honors \n\nIn 1968, the faculty of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University voted to award Cronkite the Carr Van Anda Award \"for enduring contributions to journalism.\" In 1970, Cronkite received a \"Freedom of the Press\" George Polk Award and the Paul White Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. \n\nIn 1972, in recognition of his career, Princeton University's American Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Cronkite the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service. \n\nIn 1981, the year he retired, Jimmy Carter awarded Cronkite the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In that year, he also received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards, and the Paul White Award for lifetime achievement from the Radio Television Digital News Association. In 1985, Cronkite was honoured with the induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. In 1989 he received the Four Freedom Award for the Freedom of Speech In 1995, he received the Ischia International Journalism Award. In 1999, Cronkite received the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement's Corona Award in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in space exploration. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. On March 1, 2006, Cronkite became the first non-astronaut to receive NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award. Among Cronkite's numerous awards were four Peabody awards for excellence in broadcasting.\n\nIn 2003, Cronkite was honored by the Vienna Philharmonic with the Franz Schalk Gold Medal, in view of his contributions to the New Year's Concert and the cultural image of Austria. \n\nCronkite School at Arizona State University \n\nA few years after Cronkite retired, Tom Chauncey, an owner of KTSP-TV, the then-CBS affiliate in Phoenix, contacted Cronkite, an old friend, and asked him if he would be willing to have the journalism school at Arizona State University named after him. Cronkite immediately agreed. The ASU program acquired status and respect from its namesake.\n\nCronkite was not just a namesake, but he also took the time to interact with the students and staff of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Cronkite made the trip to Arizona annually to present the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to a leader in the field of media.\n\n\"The values that Mr. Cronkite embodies – excellence, integrity, accuracy, fairness, objectivity – we try to instill in our students each and every day. There is no better role model for our faculty or our students.\" said Dean Christopher Callahan. \n\nThe school, with approximately 1,200 majors, is widely regarded as one of the top journalism schools in the country. It is housed in a new facility in downtown Phoenix that is equipped with 14 digital newsrooms and computer labs, two TV studios, 280 digital student work stations, the Cronkite Theater, the First Amendment Forum, and new technology. The school's students regularly finish at the top of national collegiate journalism competitions, such as the Hearst Journalism Awards program and the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards. In 2009, students won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for college print reporting.\n\nIn 2008, the state-of-the-art journalism education complex in the heart of ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus was also built in his honor. The Walter Cronkite Regents Chair in Communication seats the Texas College of Communications dean.\n\nWalter Cronkite Papers \n\nThe Walter Cronkite papers are preserved at the curatorial Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Occupying 293 linear feet (almost 90 metres) of shelf space, the papers document Cronkite's journalism career. Amongst the collected material are Cronkite's early beginnings while he still lived in Houston. They encompass his coverage of World War II as a United Press International correspondent, where he cemented his reputation by taking on hazardous overseas assignments. During this time he also covered the Nuremberg war crimes trial serving as the chief of the United Press bureau in Moscow. The main content of the papers documents Cronkite's career with CBS News between 1950 and 1981.\n\nThe Cronkite Papers assemble a variety of interviews with U.S. presidents from Herbert Hoover to Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. President Lyndon Johnson requested a special interview with Cronkite while he was broadcasting live on CBS.\n\nBetween 1990 and 1993 Don Carleton, executive director for the Center for American History, assisted Cronkite as he compiled an oral history to write his autobiography, A Reporter's Life, which was published in 1996. The taped memoirs became an integral part of an eight-part television series Cronkite Remembers, which was shown on the Discovery Channel. \n\nAs a newsman, Cronkite devoted his attention to the early days of the space program, and the \"space race\" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration honoured Cronkite on February 28, 2006. Michael Coats, director of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, presented Cronkite with the Ambassador of Exploration Award. Cronkite was the first non-astronaut thus honoured. \n\nNASA presented Cronkite with a moon rock sample from the early Apollo expeditions spanning 1969 to 1972. Cronkite passed on the Moon rock to Bill Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin, and it became part of the collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Carleton said at this occasion, \"We are deeply honored by Walter Cronkite’s decision to entrust this prestigious award to the Center for American History. The Center already serves as the proud steward of his professional and personal papers, which include his coverage of the space program for CBS News. It is especially fitting that the archive documenting Walter's distinguished career should also include one of the Moon rocks that the heroic astronauts of the Apollo program brought to Earth.\" \n\nMemorial at Missouri Western State University\n\nOn November 4, 2013, Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri dedicated the Walter Cronkite Memorial. The nearly 6,000 square-foot memorial includes images, videos and memorabilia from Cronkite’s life and the many events he covered as a journalist. The memorial includes a replica of the newsroom from which Cronkite broadcast the news during the 1960s and 1970s. In 2014, the Memorial received the Missouri Division of Tourism's Spotlight Award."
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Who had a 70s No 1 hit with Let Your Love Flow?
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tc_117
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"\"Let Your Love Flow\" is the title of a pop song written by Larry E. Williams, a former roadie for Neil Diamond, and made popular by the American country music duo The Bellamy Brothers. Diamond was initially offered the opportunity to record the song, but he declined. The song was first recorded by Gene Cotton prior to the Bellamy Brothers, but Cotton never secured the rights.\n\nThe song was a crossover hit in the United States, reaching Number One on the 1976 Billboard Hot 100 charts, #2 on Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks, and #21 on Hot Country Singles. It was also an international hit, landing on the charts in the UK, Scandinavia and West Germany, where the Bellamy Brothers' record spent five weeks at #1. In 2008, the song re-entered the UK Singles Chart following its appearance in an advertisement in the United Kingdom for Barclaycard, where it peaked at #21. \n \nIn other media, it was used in the 1980 Tatum O'Neal film Little Darlings, the 2008 period drama Swingtown, and season 2 episode 'No Room at the Inn' of the HBO series The Leftovers.\n\nThe song has been covered by numerous other artists, most notably Joan Baez, who included it on her 1979 Honest Lullaby album. Another re-recording by the Bellamy brothers with Gölä is included on the album The Greatest Hits Sessions. \"Ein Bett im Kornfeld\", a German language adaptation of the song recorded by Jürgen Drews, spent eleven weeks at #1 in West Germany in 1976. \n\nChart performance\n\n*AFeaturing Gölä."
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Which state renewed Mike Tyson's boxing license in 1998?
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tc_120
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Michael Gerard \"Mike\" Tyson (; born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer. He held the undisputed world heavyweight championship and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old. Tyson won his first 19 professional bouts by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. He won the WBC title in 1986 after defeating Trevor Berbick by a TKO in the second round. In 1987, Tyson added the WBA and IBF titles after defeating James Smith and Tony Tucker. This made him the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, and the only heavyweight to successively unify them.\n\nIn 1988, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds. Tyson successfully defended the world heavyweight championship nine times, including victories over Larry Holmes and Frank Bruno. In 1990, he lost his titles to underdog James \"Buster\" Douglas, by knockout in round 10. Attempting to regain the titles, he defeated Donovan Ruddock twice in 1991, but pulled out of a fight with undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield due to injury. In 1992, Tyson was convicted of rape and sentenced to six years in prison, but was released after serving three years. After his release, he engaged in a series of comeback fights. In 1996, he won the WBC and WBA titles after defeating Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon by knockout. With his defeat of Bruno, Tyson joined Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Tim Witherspoon, Evander Holyfield, and George Foreman as the only men in boxing history to that point to have regained a heavyweight championship after having lost it. After being stripped of the WBC title, Tyson lost his WBA crown to Evander Holyfield in November 1996 by an eleventh-round TKO. Their 1997 rematch ended when Tyson was disqualified for biting part of Holyfield's ear off.\n\nIn 2002, he fought for the world heavyweight title at the age of 35, losing by knockout to Lennox Lewis. Tyson retired from professional boxing in 2006, after being knocked out in consecutive matches against Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. Tyson declared bankruptcy in 2003, despite having received over $30 million for several of his fights and $300 million during his career. At the time it was reported that he had approximately $23 million of debt. Tyson was well known for his ferocious and intimidating boxing style as well as his controversial behavior inside and outside the ring. Nicknamed \"Iron\", and \"Kid Dynamite\" in his early career and later known as \"The Baddest Man on the Planet\", Tyson is considered one of the best heavyweights of all time. He was ranked No. 16 on The Rings list of 100 greatest punchers of all time, and No. 1 in the ESPN.com list of \"The hardest hitters in heavyweight history\". Sky Sports rated him as \"the scariest boxer ever\" and described him as \"perhaps the most ferocious fighter to step into a professional ring.\" He has been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.\n\nEarly life\n\nTyson was born in Brooklyn, New York. He has an elder brother named Rodney (born c. 1961) and had an elder sister named Denise, who died of a heart attack at age 24 in February 1990.\n\nTyson's biological father is listed as \"Purcell Tyson\" (who was from Jamaica) on his birth certificate, but the man Tyson had known as his father was Jimmy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was from Grier Town, North Carolina (a predominantly black neighborhood that was annexed by the city of Charlotte), where he was one of the neighborhood's top baseball players. Kirkpatrick married and had a son, Tyson's half-brother Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, who would help to integrate Charlotte high school football in 1965. In 1959, Jimmy Kirkpatrick left his family and moved to Brooklyn, where he met Tyson's mother, Lorna Mae (Smith) Tyson. Mike Tyson was born in 1966. Kirkpatrick frequented pool halls, gambled and hung out on the streets. \"My father was just a regular street guy caught up in the street world\", Tyson said. Kirkpatrick abandoned the Tyson family around the time Mike was born, leaving Tyson's mother to care for the children on her own. Kirkpatrick died in 1992. \n\nThe family lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant until their financial burdens necessitated a move to Brownsville when Tyson was 10 years old. Tyson's mother died six years later, leaving 16-year-old Tyson in the care of boxing manager and trainer Cus D'Amato, who would become his legal guardian. Tyson later said, \"I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: she only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally.\" \n\nThroughout his childhood, Tyson lived in and around high-crime neighborhoods. According to an interview in Details, his first fight was with a bigger youth who had pulled the head off one of Tyson's pigeons. Tyson was repeatedly caught committing petty crimes and fighting those who ridiculed his high-pitched voice and lisp. By the age of 13, he had been arrested 38 times. He ended up at the Tryon School for Boys in Johnstown, New York. Tyson's emerging boxing ability was discovered there by Bobby Stewart, a juvenile detention center counselor and former boxer. Stewart considered Tyson to be an outstanding fighter and trained him for a few months before introducing him to Cus D'Amato. Tyson dropped out of high school as a junior. He would later be awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Central State University in 1989. \n\nKevin Rooney also trained Tyson, and he was occasionally assisted by Teddy Atlas, although Atlas was dismissed by D'Amato when Tyson was 15. Rooney eventually took over all training duties for the young fighter. \n\nCareer\n\nAmateur career\n\nTyson won gold medals at the 1981 and 1982 Junior Olympic Games, defeating Joe Cortez in 1981 and beating Kelton Brown in 1982. Brown's corner threw in the towel in the first round. He holds the Junior Olympic record for quickest knockout (8 seconds). He won every bout at the Junior Olympic Games by knockout.\n\nHe fought Henry Tillman twice as an amateur, losing both bouts by decision. Tillman went on to win heavyweight gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. \n\nRise to stardom\n\nTyson made his professional debut as an 18-year-old on March 6, 1985, in Albany, New York. He defeated Hector Mercedes via a first round knockout. He had 15 bouts in his first year as a professional. Fighting frequently, Tyson won 26 of his first 28 fights by KO or TKO; 16 of those came in the first round. The quality of his opponents gradually increased to journeyman fighters and borderline contenders, like James Tillis, David Jaco, Jesse Ferguson, Mitch Green and Marvis Frazier. His win streak attracted media attention and Tyson was billed as the next great heavyweight champion. D'Amato died in November 1985, relatively early into Tyson's professional career, and some speculate that his death was the catalyst to many of the troubles Tyson was to experience as his life and career progressed. \n\nTyson's first nationally televised bout took place on February 16, 1986, at Houston Field House in Troy, New York against journeyman heavyweight Jesse Ferguson. Tyson knocked down Ferguson with an uppercut in the fifth round that broke Ferguson's nose. During the sixth round, Ferguson began to hold and clinch Tyson in an apparent attempt to avoid further punishment. After admonishing Ferguson several times to obey his commands to box, the referee finally stopped the fight near the middle of the sixth round. The fight was initially ruled a win for Tyson by disqualification (DQ) of his opponent. The ruling was \"adjusted\" to a win by technical knockout (TKO) after Tyson's corner protested that a DQ win would end Tyson's string of knockout victories, and that a knockout would have been the inevitable result. The rationale offered for the revised outcome was that the fight was actually stopped because Ferguson could not (rather than would not) continue boxing.\n\nOn November 22, 1986, Tyson was given his first title fight against Trevor Berbick for the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship. Tyson won the title by second round TKO, and at the age of 20 years and 4 months became the youngest heavyweight champion in history. Tyson's dominant performance brought many accolades. Donald Saunders wrote: \"The noble and manly art of boxing can at least cease worrying about its immediate future, now [that] it has discovered a heavyweight champion fit to stand alongside Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano and Ali.\" \n\nBecause of Tyson's strength, many fighters were intimidated by him. This was backed up by his outstanding hand speed, accuracy, coordination, power, and timing. Tyson was also noted for his defensive abilities. Holding his hands high in the Peek-a-Boo style taught by his mentor Cus D'Amato, he slipped and weaved out of the way of the opponent's punches while closing the distance to deliver his own punches. One of Tyson's trademark combinations was a right hook to his opponent's body followed by a right uppercut to his opponent's chin; very few boxers would remain standing if caught by this combination. Lorenzo Boyd, Jesse Ferguson and Jose Ribalta were among the boxers knocked down by the combination.\n\nUndisputed champion\n\nExpectations for Tyson were extremely high, and he embarked on an ambitious campaign to fight all of the top heavyweights in the world. Tyson defended his title against James Smith on March 7, 1987, in Las Vegas, Nevada. He won by unanimous decision and added Smith's World Boxing Association (WBA) title to his existing belt. 'Tyson mania' in the media was becoming rampant. He beat Pinklon Thomas in May with a knockout in the sixth round. On August 1 he took the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title from Tony Tucker in a twelve round unanimous decision. He became the first heavyweight to own all three major belts – WBA, WBC, and IBF – at the same time. Another fight, in October of that year, ended with a victory for Tyson over 1984 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Tyrell Biggs by knockout in the seventh round. \n\nDuring this time, Tyson came to the attention of gaming company Nintendo. After witnessing one of Tyson's fights, Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa was impressed by the fighter's \"power and skill\", prompting him to suggest Tyson be included in the upcoming Nintendo Entertainment System port of the Punch Out!! arcade game. In 1987, Nintendo released Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, which was well received and sold more than a million copies. \n\nTyson had three fights in 1988. He faced Larry Holmes on January 22, 1988, and defeated the legendary former champion by a fourth round KO. This was the only knockout loss Holmes suffered in 75 professional bouts. In March, Tyson then fought contender Tony Tubbs in Tokyo, Japan, fitting in an easy two-round victory amid promotional and marketing work. \n\nOn June 27, 1988, Tyson faced Michael Spinks. Spinks, who had taken the heavyweight championship from Larry Holmes via a 15-round decision in 1985, had not lost his title in the ring but was not recognized as champion by the major boxing organizations. Holmes had previously given up all but the IBF title, and that was eventually stripped from Spinks after he elected to fight Gerry Cooney (winning by a 5th-round TKO) rather than IBF Number 1 Contender Tony Tucker, as the Cooney fight provided him a larger purse. However, Spinks did become the lineal champion by beating Holmes and many (including Ring magazine) considered him to have a legitimate claim to being the true heavyweight champion. The bout was, at the time, the richest fight in history and expectations were very high. Boxing pundits were predicting a titanic battle of styles, with Tyson's aggressive infighting conflicting with Spinks' skillful out-boxing and footwork. The fight ended after 91 seconds when Tyson knocked Spinks out in the first round; many consider this to be the pinnacle of Tyson's fame and boxing ability. Spinks, previously unbeaten, would never fight professionally again.\n\nControversy and upset\n\nDuring this period, Tyson's problems outside boxing were also starting to emerge. His marriage to Robin Givens was heading for divorce, and his future contract was being fought over by Don King and Bill Cayton. In late 1988, Tyson parted with manager Bill Cayton and fired longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, the man many credit for honing Tyson's craft after the death of D'Amato. Following Rooney's departure, critics alleged that Tyson began to use the Peek-a-Boo style sporadically. Tyson insisted he hadn't altered the style that made him a world champion. In 1989, Tyson had only two fights amid personal turmoil. He faced the popular British boxer Frank Bruno in February. Bruno managed to stun Tyson at the end of the 1st round, although Tyson went on to knock out Bruno in the fifth round. Tyson then knocked out Carl \"The Truth\" Williams in one round in July. \n\nBy 1990, Tyson seemed to have lost direction, and his personal life was in disarray amidst reports of less vigorous training prior to the Douglas match. In a fight on February 11, 1990, he lost the undisputed championship to Buster Douglas in Tokyo. Tyson was a huge betting favorite; indeed, the Mirage, the only casino to put out odds for the fight, made Tyson a 42/1 favorite. However, Douglas was at an emotional peak after losing his mother to a stroke 23 days prior to the fight; Douglas fought the fight of his life. Contrary to reports that Tyson was out of shape, it has been noted at the time of the fight that he had pronounced muscles, an absence of body fat and weighed 220 and 1/2 pounds, only two pounds more than he had weighed when he beat Michael Spinks 20 months earlier. Mentally, however, Tyson was unprepared. He failed to find a way past Douglas's quick jab that had a 12 in reach advantage over his own. Tyson did catch Douglas with an uppercut in the eighth round and knocked him to the floor, but Douglas recovered sufficiently to hand Tyson a heavy beating in the subsequent two rounds. (After the fight, the Tyson camp would complain that the count was slow and that Douglas had taken longer than ten seconds to get to his feet.) Just 35 seconds into the 10th round, Douglas unleashed a brutal uppercut, followed by a four-punch combination of hooks that sent Tyson to the canvas for the first time in his career. He was counted out by referee Octavio Meyran.\n\nThe knockout victory by Douglas over Tyson, the previously undefeated \"baddest man on the planet\" and arguably the most feared boxer in professional boxing at that time, has been described as one of the most shocking upsets in modern sports history. \n\nAfter Douglas\n\nAfter the loss, Tyson recovered with first-round knockouts of Henry Tillman and Alex Stewart in his next two fights. Tyson's victory over Tillman, the 1984 Olympic heavyweight gold medalist, enabled Tyson to avenge his amateur losses at Tillman's hands. These bouts set up an elimination match for another shot at the undisputed world heavyweight championship, which Evander Holyfield had taken from Douglas in his first defense of the title.\n\nTyson, who was the number one contender, faced number two contender Donovan \"Razor\" Ruddock on March 18, 1991, in Las Vegas. Ruddock was seen as the most dangerous heavyweight around and was thought of as one of the hardest punching heavyweights. Tyson and Ruddock went back and forth for most of the fight, until referee Richard Steele controversially stopped the fight during the seventh round in favor of Tyson. This decision infuriated the fans in attendance, sparking a post-fight melee in the audience. The referee had to be escorted from the ring. \n\nTyson and Ruddock met again on June 28 that year, with Tyson knocking down Ruddock twice and winning a 12 round unanimous decision. A fight between Tyson and Holyfield for the undisputed championship was scheduled for November 8, 1991 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, but Tyson pulled out after sustaining a rib cartilage injury during training.\n\nRape conviction, prison, and conversion\n\nTyson was arrested in July 1991 for the rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington, Miss Black Rhode Island, in an Indianapolis hotel room. Tyson's rape trial took place in the Marion County superior court from January 26, 1992 to February 10, 1992.\n\nDesiree Washington testified that she received a phone call from Tyson at 1:36 am on July 19, 1991 inviting her to a party. Having joined Tyson in his limousine, Washington testified that Tyson made sexual advances towards her. She testified that upon arriving at his hotel room, Tyson pinned her down on his bed and raped her despite her pleas to stop. She ran out of the room and asked Tyson's chauffeur to drive her back to her hotel. Partial corroboration of Washington's story came via testimony from Tyson's chauffeur, Virginia Foster, who confirmed Desiree Washington's state of shock. Further testimony came from Thomas Richardson, the emergency room physician who examined Washington more than 24 hours after the incident and confirmed that Washington's physical condition was consistent with rape. \n\nUnder lead defense lawyer Vincent J. Fuller's direct examination, Tyson claimed that everything had taken place with Washington's full cooperation and he claimed not to have forced himself upon her. When he was cross-examined by lead prosecutor Gregory Garrison, Tyson denied claims that he had misled Washington and insisted that she wanted to have sex with him. Because of Tyson's hostile and defensive responses to the questions during cross-examination, some have speculated that his behavior made him unlikable to the jury who saw him as brutish and arrogant. Tyson was convicted on the rape charge on February 10, 1992 after the jury deliberated for nearly 10 hours. \n\nAlan Dershowitz, acting as Tyson's counsel, filed an appeal urging error of law in the Court's exclusion of evidence of the victim's past sexual conduct, the exclusion of three potential defense witnesses, and the lack of a jury instruction on honest and reasonable mistake of fact. The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled against Tyson in a 2–1 vote.\n\nOn March 26, 1992, Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison followed by four years on probation. In spite of being 25 years old at the time he committed the rape, he was assigned to the Indiana Youth Center (now the Plainfield Correctional Facility) in April 1992, and he was released in March 1995 after serving less than three years of his six-year sentence. Hakeem Olajuwon claims that during his incarceration, Tyson converted to Islam. \n\nDue to his conviction, Tyson is required to register as a tier II sex offender under federal law. \nAs of May, 2016, he is so registered, as Michael Tyson, in Henderson, Nevada.\n\nComeback\n\nAfter being paroled from prison, Tyson easily won his comeback bouts against Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr.. Tyson's first comeback fight grossed more than US$96 million worldwide, including a United States record $63 million for PPV television. The fight was purchased by 1.52 million homes, setting both PPV viewership and revenue records. The 89-second fight elicited criticism that Tyson's management lined up \"tomato cans\" to ensure easy victories for his return. TV Guide included the Tyson-McNeeley fight in their list of the 50 Greatest TV Sports Moments of All Time in 1998. \n\nTyson regained one belt by easily winning the WBC title from Frank Bruno in March 1996. It was the second fight between the two, and Tyson knocked Bruno out in the third round. Tyson added the WBA belt by defeating champion Bruce Seldon in one round in September that year. Seldon was severely criticized and mocked in the popular press for seemingly collapsing to innocuous punches from Tyson. \n\nTyson–Holyfield fights\n\nTyson vs. Holyfield I\n\nTyson attempted to defend the WBA title against Evander Holyfield, who was in the fourth fight of his own comeback. Holyfield had retired in 1994 following the loss of his championship to Michael Moorer. It was said that Don King and others saw former champion Holyfield, who was 34 at the time of the fight and a huge underdog, as a washed-up fighter. \n\nOn November 9, 1996, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Tyson faced Holyfield in a title bout dubbed \"Finally.\" In a surprising turn of events, Holyfield, who was given virtually no chance to win by numerous commentators, defeated Tyson by TKO when referee Mitch Halpern stopped the bout in round 11. Holyfield became the second boxer to win a heavyweight championship belt three times. Holyfield's victory was marred by allegations from Tyson's camp of Holyfield's frequent headbutts during the bout. Although the headbutts were ruled accidental by the referee, they would become a point of contention in the subsequent rematch. \n\nTyson vs. Holyfield II and aftermath\n\nTyson and Holyfield fought again on June 28, 1997. Originally, Halpern was supposed to be the referee, but after Tyson's camp protested, Halpern stepped aside in favor of Mills Lane. The highly anticipated rematch was dubbed The Sound and the Fury, and it was held at the Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena, site of the first bout. It was a lucrative event, drawing even more attention than the first bout and grossing $100 million. Tyson received $30 million and Holyfield $35 million, the highest paid professional boxing purses until 2007. The fight was purchased by 1.99 million households, setting a pay-per-view buy rate record that stood until the May 5, 2007, De La Hoya-Mayweather boxing match. \n\nSoon to become one of the most controversial events in modern sports, the fight was stopped at the end of the third round, with Tyson disqualified for biting Holyfield on both ears. The first time Tyson bit him, the match was temporarily stopped. Referee Mills Lane deducted two points from Tyson and the fight resumed. However, after the match resumed, Tyson did it again; Tyson was disqualified and Holyfield won the match. One bite was severe enough to remove a piece of Holyfield's right ear, which was found on the ring floor after the fight. Tyson later stated that his actions were retaliation for Holyfield repeatedly headbutting him without penalty. In the confusion that followed the ending of the bout and announcement of the decision, a near riot erupted in the arena and several people were injured. \n\nAs a subsequent fallout from the incident, US$3 million was immediately withheld from Tyson's $30-million purse by the Nevada state boxing commission (the most it could legally hold back at the time). Two days after the fight, Tyson issued a statement, apologizing to Holyfield for his actions and asked not to be banned for life over the incident. Tyson was roundly condemned in the news media but was not without defenders. Novelist and commentator Katherine Dunn wrote a column that criticized Holyfield's sportsmanship in the controversial bout and charged the news media with being biased against Tyson. \n\nOn July 9, 1997, Tyson's boxing license was rescinded by the Nevada State Athletic Commission in a unanimous voice vote; he was also fined US$3 million and ordered to pay the legal costs of the hearing. As most state athletic commissions honor sanctions imposed by other states, this effectively made Tyson unable to box in the United States. The revocation was not permanent, as the commission voted 4–1 to restore Tyson's boxing license on October 18, 1998. \n\nDuring his time away from boxing in 1998, Tyson made a guest appearance at WrestleMania XIV as an enforcer for the main event match between Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin. During this time, Tyson was also an unofficial member of D-Generation X. Tyson was paid $3 million for being guest enforcer of the match at WrestleMania XIV. \n\n1999 to 2005\n\nAfter Holyfield\n\nIn January 1999, Tyson returned to the ring to fight the South African Francois Botha, in another fight that ended in controversy. While Botha initially controlled the fight, Tyson allegedly attempted to break Botha's arms during a tie-up and both boxers were cautioned by the referee in the ill-tempered bout. Botha was ahead on points on all scorecards and was confident enough to mock Tyson as the fight continued. Nonetheless, Tyson landed a straight right-hand in the fifth round that knocked out Botha. Critics noticed Tyson stopped using the bob and weave defense altogether following this return. \n\nLegal problems caught up with Tyson once again. On February 5, 1999, Tyson was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, fined $5,000, and ordered to serve two years probation and perform 200 hours of community service for assaulting two motorists after a traffic accident on August 31, 1998. He served nine months of that sentence. After his release, he fought Orlin Norris on October 23, 1999. Tyson knocked down Norris with a left hook thrown after the bell sounded to end the first round. Norris injured his knee when he went down and said he was unable to continue the fight. Consequently, the bout was ruled a no contest. \n\nIn 2000, Tyson had three fights. The first was staged at the MEN Arena, Manchester, England against Julius Francis. Following controversy as to whether Tyson should be allowed into the country, he took four minutes to knock out Francis, ending the bout in the second round. He also fought Lou Savarese in June 2000 in Glasgow, winning in the first round; the fight lasted only 38 seconds. Tyson continued punching after the referee had stopped the fight, knocking the referee to the floor as he tried to separate the boxers. In October, Tyson fought the similarly controversial Andrew Golota, winning in round three after Gołota was unable to continue due to a broken jaw. The result was later changed to no contest after Tyson refused to take a pre-fight drug test and then tested positive for marijuana in a post-fight urine test. Tyson fought only once in 2001, beating Brian Nielsen in Copenhagen with a seventh round TKO. \n\nLewis vs. Tyson\n\nTyson once again had the opportunity to fight for a heavyweight championship in 2002. Lennox Lewis held the WBC, IBF, IBO and Lineal titles at the time. As promising amateurs, Tyson and Lewis had sparred at a training camp in a meeting arranged by Cus D'Amato in 1984. Tyson sought to fight Lewis in Nevada for a more lucrative box-office venue, but the Nevada Boxing Commission refused him a license to box as he was facing possible sexual assault charges at the time. \n\nTwo years prior to the bout, Tyson had made several inflammatory remarks to Lewis in an interview following the Savarese fight. The remarks included the statement \"I want your heart, I want to eat your children.\" On January 22, 2002, the two boxers and their entourages were involved in a brawl at a New York press conference to publicize the planned event. A few weeks later, the Nevada State Athletic Commission refused to grant Tyson a license for the fight, forcing the promoters to make alternative arrangements. After multiple states balked at granting Tyson a license, the fight eventually occurred on June 8 at the Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee. Lewis dominated the fight and knocked out Tyson with a right hook in the eighth round. Tyson was respectful after the fight and praised Lewis on his victory. This fight was the highest-grossing event in pay-per-view history at that time, generating $106.9 million from 1.95 million buys in the USA.\n\nLate career, bankruptcy and retirement\n\nIn another Memphis fight on February 22, 2003, Tyson beat fringe contender Clifford Etienne 49 seconds into round one. The pre-fight was marred by rumors of Tyson's lack of fitness. Some said that he took time out from training to party in Las Vegas and get a new facial tattoo. This would be Tyson's final professional victory in the ring.\n\nIn August 2003, after years of financial struggles, Tyson finally filed for bankruptcy. In 2003, amid all his economic troubles, he was named by The Ring at number 16, right behind Sonny Liston, among the 100 greatest punchers of all time.\n\nOn August 13, 2003, Tyson entered the ring for a face-to-face confrontation against K-1 fighting phenom Bob Sapp immediately after Sapp's win against Kimo Leopoldo in Las Vegas. K-1 signed Tyson to a contract with the hopes of making a fight happen between the two, but Tyson's felony history made it impossible for him to obtain a visa to enter Japan, where the fight would have been most profitable. Alternative locations were discussed, but the fight ultimately failed to happen. \n\nOn July 30, 2004, Tyson faced British boxer Danny Williams in another comeback fight, this time staged in Louisville, Kentucky. Tyson dominated the opening two rounds. The third round was even, with Williams getting in some clean blows and also a few illegal ones, for which he was penalized. In the fourth round, Tyson was unexpectedly knocked out. After the fight, it was revealed that Tyson was trying to fight on one leg, having torn a ligament in his other knee in the first round. This was Tyson's fifth career defeat. He underwent surgery for the ligament four days after the fight. His manager, Shelly Finkel, claimed that Tyson was unable to throw meaningful right-hand punches since he had a knee injury. \n\nOn June 11, 2005, Tyson stunned the boxing world by quitting before the start of the seventh round in a close bout against journeyman Kevin McBride. In the 2008 documentary Tyson, he stated that he fought McBride for a payday, that he did not anticipate winning, that he was in poor physical condition and fed up with taking boxing seriously. After losing three of his last four fights, Tyson said he would quit boxing because he felt he had lost his passion for the sport. \n\nWhen Tyson fired everyone working for him and got new accountants in 2000, they prepared a statement showing he started the year $3.3 million in the hole but made $65.7 million. \"The problem was that I spent $62 million that year,' Tyson said, \"I just said to myself, Wow, this is over. Now I can go out and really have fun.\". In August 2007, Tyson pleaded guilty to drug possession and driving under the influence in an Arizona court, which stemmed from an arrest in December where authorities said Tyson, who has a long history of legal problems, admitted to using cocaine that day and to being addicted to the drug. \n\nExhibition tour\n\nTo help pay off his debts, Tyson returned to the ring in 2006 for a series of four-round exhibitions against journeyman heavyweight Corey \"T-Rex\" Sanders in Youngstown, Ohio. Tyson, without headgear at 5 ft 10.5 in and 216 pounds, was in great shape, but far from his prime against Sanders, with headgear at 6 ft 8 in and 293 pounds, a loser of his last seven pro bouts and nearly blind from a detached retina in his left eye. Tyson appeared to be \"holding back\" in these exhibitions to prevent an early end to the \"show\". \"If I don't get out of this financial quagmire there's a possibility I may have to be a punching bag for somebody. The money I make isn't going to help my bills from a tremendous standpoint, but I'm going to feel better about myself. I'm not going to be depressed\", explained Tyson about the reasons for his \"comeback\". \n\nLegacy\n\nA 1998 ranking of \"The Greatest Heavyweights of All-Time\" by Ring magazine placed Tyson at No.14 on the list. Despite criticism of facing underwhelming competition during his run as champion, Tyson's knockout power and intimidation factor made him the sport's most dynamic box office attraction. According to Douglas Quenqua of The New York Times, \"The [1990s] began with Mike Tyson, considered by many to be the last great heavyweight champion, losing his title to the little-known Buster Douglas. Seven years later, Mr. Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear in a heavyweight champion bout — hardly a proud moment for the sport.\" \n\nIn Ring Magazine's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years, released in 2002, Tyson was ranked at No. 72. He is ranked No. 16 on Ring Magazines 2003 list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. \n\nOn June 12, 2011, Tyson was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame alongside legendary Mexican champion Julio César Chávez, light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, and actor/screenwriter Sylvester Stallone. \n\nAfter professional boxing\n\nIn an interview with USA Today published on June 3, 2005, Tyson said, \"My whole life has been a waste – I've been a failure.\" He continued: \"I just want to escape. I'm really embarrassed with myself and my life. I want to be a missionary. I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country. I want to get this part of my life over as soon as possible. In this country nothing good is going to come of me. People put me so high; I wanted to tear that image down.\" Tyson began to spend much of his time tending to his 350 pigeons in Paradise Valley, an upscale enclave near Phoenix, Arizona. \n\nTyson has stayed in the limelight by promoting various websites and companies. In the past Tyson had shunned endorsements, accusing other athletes of putting on a false front to obtain them. Tyson has held entertainment boxing shows at a casino in Las Vegas and started a tour of exhibition bouts to pay off his numerous debts. \n\nOn December 29, 2006, Tyson was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, on suspicion of DUI and felony drug possession; he nearly crashed into a police SUV shortly after leaving a nightclub. According to a police probable-cause statement, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, \"[Tyson] admitted to using [drugs] today and stated he is an addict and has a problem.\" Tyson pleaded not guilty on January 22, 2007 in Maricopa County Superior Court to felony drug possession and paraphernalia possession counts and two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence of drugs. On February 8 he checked himself into an inpatient treatment program for \"various addictions\" while awaiting trial on the drug charges. \n\nOn September 24, 2007, Mike Tyson pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and driving under the influence. He was convicted of these charges in November 2007 and sentenced to 24 hours in jail, 360 hours community service and 3 years probation. Prosecutors had requested a year-long jail sentence, but the judge praised Tyson for seeking help with his drug problems. On November 11, 2009, Mike Tyson was arrested after getting into a scuffle at Los Angeles International airport with a photographer. No charges were filed.\n\nTyson has taken acting roles in movies and television, most famously playing a fictionalized version of himself in the 2009 film The Hangover. Tyson has continued to appear in the WWE. \n\nIn September 2011, Tyson gave an interview in which he made comments about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin that included crude and violent descriptions of interracial sex. These comments were then reprinted on the Daily Caller website. Journalist Greta van Susteren criticized Tyson and the Daily Caller over the comments, which she described as \"smut\" and \"violence against women\". \n\nAfter debuting a one-man show in Las Vegas, Tyson teamed up with director Spike Lee and brought the show to Broadway in August 2012. In February 2013, Tyson took his one-man show Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth on a 36-city, three-month national tour. Tyson talks about his personal and professional life on stage. The one-man show was aired on HBO on November 16, 2013.\n\nIn October 2012, Tyson launched the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation. The mission of the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation is to \"give kids a fighting chance\" by providing innovative centers that provide for the comprehensive needs of kids from broken homes.\n\nIn August 2013, Tyson teamed up with Acquinity Interactive CEO Garry Jonas to form Iron Mike Productions, a boxing promotions company, formerly known as Acquinity Sports.\n\nIn September 2013, Tyson was featured on a six-episode television series on Fox Sports 1 that documented his personal and private life entitled \"Being Mike Tyson\". \n\nIn November 2013, Tyson released his book Undisputed Truth, which also made it on The New York Times Best Seller list. An animated series named Mike Tyson Mysteries, featuring Tyson solving mysteries in the style of Scooby-Doo, premiered on Adult Swim in late October 2014. \n\nIn early March 2015, Tyson appeared on the track \"Iconic\" on Madonna's album Rebel Heart. Tyson says some lines at the beginning of the song. \n\nIn late March 2015, Ip Man 3 was announced. With Donnie Yen reprising his role as the titular character, Bruce Lee's martial arts master, Ip Man, while Mike Tyson has been confirmed to join the cast. Principal photography began on March 25, 2015, and was premiered in Hong Kong on 16 December 2015.\n\nPersonal life\n\nTyson resides in Seven Hills, Nevada. He has been married three times. He has fathered seven children, one deceased, by three women; in addition to his biological children, Tyson includes the oldest daughter of his second wife as one of his own. \n\nHis first marriage was to actress Robin Givens, from February 7, 1988 to February 14, 1989. Givens was famous for her work on the sitcom Head of the Class. Tyson's marriage to Givens was especially tumultuous, with allegations of violence, spousal abuse and mental instability on Tyson's part. Matters came to a head when Tyson and Givens gave a joint interview with Barbara Walters on the ABC TV newsmagazine show 20/20 in September 1988, in which Givens described life with Tyson as \"torture, pure hell, worse than anything I could possibly imagine.\" Givens also described Tyson as \"manic depressive\" on national television while Tyson looked on with an intent and calm expression. A month later, Givens announced that she was seeking a divorce from the allegedly abusive Tyson. They had no children but she reported having had a miscarriage; Tyson reports that she was never pregnant and only used that to get him to marry her. During their marriage, the couple lived in a mansion in Bernardsville, New Jersey. \n\nHis second marriage was to Monica Turner from April 19, 1997 to January 14, 2003. At the time of the divorce filing, Turner worked as a pediatric resident at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She is the sister of Michael Steele, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and former Republican National Committee Chairman. Turner filed for divorce from Tyson in January 2002, claiming that he committed adultery during their five-year marriage, an act that \"has neither been forgiven nor condoned.\" The couple had two children; son Amir, and daughter Rayna.\n\nOn May 25, 2009, Tyson's four-year-old daughter Exodus was found by her seven-year-old brother Miguel, unconscious and tangled in a cord, dangling from an exercise treadmill. The child's mother untangled her, administered CPR and called for medical attention. She died of her injuries on May 26, 2009. \n\nEleven days after his daughter's death, Tyson wed for the third time, to longtime girlfriend Lakiha \"Kiki\" Spicer, age 32, exchanging vows on Saturday, June 6, 2009, in a short, private ceremony at the La Bella Wedding Chapel at the Las Vegas Hilton. They have two children; daughter, Milan, and son, Morocco.\n\nTyson has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. While on the American talk show The View in early May 2010, Tyson revealed that he is now forced to live paycheck to paycheck. He went on to say: \"I'm totally destitute and broke. But I have an awesome life, I have an awesome wife who cares about me. ... I'm totally broke. I had a lot of fun. It [going broke] just happened. I'm very grateful. I don't deserve to have the wife that I have; I don't deserve the kids that I have, but I do, and I'm very grateful.\"\n\nIn March 2011, Tyson appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to discuss his new Animal Planet reality series, Taking on Tyson. In the interview with DeGeneres, Tyson discussed some of the ways he had improved his life in the past two years, including sober living and a vegan diet. However, in August 2013 he admitted publicly that he had lied about his sobriety and was on the verge of death from alcoholism. \n\nIn December 2013, during an interview with Fox News, Tyson talked about his progress with sobriety and how being in the company of good people has made him want to be a better and more humble person. Tyson also talked about religion and said that he is very grateful to be a Muslim and that he needs Allah. He also revealed that he is no longer vegan after four years.\n\nIn 2015, Tyson announced that he was supporting Donald Trump's presidential candidacy. \n\nIn popular culture\n\nAt the height of his fame and career in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Tyson was one of the most recognized sports personalities in the world. Apart from his many sporting accomplishments, his outrageous and controversial behavior in the ring and in his private life has kept him in the public eye and in the courtroom. As such, Tyson has appeared in myriad popular media in cameo appearances in film and television. He has also been featured in video games and as a subject of parody or satire.\n\nThe Blackstreet single \"Booti Call\" was written about Tyson's rape trial and conviction. Boogie Down Productions' 1992 song \"Say Gal\" also addressed the rape trial. \n\nThe film Tyson was released in 1995 and was directed by Uli Edel. It explores the life of Mike Tyson, from the death of his guardian and trainer Cus D'Amato to his rape conviction. Tyson is played by Michael Jai White.\n\nPublished in 2007, author Joe Layden's book The Last Great Fight: The Extraordinary Tale of Two Men and How One Fight Changed Their Lives Forever, chronicled the lives of Tyson and Douglas before and after their heavyweight championship fight. The book received positive reviews and claimed the fight was essentially the beginning of the end of boxing's popularity in mainstream sports.\n\nIn 2008, the critically acclaimed documentary Tyson premiered at the annual Cannes Film Festival in France. The film was directed by James Toback and has interviews with Tyson and clips of his fights and from his personal life.\n\nThe Felice Brothers, a folk-rock band from Upstate New York, released a song on their 2011 album Celebration, Florida titled \"Cus's Catskill Gym\". The song tells the story, albeit briefly, of Mike Tyson and a few notable characters and moments in his life.\n\nHe is the titular character in Mike Tyson Mysteries, which started airing on October 27, 2014 on Adult Swim. \n\nProfessional boxing record\n\nTitles in boxing\n\n!colspan3 style\n\"background:#C1D8FF;\"|Amateur titles\n\n!colspan3 style\n\"background:#C1D8FF;\"|World titles\n\nPay-per-view bouts\n\nAwards and honors\n\nSource: \n\nBoxing\n\n*Ring magazine Prospect of the Year (1985)\n*2× Ring magazine Fighter of the Year (1986, 1988)\n*2× Sugar Ray Robinson Award winner (1987, 1989)\n*BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality (1989)\n*International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee (Class of 2011)\n\nProfessional wrestling\n\n* WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2012) \n\nActing\n\n* 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (as a cast member of The Hangover)",
"Boxing is a martial art and combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring.\n\nAmateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth sport and is a common fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds. The result is decided when an opponent is deemed incapable to continue by a referee, is disqualified for breaking a rule, resigns by throwing in a towel, or is pronounced the winner or loser based on the judges' scorecards at the end of the contest. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw (professional boxing). In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout.\n\nWhile people have fought in hand-to-hand combat since before the dawn of history, the origin of boxing as an organized sport may be its acceptance by the ancient Greeks as an Olympic game in BC 688. Boxing evolved from 16th- and 18th-century prizefights, largely in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid-19th century, again initially in Great Britain and later in the United States.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient history\n\nSee also Ancient Greek boxing\n\nThe earliest known depiction of boxing comes from a Sumerian relief in Iraq from the 3rd millennium BCE Later depictions from the 2nd millennium BC are found in reliefs from the Mesopotamian nations of Assyria and Babylonia, and in Hittite art from Asia Minor. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete (c.1650–1400 BCE), and on Sardinia, if we consider the boxing statues of Prama mountains (c. 2000–1000 BC).\n\nBoxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists. Eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex ('limb piercer'). Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events. However, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor. This is where the term ring came from. In AD 393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality. It was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London.\n\nEarly London prize ring rules\n\nRecords of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again and interest in fighting with the fists waned. However, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or \"Fist Fighting\".\n\nAs the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a bare-knuckle fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury, and the first English bare-knuckle champion was James Figg in 1719. This is also the time when the word \"boxing\" first came to be used. It should be noted, that this earliest form of modern boxing was very different. Contests in Mr. Figg's time, in addition to fist fighting, also contained fencing and cudgeling. On 6 January 1681, the first recorded boxing match took place in Britain when Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (and later Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica) engineered a bout between his butler and his butcher with the latter winning the prize.\n\nEarly fighting had no written rules. There were no weight divisions or round limits, and no referee. In general, it was extremely chaotic. An early article on boxing was published in Nottingham, 1713, by Sir Thomas Parkyns, a successful Wrestler from Bunny, Nottinghamshire, who had practised the techniques he described. The article, a single page in his manual of wrestling and fencing, Progymnasmata: The inn-play, or Cornish-hugg wrestler, described a system of headbutting, punching, eye-gouging, chokes, and hard throws, not recognized in boxing today. \n\nThe first boxing rules, called the Broughton's rules, were introduced by champion Jack Broughton in 1743 to protect fighters in the ring where deaths sometimes occurred. Under these rules, if a man went down and could not continue after a count of 30 seconds, the fight was over. Hitting a downed fighter and grasping below the waist were prohibited. Broughton encouraged the use of 'mufflers', a form of padded bandage or mitten, to be used in 'jousting' or sparring sessions in training, and in exhibition matches.\n\nThese rules did allow the fighters an advantage not enjoyed by today's boxers; they permitted the fighter to drop to one knee to begin a 30-second count at any time. Thus a fighter realizing he was in trouble had an opportunity to recover. However, this was considered \"unmanly\" and was frequently disallowed by additional rules negotiated by the Seconds of the Boxers. Intentionally going down in modern boxing will cause the recovering fighter to lose points in the scoring system. Furthermore, as the contestants did not have heavy leather gloves and wristwraps to protect their hands, they used different punching technique to preserve their hands, because the head was a common target to hit full out. Almost all period manuals have powerful straight punches with the whole body behind them to the face (including forehead) as the basic blows. \n\nMarquess of Queensberry rules (1867)\n\nIn 1867, the Marquess of Queensberry rules were drafted by John Chambers for amateur championships held at Lillie Bridge in London for Lightweights, Middleweights and Heavyweights. The rules were published under the patronage of the Marquess of Queensberry, whose name has always been associated with them.\n\nThere were twelve rules in all, and they specified that fights should be \"a fair stand-up boxing match\" in a 24-foot-square or similar ring. Rounds were three minutes with one-minute rest intervals between rounds. Each fighter was given a ten-second count if he was knocked down, and wrestling was banned.\nThe introduction of gloves of \"fair-size\" also changed the nature of the bouts. An average pair of boxing gloves resembles a bloated pair of mittens and are laced up around the wrists. \nThe gloves can be used to block an opponent's blows. As a result of their introduction, bouts became longer and more strategic with greater importance attached to defensive maneuvers such as slipping, bobbing, countering and angling. Because less defensive emphasis was placed on the use of the forearms and more on the gloves, the classical forearms outwards, torso leaning back stance of the bare knuckle boxer was modified to a more modern stance in which the torso is tilted forward and the hands are held closer to the face.\n\nLate 19th and early 20th centuries\n\nThrough the late nineteenth century, the martial art of boxing or prizefighting was primarily a sport of dubious legitimacy. Outlawed in England and much of the United States, prizefights were often held at gambling venues and broken up by police. Brawling and wrestling tactics continued, and riots at prizefights were common occurrences. Still, throughout this period, there arose some notable bare knuckle champions who developed fairly sophisticated fighting tactics.\n\nThe English case of R v. Coney in 1882 found that a bare-knuckle fight was an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, despite the consent of the participants. This marked the end of widespread public bare-knuckle contests in England.\n\nThe first world heavyweight champion under the Queensberry Rules was \"Gentleman Jim\" Corbett, who defeated John L. Sullivan in 1892 at the Pelican Athletic Club in New Orleans. \n\nThe first instance of film censorship in the United States occurred in 1897 when several states banned the showing of prize fighting films from the state of Nevada, where it was legal at the time.\n\nThroughout the early twentieth century, boxers struggled to achieve legitimacy. They were aided by the influence of promoters like Tex Rickard and the popularity of great champions such as John L. Sullivan.\n\nRules\n\nThe Marquess of Queensberry rules have been the general rules governing modern boxing since their publication in 1867.\n\nA boxing match typically consists of a determined number of three-minute rounds, a total of up to 9 to 12 rounds. A minute is typically spent between each round with the fighters in their assigned corners receiving advice and attention from their coach and staff. The fight is controlled by a referee who works within the ring to judge and control the conduct of the fighters, rule on their ability to fight safely, count knocked-down fighters, and rule on fouls.\n\nUp to three judges are typically present at ringside to score the bout and assign points to the boxers, based on punches that connect, defense, knockdowns, and other, more subjective, measures. Because of the open-ended style of boxing judging, many fights have controversial results, in which one or both fighters believe they have been \"robbed\" or unfairly denied a victory. Each fighter has an assigned corner of the ring, where his or her coach, as well as one or more \"seconds\" may administer to the fighter at the beginning of the fight and between rounds. Each boxer enters into the ring from their assigned corners at the beginning of each round and must cease fighting and return to their corner at the signaled end of each round.\n\nA bout in which the predetermined number of rounds passes is decided by the judges, and is said to \"go the distance\". The fighter with the higher score at the end of the fight is ruled the winner. With three judges, unanimous and split decisions are possible, as are draws. A boxer may win the bout before a decision is reached through a knock-out ; such bouts are said to have ended \"inside the distance\". If a fighter is knocked down during the fight, determined by whether the boxer touches the canvas floor of the ring with any part of their body other than the feet as a result of the opponent's punch and not a slip, as determined by the referee, the referee begins counting until the fighter returns to his or her feet and can continue.\n\nShould the referee count to ten, then the knocked-down boxer is ruled \"knocked out\" (whether unconscious or not) and the other boxer is ruled the winner by knockout (KO). A \"technical knock-out\" (TKO) is possible as well, and is ruled by the referee, fight doctor, or a fighter's corner if a fighter is unable to safely continue to fight, based upon injuries or being judged unable to effectively defend themselves. Many jurisdictions and sanctioning agencies also have a \"three-knockdown rule\", in which three knockdowns in a given round result in a TKO. A TKO is considered a knockout in a fighter's record. A \"standing eight\" count rule may also be in effect. This gives the referee the right to step in and administer a count of eight to a fighter that he feels may be in danger, even if no knockdown has taken place. After counting the referee will observe the fighter, and decide if he is fit to continue. For scoring purposes, a standing eight count is treated as a knockdown.\n\nIn general, boxers are prohibited from hitting below the belt, holding, tripping, pushing, biting, or spitting. The boxer's shorts are raised so the opponent is not allowed to hit to the groin area with intent to cause pain or injury. Failure to abide by the former may result in a foul. They also are prohibited from kicking, head-butting, or hitting with any part of the arm other than the knuckles of a closed fist (including hitting with the elbow, shoulder or forearm, as well as with open gloves, the wrist, the inside, back or side of the hand). They are prohibited as well from hitting the back, back of the neck or head (called a \"rabbit-punch\") or the kidneys. They are prohibited from holding the ropes for support when punching, holding an opponent while punching, or ducking below the belt of their opponent (dropping below the waist of your opponent, no matter the distance between).\n\nIf a \"clinch\" – a defensive move in which a boxer wraps his or her opponents arms and holds on to create a pause – is broken by the referee, each fighter must take a full step back before punching again (alternatively, the referee may direct the fighters to \"punch out\" of the clinch). When a boxer is knocked down, the other boxer must immediately cease fighting and move to the furthest neutral corner of the ring until the referee has either ruled a knockout or called for the fight to continue.\n\nViolations of these rules may be ruled \"fouls\" by the referee, who may issue warnings, deduct points, or disqualify an offending boxer, causing an automatic loss, depending on the seriousness and intentionality of the foul. An intentional foul that causes injury that prevents a fight from continuing usually causes the boxer who committed it to be disqualified. A fighter who suffers an accidental low-blow may be given up to five minutes to recover, after which they may be ruled knocked out if they are unable to continue. Accidental fouls that cause injury ending a bout may lead to a \"no contest\" result, or else cause the fight to go to a decision if enough rounds (typically four or more, or at least three in a four-round fight) have passed.\n\nUnheard of these days, but common during the early 20th Century in North America, a \"newspaper decision (NWS)\" might be made after a no decision bout had ended. A \"no decision\" bout occurred when, by law or by pre-arrangement of the fighters, if both boxers were still standing at the fight's conclusion and there was no knockout, no official decision was rendered and neither boxer was declared the winner. But this did not prevent the pool of ringside newspaper reporters from declaring a consensus result among themselves and printing a newspaper decision in their publications. Officially, however, a \"no decision\" bout resulted in neither boxer winning or losing. Boxing historians sometimes use these unofficial newspaper decisions in compiling fight records for illustrative purposes only. Often, media outlets covering a match will personally score the match, and post their scores as an independent sentence in their report.\n\nProfessional vs. amateur boxing\n\nThroughout the 17th to 19th centuries, boxing bouts were motivated by money, as the fighters competed for prize money, promoters controlled the gate, and spectators bet on the result. The modern Olympic movement revived interest in amateur sports, and amateur boxing became an Olympic sport in 1908. In their current form, Olympic and other amateur bouts are typically limited to three or four rounds, scoring is computed by points based on the number of clean blows landed, regardless of impact, and fighters wear protective headgear, reducing the number of injuries, knockdowns, and knockouts. Currently scoring blows in amateur boxing are subjectively counted by ringside judges, but the Australian Institute for Sport has demonstrated a prototype of an Automated Boxing Scoring System, which introduces scoring objectivity, improves safety, and arguably makes the sport more interesting to spectators. Professional boxing remains by far the most popular form of the sport globally, though amateur boxing is dominant in Cuba and some former Soviet republics. For most fighters, an amateur career, especially at the Olympics, serves to develop skills and gain experience in preparation for a professional career.\n\nAmateur boxing\n\nAmateur boxing may be found at the collegiate level, at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, and in many other venues sanctioned by amateur boxing associations. Amateur boxing has a point scoring system that measures the number of clean blows landed rather than physical damage. Bouts consist of three rounds of three minutes in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and three rounds of three minutes in a national ABA (Amateur Boxing Association) bout, each with a one-minute interval between rounds.\n\nCompetitors wear protective headgear and gloves with a white strip or circle across the knuckle. There are cases however, where white ended gloves are not required but any solid color may be worn. The white end just is a way to make it easier for judges to score clean hits. Each competitor must have their hands properly wrapped, pre-fight, for added protection on their hands and for added cushion under the gloves. Gloves worn by the fighters must be twelve ounces in weight unless, the fighters weigh under 165 pounds, thus allowing them to wear 10 ounce gloves. A punch is considered a scoring punch only when the boxers connect with the white portion of the gloves. Each punch that lands cleanly on the head or torso with sufficient force is awarded a point. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows. A belt worn over the torso represents the lower limit of punches – any boxer repeatedly landing low blows below the belt is disqualified. Referees also ensure that the boxers don't use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging. If this occurs, the referee separates the opponents and orders them to continue boxing. Repeated holding can result in a boxer being penalized or ultimately disqualified. Referees will stop the bout if a boxer is seriously injured, if one boxer is significantly dominating the other or if the score is severely imbalanced. Amateur bouts which end this way may be noted as \"RSC\" (referee stopped contest) with notations for an outclassed opponent (RSCO), outscored opponent (RSCOS), injury (RSCI) or head injury (RSCH).\n\nProfessional boxing\n\nProfessional bouts are usually much longer than amateur bouts, typically ranging from ten to twelve rounds, though four-round fights are common for less experienced fighters or club fighters. There are also some two- and three-round professional bouts, especially in Australia. Through the early twentieth century, it was common for fights to have unlimited rounds, ending only when one fighter quit, benefiting high-energy fighters like Jack Dempsey. Fifteen rounds remained the internationally recognized limit for championship fights for most of the twentieth century until the early 1980s, when the death of boxer Duk Koo Kim eventually prompted the World Boxing Council and other organizations sanctioning professional boxing to reduce the limit to twelve rounds.\n\nHeadgear is not permitted in professional bouts, and boxers are generally allowed to take much more damage before a fight is halted. At any time, the referee may stop the contest if he believes that one participant cannot defend himself due to injury. In that case, the other participant is awarded a technical knockout win. A technical knockout would also be awarded if a fighter lands a punch that opens a cut on the opponent, and the opponent is later deemed not fit to continue by a doctor because of the cut. For this reason, fighters often employ cutmen, whose job is to treat cuts between rounds so that the boxer is able to continue despite the cut. If a boxer simply quits fighting, or if his corner stops the fight, then the winning boxer is also awarded a technical knockout victory. In contrast with amateur boxing, professional male boxers have to be bare-chested. \n\nBoxing styles\n\nDefinition of style\n\n\"Style\" is often defined as the strategic approach a fighter takes during a bout. No two fighters' styles are alike, as it is determined by that individual's physical and mental attributes. Three main styles exist in boxing: outside fighter (\"boxer\"), brawler (or \"slugger\"), and Inside fighter (\"swarmer\"). These styles may be divided into several special subgroups, such as counter puncher, etc. The main philosophy of the styles is, that each style has an advantage over one, but disadvantage over the other one. It follows the rock-paper-scissors scenario - boxer beats brawler, brawler beats swarmer, and swarmer beats boxer. \n\nBoxer/out-fighter\n\nA classic \"boxer\" or stylist (also known as an \"out-fighter\") seeks to maintain distance between himself and his opponent, fighting with faster, longer range punches, most notably the jab, and gradually wearing his opponent down. Due to this reliance on weaker punches, out-fighters tend to win by point decisions rather than by knockout, though some out-fighters have notable knockout records. They are often regarded as the best boxing strategists due to their ability to control the pace of the fight and lead their opponent, methodically wearing him down and exhibiting more skill and finesse than a brawler. Out-fighters need reach, hand speed, reflexes, and footwork.\n\nNotable out-fighters include Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Joe Calzaghe Wilfredo Gómez, \nSalvador Sanchez, Cecilia Brækhus, Gene Tunney, Ezzard Charles, Willie Pep, Meldrick Taylor, Ricardo Lopez, Floyd Mayweather, Roy Jones, Jr., Sugar Ray Leonard, Miguel Vazquez, Sergio \"Maravilla\" Martínez, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko, and Guillermo Rigondeaux. This style was also used by fictional boxer Apollo Creed.\n\nBoxer-puncher\n\nA boxer-puncher is a well-rounded boxer who is able to fight at close range with a combination of technique and power, often with the ability to knock opponents out with a combination and in some instances a single shot. Their movement and tactics are similar to that of an out-fighter (although they are generally not as mobile as an out-fighter), but instead of winning by decision, they tend to wear their opponents down using combinations and then move in to score the knockout. A boxer must be well rounded to be effective using this style.\n\nNotable boxer-punchers include Muhammad Ali, Wladimir Klitschko, Lennox Lewis, Joe Louis, Wilfredo Gómez, Oscar de la Hoya, Archie Moore, Miguel Cotto, Nonito Donaire, Sam Langford, Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson, Tony Zale, Carlos Monzón, Alexis Argüello, Erik Morales, Terry Norris, Marco Antonio Barrera, Naseem Hamed and Thomas Hearns.\n\nCounter puncher\n\nCounter punchers are slippery, defensive style fighters who often rely on their opponent's mistakes in order to gain the advantage, whether it be on the score cards or more preferably a knockout. They use their well-rounded defense to avoid or block shots and then immediately catch the opponent off guard with a well placed and timed punch. A fight with a skilled counter-puncher can turn into a war of attrition, where each shot landed is a battle in itself. Thus, fighting against counter punchers requires constant feinting and the ability to avoid telegraphing one's attacks. To be truly successful using this style they must have good reflexes, a high level of prediction and awareness, pinpoint accuracy and speed, both in striking and in footwork.\n\nNotable counter punchers include Muhammad Ali, Vitali Klitschko, Evander Holyfield, Max Schmeling, Chris Byrd, Jim Corbett, Jack Johnson, Bernard Hopkins, Laszlo Papp, Jerry Quarry, Anselmo Moreno, James Toney, Marvin Hagler, Juan Manuel Márquez, Humberto Soto, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Roger Mayweather, Pernell Whitaker, Sergio Gabriel Martinez and Guillermo Rigondeaux.\n\nCounter punchers usually wear their opponents down by causing them to miss their punches. The more the opponent misses, the faster they tire, and the psychological effects of being unable to land a hit will start to sink in. The counter puncher often tries to outplay their opponent entirely, not just in a physical sense, but also in a mental and emotional sense. This style can be incredibly difficult, especially against seasoned fighters, but winning a fight without getting hit is often worth the pay-off. They usually try to stay away from the center of the ring, in order to outmaneuver and chip away at their opponents. A large advantage in counter-hitting is the forward momentum of the attacker, which drives them further into your return strike. As such, knockouts are more common than one would expect from a defensive style.\n\nBrawler/slugger\n\nA brawler is a fighter who generally lacks finesse and footwork in the ring, but makes up for it through sheer punching power. Mainly Irish, Irish-American, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Mexican-American boxers popularized this style. Many brawlers tend to lack mobility, preferring a less mobile, more stable platform and have difficulty pursuing fighters who are fast on their feet. They may also have a tendency to ignore combination punching in favor of continuous beat-downs with one hand and by throwing slower, more powerful single punches (such as hooks and uppercuts). Their slowness and predictable punching pattern (single punches with obvious leads) often leaves them open to counter punches, so successful brawlers must be able to absorb substantial amounts of punishment. However, not all brawler/slugger fighters are not mobile; some can move around and switch styles if needed but still have the brawler/slugger style such as Wilfredo Gómez, Prince Naseem Hamed and Danny García.\n\nA brawler's most important assets are power and chin (the ability to absorb punishment while remaining able to continue boxing). Examples of this style include George Foreman, Rocky Marciano, Julio Cesar Chavez, Roberto Duran, Danny García, Wilfredo Gómez, Sonny Liston, John L. Sullivan, Max Baer, Prince Naseem Hamed, Ray Mancini, David Tua, Arturo Gatti, Micky Ward, Brandon Ríos, Ruslan Provodnikov, Michael Katsidis, James Kirkland, Marcos Maidana, Jake Lamotta, Manny Pacquiao, and Ireland's John Duddy. This style of boxing was also used by fictional boxers Rocky Balboa and James \"Clubber\" Lang.\n\nBrawlers tend to be more predictable and easy to hit but usually fare well enough against other fighting styles because they train to take punches very well. They often have a higher chance than other fighting styles to score a knockout against their opponents because they focus on landing big, powerful hits, instead of smaller, faster attacks. Oftentimes they place focus on training on their upper body instead of their entire body, to increase power and endurance. They also aim to intimidate their opponents because of their power, stature and ability to take a punch.\n\nSwarmer/in-fighter\n\nIn-fighters/swarmers (sometimes called \"pressure fighters\") attempt to stay close to an opponent, throwing intense flurries and combinations of hooks and uppercuts. A successful in-fighter often needs a good \"chin\" because swarming usually involves being hit with many jabs before they can maneuver inside where they are more effective. In-fighters operate best at close range because they are generally shorter and have less reach than their opponents and thus are more effective at a short distance where the longer arms of their opponents make punching awkward. However, several fighters tall for their division have been relatively adept at in-fighting as well as out-fighting.\n\nThe essence of a swarmer is non-stop aggression. Many short in-fighters utilize their stature to their advantage, employing a bob-and-weave defense by bending at the waist to slip underneath or to the sides of incoming punches. Unlike blocking, causing an opponent to miss a punch disrupts his balance, permits forward movement past the opponent's extended arm and keeps the hands free to counter. A distinct advantage that in-fighters have is when throwing uppercuts where they can channel their entire bodyweight behind the punch; Mike Tyson was famous for throwing devastating uppercuts. Marvin Hagler was known for his hard \"chin\", punching power, body attack and the stalking of his opponents. Some in-fighters, like Mike Tyson, have been known for being notoriously hard to hit. The key to a swarmer is aggression, endurance, chin, and bobbing-and-weaving.\n\nNotable in-fighters include Julio César Chávez, Miguel Cotto, Joe Frazier, Danny García, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, Saúl Álvarez, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey, Wayne McCullough, Gerry Penalosa, Harry Greb, David Tua, Ricky Hatton and Gennady Golovkin.\n\nCombinations of styles\n\nAll fighters have primary skills with which they feel most comfortable, but truly elite fighters are often able to incorporate auxiliary styles when presented with a particular challenge. For example, an out-fighter will sometimes plant his feet and counter punch, or a slugger may have the stamina to pressure fight with his power punches.\n\nStyle matchups\n\nThere is a generally accepted rule of thumb about the success each of these boxing styles has against the others. In general, an in-fighter has an advantage over an out-fighter, an out-fighter has an advantage over a brawler, and a brawler has an advantage over an in-fighter; these form a cycle with each style being stronger relative to one, and weaker relative to another, with none dominating, as in rock-paper-scissors. Naturally, many other factors, such as the skill level and training of the combatants, determine the outcome of a fight, but the widely held belief in this relationship among the styles is embodied in the cliché amongst boxing fans and writers that \"styles make fights.\"\n\nBrawlers tend to overcome swarmers or in-fighters because, in trying to get close to the slugger, the in-fighter will invariably have to walk straight into the guns of the much harder-hitting brawler, so, unless the former has a very good chin and the latter's stamina is poor, the brawler's superior power will carry the day. A famous example of this type of match-up advantage would be George Foreman's knockout victory over Joe Frazier in their original bout \"The Sunshine Showdown\".\n\nAlthough in-fighters struggle against heavy sluggers, they typically enjoy more success against out-fighters or boxers. Out-fighters prefer a slower fight, with some distance between themselves and the opponent. The in-fighter tries to close that gap and unleash furious flurries. On the inside, the out-fighter loses a lot of his combat effectiveness, because he cannot throw the hard punches. The in-fighter is generally successful in this case, due to his intensity in advancing on his opponent and his good agility, which makes him difficult to evade. For example, the swarming Joe Frazier, though easily dominated by the slugger George Foreman, was able to create many more problems for the boxer Muhammad Ali in their three fights. Joe Louis, after retirement, admitted that he hated being crowded, and that swarmers like untied/undefeated champ Rocky Marciano would have caused him style problems even in his prime.\n\nThe boxer or out-fighter tends to be most successful against a brawler, whose slow speed (both hand and foot) and poor technique makes him an easy target to hit for the faster out-fighter. The out-fighter's main concern is to stay alert, as the brawler only needs to land one good punch to finish the fight. If the out-fighter can avoid those power punches, he can often wear the brawler down with fast jabs, tiring him out. If he is successful enough, he may even apply extra pressure in the later rounds in an attempt to achieve a knockout. Most classic boxers, such as Muhammad Ali, enjoyed their best successes against sluggers.\n\nAn example of a style matchup was the historical fight of Julio César Chávez, a swarmer or in-fighter, against Meldrick Taylor, the boxer or out-fighter (see Julio César Chávez vs. Meldrick Taylor). The match was nicknamed \"Thunder Meets Lightning\" as an allusion to punching power of Chávez and blinding speed of Taylor. Chávez was the epitome of the \"Mexican\" style of boxing. Taylor's hand and foot speed and boxing abilities gave him the early advantage, allowing him to begin building a large lead on points. Chávez remained relentless in his pursuit of Taylor and due to his greater punching power Chávez slowly punished Taylor. Coming into the later rounds, Taylor was bleeding from the mouth, his entire face was swollen, the bones around his eye socket had been broken, he had swallowed a considerable amount of his own blood, and as he grew tired, Taylor was increasingly forced into exchanging blows with Chávez, which only gave Chávez a greater chance to cause damage. While there was little doubt that Taylor had solidly won the first three quarters of the fight, the question at hand was whether he would survive the final quarter. Going into the final round, Taylor held a secure lead on the scorecards of two of the three judges. Chávez would have to knock Taylor out to claim a victory, whereas Taylor merely needed to stay away from the Mexican legend. However, Taylor did not stay away, but continued to trade blows with Chávez. As he did so, Taylor showed signs of extreme exhaustion, and every tick of the clock brought Taylor closer to victory unless Chávez could knock him out.\nWith about a minute left in the round, Chávez hit Taylor squarely with several hard punches and stayed on the attack, continuing to hit Taylor with well-placed shots. Finally, with about 25 seconds to go, Chávez landed a hard right hand that caused Taylor to stagger forward towards a corner, forcing Chávez back ahead of him. Suddenly Chávez stepped around Taylor, positioning him so that Taylor was trapped in the corner, with no way to escape from Chávez' desperate final flurry. Chávez then nailed Taylor with a tremendous right hand that dropped the younger man. By using the ring ropes to pull himself up, Taylor managed to return to his feet and was given the mandatory 8-count. Referee Richard Steele asked Taylor twice if he was able to continue fighting, but Taylor failed to answer. Steele then concluded that Taylor was unfit to continue and signaled that he was ending the fight, resulting in a TKO victory for Chávez with only two seconds to go in the bout.\n\nEquipment\n\nSince boxing involves forceful, repetitive punching, precautions must be taken to prevent damage to bones in the hand. Most trainers do not allow boxers to train and spar without wrist wraps and boxing gloves. Hand wraps are used to secure the bones in the hand, and the gloves are used to protect the hands from blunt injury, allowing boxers to throw punches with more force than if they did not utilize them. Gloves have been required in competition since the late nineteenth century, though modern boxing gloves are much heavier than those worn by early twentieth-century fighters. Prior to a bout, both boxers agree upon the weight of gloves to be used in the bout, with the understanding that lighter gloves allow heavy punchers to inflict more damage. The brand of gloves can also affect the impact of punches, so this too is usually stipulated before a bout. Both sides are allowed to inspect the wraps and gloves of the opponent to help ensure both are within agreed upon specifications and no tampering has taken place.\n\nA mouth guard is important to protect the teeth and gums from injury, and to cushion the jaw, resulting in a decreased chance of knockout. Both fighters must wear soft soled shoes to reduce the damage from accidental (or intentional) stepping on feet. While older boxing boots more commonly resembled those of a professional wrestler, modern boxing shoes and boots tend to be quite similar to their amateur wrestling counterparts.\n\nBoxers practice their skills on two basic types of punching bags. A small, tear-drop-shaped \"speed bag\" is used to hone reflexes and repetitive punching skills, while a large cylindrical \"heavy bag\" filled with sand, a synthetic substitute, or water is used to practice power punching and body blows. In addition to these distinctive pieces of equipment, boxers also utilize sport-nonspecific training equipment to build strength, speed, agility, and stamina. Common training equipment includes free weights, rowing machines, jump rope, and medicine balls.\n\nBoxing matches typically take place in a boxing ring, a raised platform surrounded by ropes attached to posts rising in each corner. The term \"ring\" has come to be used as a metaphor for many aspects of prize fighting in general.\n\nTechnique\n\nStance\n\nThe modern boxing stance differs substantially from the typical boxing stances of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The modern stance has a more upright vertical-armed guard, as opposed to the more horizontal, knuckles-facing-forward guard adopted by early 20th century hook users such as Jack Johnson.\n\nFile:attitude_droite1.jpg|Upright stance\nFile:attitude_semi-enroulée1.jpg|Semi-crouch\nFile:attitude_enroulée1.jpg|Full crouch\n\nIn a fully upright stance, the boxer stands with the legs shoulder-width apart and the rear foot a half-step in front of the lead man. Right-handed or orthodox boxers lead with the left foot and fist (for most penetration power). Both feet are parallel, and the right heel is off the ground. The lead (left) fist is held vertically about six inches in front of the face at eye level. The rear (right) fist is held beside the chin and the elbow tucked against the ribcage to protect the body. The chin is tucked into the chest to avoid punches to the jaw which commonly cause knock-outs and is often kept slightly off-center. Wrists are slightly bent to avoid damage when punching and the elbows are kept tucked in to protect the ribcage. Some boxers fight from a crouch, leaning forward and keeping their feet closer together. The stance described is considered the \"textbook\" stance and fighters are encouraged to change it around once it's been mastered as a base. Case in point, many fast fighters have their hands down and have almost exaggerated footwork, while brawlers or bully fighters tend to slowly stalk their opponents.\n\nLeft-handed or southpaw fighters use a mirror image of the orthodox stance, which can create problems for orthodox fighters unaccustomed to receiving jabs, hooks, or crosses from the opposite side. The southpaw stance, conversely, is vulnerable to a straight right hand.\n\nNorth American fighters tend to favor a more balanced stance, facing the opponent almost squarely, while many European fighters stand with their torso turned more to the side. The positioning of the hands may also vary, as some fighters prefer to have both hands raised in front of the face, risking exposure to body shots.\n\nModern boxers can sometimes be seen tapping their cheeks or foreheads with their fists in order to remind themselves to keep their hands up (which becomes difficult during long bouts). Boxers are taught to push off with their feet in order to move effectively. Forward motion involves lifting the lead leg and pushing with the rear leg. Rearward motion involves lifting the rear leg and pushing with the lead leg. During lateral motion the leg in the direction of the movement moves first while the opposite leg provides the force needed to move the body.\n\nPunches\n\nThere are four basic punches in boxing: the jab, cross, hook and uppercut. Any punch other than a jab is considered a power punch. If a boxer is right-handed (orthodox), his left hand is the lead hand and his right hand is the rear hand. For a left-handed boxer or southpaw, the hand positions are reversed. For clarity, the following discussion will assume a right-handed boxer.\n\nFile:jab7.jpg|Jab\nFile:Drop3.jpg|Cross - in counter-punch with a looping\nFile:crochet1.jpg|Hook\nFile:uppercut2.jpg|Uppercut\n\n* Jab – A quick, straight punch thrown with the lead hand from the guard position. The jab is accompanied by a small, clockwise rotation of the torso and hips, while the fist rotates 90 degrees, becoming horizontal upon impact. As the punch reaches full extension, the lead shoulder can be brought up to guard the chin. The rear hand remains next to the face to guard the jaw. After making contact with the target, the lead hand is retracted quickly to resume a guard position in front of the face.\n** The jab is recognized as the most important punch in a boxer's arsenal because it provides a fair amount of its own cover and it leaves the least amount of space for a counter punch from the opponent. It has the longest reach of any punch and does not require commitment or large weight transfers. Due to its relatively weak power, the jab is often used as a tool to gauge distances, probe an opponent's defenses, harass an opponent, and set up heavier, more powerful punches. A half-step may be added, moving the entire body into the punch, for additional power. Some notable boxers who have been able to develop relative power in their jabs and use it to punish or 'wear down' their opponents to some effect include Larry Holmes and Wladimir Klitschko.\n* Cross – A powerful, straight punch thrown with the rear hand. From the guard position, the rear hand is thrown from the chin, crossing the body and traveling towards the target in a straight line. The rear shoulder is thrust forward and finishes just touching the outside of the chin. At the same time, the lead hand is retracted and tucked against the face to protect the inside of the chin. For additional power, the torso and hips are rotated counter-clockwise as the cross is thrown. A measure of an ideally extended cross is that the shoulder of the striking arm, the knee of the front leg and the ball of the front foot are on the same vertical plane. \n** Weight is also transferred from the rear foot to the lead foot, resulting in the rear heel turning outwards as it acts as a fulcrum for the transfer of weight. Body rotation and the sudden weight transfer is what gives the cross its power. Like the jab, a half-step forward may be added. After the cross is thrown, the hand is retracted quickly and the guard position resumed. It can be used to counter punch a jab, aiming for the opponent's head (or a counter to a cross aimed at the body) or to set up a hook. The cross is also called a \"straight\" or \"right\", especially if it does not cross the opponent's outstretched jab.\n* Hook – A semi-circular punch thrown with the lead hand to the side of the opponent's head. From the guard position, the elbow is drawn back with a horizontal fist (knuckles pointing forward) and the elbow bent. The rear hand is tucked firmly against the jaw to protect the chin. The torso and hips are rotated clockwise, propelling the fist through a tight, clockwise arc across the front of the body and connecting with the target.\n** At the same time, the lead foot pivots clockwise, turning the left heel outwards. Upon contact, the hook's circular path ends abruptly and the lead hand is pulled quickly back into the guard position. A hook may also target the lower body and this technique is sometimes called the \"rip\" to distinguish it from the conventional hook to the head. The hook may also be thrown with the rear hand. Notable left hookers include Joe Frazier , Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson.\n\n* Uppercut – A vertical, rising punch thrown with the rear hand. From the guard position, the torso shifts slightly to the right, the rear hand drops below the level of the opponent's chest and the knees are bent slightly. From this position, the rear hand is thrust upwards in a rising arc towards the opponent's chin or torso.\n** At the same time, the knees push upwards quickly and the torso and hips rotate anti-clockwise and the rear heel turns outward, mimicking the body movement of the cross. The strategic utility of the uppercut depends on its ability to \"lift\" the opponent's body, setting it off-balance for successive attacks. The right uppercut followed by a left hook is a deadly combination employing the uppercut to lift the opponent's chin into a vulnerable position, then the hook to knock the opponent out.\n\nThese different punch types can be thrown in rapid succession to form combinations or \"combos.\" The most common is the jab and cross combination, nicknamed the \"one-two combo.\" This is usually an effective combination, because the jab blocks the opponent's view of the cross, making it easier to land cleanly and forcefully.\n\nA large, swinging circular punch starting from a cocked-back position with the arm at a longer extension than the hook and all of the fighter's weight behind it is sometimes referred to as a \"roundhouse,\" \"haymaker,\" or sucker-punch. Relying on body weight and centripetal force within a wide arc, the roundhouse can be a powerful blow, but it is often a wild and uncontrolled punch that leaves the fighter delivering it off balance and with an open guard.\n\nWide, looping punches have the further disadvantage of taking more time to deliver, giving the opponent ample warning to react and counter. For this reason, the haymaker or roundhouse is not a conventional punch, and is regarded by trainers as a mark of poor technique or desperation. Sometimes it has been used, because of its immense potential power, to finish off an already staggering opponent who seems unable or unlikely to take advantage of the poor position it leaves the puncher in.\n\nAnother unconventional punch is the rarely used bolo punch, in which the opponent swings an arm out several times in a wide arc, usually as a distraction, before delivering with either that or the other arm.\n\nAn illegal punch to the back of the head or neck is known as a rabbit punch.\n\nDefense\n\nThere are several basic maneuvers a boxer can use in order to evade or block punches, depicted and discussed below.\n\nFile:slip1.jpg|Slipping\nFile:slip2.jpg|Bobbing\nFile:blocage1.jpg|Blocking (with the arms)\nFile:protection passive1.jpg|Cover-Up (with the gloves)\nFile:neutraliser1.jpg|Clinching\nFile:pas de retrait.jpg|Footwork\nFile:retrait2.jpg|Pulling away\n\n* Slip – Slipping rotates the body slightly so that an incoming punch passes harmlessly next to the head. As the opponent's punch arrives, the boxer sharply rotates the hips and shoulders. This turns the chin sideways and allows the punch to \"slip\" past. Muhammad Ali was famous for extremely fast and close slips, as was an early Mike Tyson.\n* Sway or fade – To anticipate a punch and move the upper body or head back so that it misses or has its force appreciably lessened. Also called \"rolling with the punch\" or \" Riding The Punch\".\n* Duck or break – To drop down with the back straight so that a punch aimed at the head glances or misses entirely.\n* Bob and weave – Bobbing moves the head laterally and beneath an incoming punch. As the opponent's punch arrives, the boxer bends the legs quickly and simultaneously shifts the body either slightly right or left. Once the punch has been evaded, the boxer \"weaves\" back to an upright position, emerging on either the outside or inside of the opponent's still-extended arm. To move outside the opponent's extended arm is called \"bobbing to the outside\". To move inside the opponent's extended arm is called \"bobbing to the inside\". Joe Frazier, Jack Dempsey, Mike Tyson and Rocky Marciano were masters of bobbing and weaving.\n* Parry/block – Parrying or blocking uses the boxer's shoulder, hands or arms as defensive tools to protect against incoming attacks. A block generally receives a punch while a parry tends to deflect it. A \"palm\", \"catch\", or \"cuff\" is a defense which intentionally takes the incoming punch on the palm portion of the defender's glove.\n* The cover-up – Covering up is the last opportunity (other than rolling with a punch) to avoid an incoming strike to an unprotected face or body. Generally speaking, the hands are held high to protect the head and chin and the forearms are tucked against the torso to impede body shots. When protecting the body, the boxer rotates the hips and lets incoming punches \"roll\" off the guard. To protect the head, the boxer presses both fists against the front of the face with the forearms parallel and facing outwards. This type of guard is weak against attacks from below.\n* The clinch – Clinching is a form of trapping or a rough form of grappling and occurs when the distance between both fighters has closed and straight punches cannot be employed. In this situation, the boxer attempts to hold or \"tie up\" the opponent's hands so he is unable to throw hooks or uppercuts. To perform a clinch, the boxer loops both hands around the outside of the opponent's shoulders, scooping back under the forearms to grasp the opponent's arms tightly against his own body. In this position, the opponent's arms are pinned and cannot be used to attack. Clinching is a temporary match state and is quickly dissipated by the referee. Clinching is technically against the rules, and in amateur fights points are deducted fairly quickly for it. It is unlikely, however, to see points deducted for a clinch in professional boxing.\n\nLess common strategies\n\n* The \"rope-a-dope\" strategy : Used by Muhammad Ali in his 1974 \"the Rumble in the Jungle\" bout against George Foreman, the rope-a-dope method involves lying back against the ropes, covering up defensively as much as possible and allowing the opponent to attempt numerous punches. The back-leaning posture, which does not cause the defending boxer to become as unbalanced as he would during normal backward movement, also maximizes the distance of the defender's head from his opponent, increasing the probability that punches will miss their intended target. Weathering the blows that do land, the defender lures the opponent into expending energy while conserving his/her own. If successful, the attacking opponent will eventually tire, creating defensive flaws which the boxer can exploit. In modern boxing, the rope-a-dope is generally discouraged since most opponents are not fooled by it and few boxers possess the physical toughness to withstand a prolonged, unanswered assault. Recently, however, eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao skillfully used the strategy to gauge the power of welterweight titlist Miguel Cotto in November 2009. Pacquiao followed up the rope-a-dope gambit with a withering knockdown.\n* Bolo punch : Occasionally seen in Olympic boxing, the bolo is an arm punch which owes its power to the shortening of a circular arc rather than to transference of body weight; it tends to have more of an effect due to the surprise of the odd angle it lands at rather than the actual power of the punch. This is more of a gimmick than a technical maneuver; this punch is not taught, being on the same plane in boxing technicality as is the Ali shuffle. Nevertheless, a few professional boxers have used the bolo-punch to great effect, including former welterweight champions Sugar Ray Leonard, and Kid Gavilan. Middleweight champion Ceferino Garcia is regarded as the inventor of the bolo punch.\n\nFile:contre_bolo1.jpg| Bolo punch\nFile:drop1.jpg| Overhand (overcut)\n\n* Overhand right : The overhand right is a punch not found in every boxer's arsenal. Unlike the right cross, which has a trajectory parallel to the ground, the overhand right has a looping circular arc as it is thrown over the shoulder with the palm facing away from the boxer. It is especially popular with smaller stature boxers trying to reach taller opponents. Boxers who have used this punch consistently and effectively include former heavyweight champions Rocky Marciano and Tim Witherspoon, as well as MMA champions Chuck Liddell and Fedor Emelianenko. The overhand right has become a popular weapon in other tournaments that involve fist striking.\n* Check hook : A check hook is employed to prevent aggressive boxers from lunging in. There are two parts to the check hook. The first part consists of a regular hook. The second, trickier part involves the footwork. As the opponent lunges in, the boxer should throw the hook and pivot on his left foot and swing his right foot 180 degrees around. If executed correctly, the aggressive boxer will lunge in and sail harmlessly past his opponent like a bull missing a matador. This is rarely seen in professional boxing as it requires a great disparity in skill level to execute. Technically speaking it has been said that there is no such thing as a check hook and that it is simply a hook applied to an opponent that has lurched forward and past his opponent who simply hooks him on the way past. Others have argued that the check hook exists but is an illegal punch due to it being a pivot punch which is illegal in the sport. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. employed the use of a check hook against Ricky Hatton, which sent Hatton flying head first into the corner post and being knocked down.\n\nRing corner\n\nIn boxing, each fighter is given a corner of the ring where he rests in between rounds for 1 minute and where his trainers stand. Typically, three men stand in the corner besides the boxer himself; these are the trainer, the assistant trainer and the cutman. The trainer and assistant typically give advice to the boxer on what he is doing wrong as well as encouraging him if he is losing. The cutman is a cutaneous doctor responsible for keeping the boxer's face and eyes free of cuts and blood. This is of particular importance because many fights are stopped because of cuts that threaten the boxer's eyes.\n\nIn addition, the corner is responsible for stopping the fight if they feel their fighter is in grave danger of permanent injury. The corner will occasionally throw in a white towel to signify a boxer's surrender (the idiomatic phrase \"to throw in the towel\", meaning to give up, derives from this practice). This can be seen in the fight between Diego Corrales and Floyd Mayweather. In that fight, Corrales' corner surrendered despite Corrales' steadfast refusal.\n\nMedical concerns\n\nKnocking a person unconscious or even causing concussion may cause permanent brain damage. There is no clear division between the force required to knock a person out and the force likely to kill a person. Since 1980, more than 200 amateur boxers, professional boxers and Toughman fighters have died due to ring or training injuries. In 1983, editorials in the Journal of the American Medical Association called for a ban on boxing. The editor, Dr. George Lundberg, called boxing an \"obscenity\" that \"should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.\" Since then, the British, Canadian and Australian Medical Associations have called for bans on boxing.\n\nSupporters of the ban state that boxing is the only sport where hurting the other athlete is the goal. Dr. Bill O'Neill, boxing spokesman for the British Medical Association, has supported the BMA's proposed ban on boxing: \"It is the only sport where the intention is to inflict serious injury on your opponent, and we feel that we must have a total ban on boxing.\" Opponents respond that such a position is misguided opinion, stating that amateur boxing is scored solely according to total connecting blows with no award for \"injury\". They observe that many skilled professional boxers have had rewarding careers without inflicting injury on opponents by accumulating scoring blows and avoiding punches winning rounds scored 10-9 by the 10-point must system, and they note that there are many other sports where concussions are much more prevalent. \n\nIn 2007, one study of amateur boxers showed that protective headgear did not prevent brain damage, and another found that amateur boxers faced a high risk of brain damage. The Gothenburg study analyzed temporary levels of neurofiliment light in cerebral spinal fluid which they conclude is evidence of damage, even though the levels soon subside. More comprehensive studies of neurologiocal function on larger samples performed by Johns Hopkins University and accident rates analyzed by National Safety Council show amateur boxing is a comparatively safe sport.\n\nIn 1997, the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians was established to create medical protocols through research and education to prevent injuries in boxing. \n\nProfessional boxing is forbidden in Iceland, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. It was banned in Sweden until 2007 when the ban was lifted but strict restrictions, including four three-minute rounds for fights, were imposed. It was banned in Albania from 1965 till the fall of Communism in 1991; it is now legal there. Norway legalized professional boxing in December 2014.\n\nBoxing Hall of Fame\n\nThe sport of boxing has two internationally recognized boxing halls of fame; the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) and the World Boxing Hall of Fame (WBHF), with the IBHOF being the more widely recognized boxing hall of fame. In 2013, The Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas opened in Las Vegas, NV founded by Steve Lott, former assistant manager for Mike Tyson \n\nThe WBHF was founded by Everett L. Sanders in 1980. Since its inception the WBHOF has never had a permanent location or museum, which has allowed the more recent IBHOF to garner more publicity and prestige. Among the notable names in the WBHF are Ricardo \"Finito\" Lopez, Gabriel \"Flash\" Elorde, Michael Carbajal, Khaosai Galaxy, Henry Armstrong, Jack Johnson, Roberto Durán, George Foreman, Ceferino Garcia and Salvador Sanchez. Boxing's International Hall of Fame was inspired by a tribute an American town held for two local heroes in 1982. The town, Canastota, New York, (which is about 15 mi east of Syracuse, via the New York State Thruway), honored former world welterweight/middleweight champion Carmen Basilio and his nephew, former world welterweight champion Billy Backus. The people of Canastota raised money for the tribute which inspired the idea of creating an official, annual hall of fame for notable boxers.\n\nThe International Boxing Hall of Fame opened in Canastota in 1989. The first inductees in 1990 included Jack Johnson, Benny Leonard, Jack Dempsey, Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, and Muhammad Ali. Other world-class figures include Salvador Sanchez, Jose Napoles, Roberto \"Manos de Piedra\" Durán, Ricardo Lopez, Gabriel \"Flash\" Elorde, Vicente Saldivar, Ismael Laguna, Eusebio Pedroza, Carlos Monzón, Azumah Nelson, Rocky Marciano, Pipino Cuevas and Ken Buchanan. The Hall of Fame's induction ceremony is held every June as part of a four-day event. The fans who come to Canastota for the Induction Weekend are treated to a number of events, including scheduled autograph sessions, boxing exhibitions, a parade featuring past and present inductees, and the induction ceremony itself.\n\nThe Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas features the $75 million ESPN Classic Sports fight film and tape library and radio broadcast collection. The collection includes the fights of all the great champions including: Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson. It is this exclusive fight film library that will separate the Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas from the other halls of fame which do not have rights to any video of their sports. The inaugural inductees included Muhammad Ali, Henry Armstrong, Tony Canzoneri, Ezzard Charles, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., Jack Dempsey, Roberto Duran, Joe Louis, and Sugar Ray Robinson \n\nGoverning and sanctioning bodies\n\n; Governing Bodies\n* British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC)\n* European Boxing Union\n* Nevada State Athletic Commission\n\n; Major Sanctioning Bodies\n* International Boxing Federation (IBF)\n* World Boxing Association (WBA)\n* World Boxing Council (WBC)\n* World Boxing Organization (WBO)\n\n;Amateur\n* International Boxing Association (AIBA; now also professional)\n\nBoxer rankings\n\nThere are various organizations and websites, that rank boxers in both weight class and pound-for-pound manner.\n* BoxRec ([http://boxrec.com/ratings.php ratings])\n* The Ring ([http://ringtv.craveonline.com/ratings ratings])\n* ESPN ([http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/columns/story?columnistrafael_dan&id\n6402207 ratings])\n* Transnational Boxing Rankings Board ([http://www.tbrb.org/all-rankings/ ratings])"
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Neil Armstrong was a pilot in which war?
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"Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California.\n\nA participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. He performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott. This mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his reentry control fuel to prevent a dangerous spin caused by a stuck thruster, in the first in-flight space emergency.\n\nArmstrong's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969. Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. Armstrong and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.\n\nArmstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery. \n\nEarly years\n\nNeil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel in Auglaize County, near Wapakoneta, Ohio. Hansen 2005, pp. 49–50. He was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry, and had two younger siblings, June and Dean. Stephen Armstrong worked as an auditor for the Ohio state government; the family moved around the state repeatedly after Armstrong's birth, living in 20 towns. Neil's love for flying grew during this time, having gotten off to an early start when his father took his two-year-old son to the Cleveland Air Races. When he was five, he experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio on July 20, 1936 when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor, also known as the \"Tin Goose\". \n\nHis father's last move was in 1944, back to Neil's birthplace, Wapakoneta, in Auglaize County. Armstrong attended Blume High School and took flying lessons at the grassy Wapakoneta airfield. He earned a student flight certificate on his 16th birthday, then soloed later in August; all before he had a driver's license. Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. As an adult, he was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. On July 18, 1969, while flying towards the Moon inside the Columbia, Armstrong greeted the Scouts: \"I'd like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho having a National Jamboree there this week; and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes\". Houston replied: \"Thank you, Apollo 11. I'm sure that, if they didn't hear that, they'll get the word through the news. Certainly appreciate that.\" Among the very few personal items that Neil Armstrong carried with him to the Moon and back was a World Scout Badge. \n\nIn 1947, at age 17, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was the second person in his family to attend college. He was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The only engineer he knew (who had attended MIT) dissuaded him from attending, telling Armstrong that it was not necessary to go all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a good education. \n\nHis college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan. Successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by two years of flight training and one year of service in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, then completion of the final two years of their bachelor's degree. Candidates had to promise to not marry until graduation, signed the \"Aviation Guarantee\" to serve on Active Duty for at least four years, and would not receive a promotion to Ensign until two years after they received their Midshipman's warrant.\n\nNavy service\n\nArmstrong's call-up from the Navy arrived on January 26, 1949, requiring him to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training at age 18. This lasted almost 18 months, during which he qualified for carrier landing aboard and . On August 16, 1950, two weeks after his 20th birthday, Armstrong was informed by letter that he was a fully qualified Naval Aviator. \n\nHis first assignment was to Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 7 at NAS San Diego (now known as NAS North Island). Two months later he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51), an all-jet squadron, and made his first flight in a jet, an F9F-2B Panther, on January 5, 1951. In June, he made his first jet carrier landing on and was promoted the same week from Midshipman to Ensign. By the end of the month, Essex had set sail with VF-51 aboard, bound for Korea, where its VF-51 would act as ground-attack aircraft. \n\nArmstrong first saw action in the Korean War on August 29, 1951, as an escort for a photo reconnaissance plane over Songjin. Five days later on September 3, he flew armed reconnaissance over the primary transportation and storage facilities south of the village of Majon-ni, west of Wonsan. While making a low bombing run at about 350 mph, Armstrong's F9F Panther was hit by anti-aircraft fire. While trying to regain control, he collided with a pole at a height of about 20 ft, which sliced off about three feet (1 m) of the Panther's right wing. Armstrong flew the plane back to friendly territory, but due to the loss of the aileron, ejection was his only safe option. He planned to eject over water and await rescue by Navy helicopters, and therefore flew to an airfield near Pohang, but his ejection seat was blown back over land. A jeep driven by a roommate from flight school picked Armstrong up; it is unknown what happened to the wreckage of No. 125122 F9F-2. \n\nArmstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air, most of which were in January 1952. He received the Air Medal for 20 combat missions, a Gold Star for the next 20, and the Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star. Armstrong left the Navy at age 22 on August 23, 1952, and became a lieutenant (junior grade), in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He remained in the reserve for eight years, then resigned his commission on October 21, 1960. \n\nCollege years\n\nAfter his service with the Navy, Armstrong returned to Purdue, where his best grades came in the four semesters following his return from Korea. He had previously earned average marks, but his final GPA was 4.8 out of 6.0. He pledged the Phi Delta Theta fraternity after his return and he wrote and co-directed its musical as part of the all-student revue; he was also a member of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity and a baritone player in the Purdue All-American Marching Band. Armstrong graduated in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering.\n\nAfter returning to Purdue, he met Janet Elizabeth Shearon, who was majoring in home economics. According to the couple, there was no real courtship, and neither could remember the exact circumstances of their engagement, except that it occurred while Armstrong was working at the NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. They were married on January 28, 1956, at the Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. When he moved to Edwards Air Force Base, he lived in the bachelor quarters of the base, while Janet lived in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. After one semester, they moved into a house in Antelope Valley. Janet never finished her degree, a fact she regretted later in life. \n\nThe couple had three children together: Eric, Karen, and Mark. In June 1961, daughter Karen was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the middle part of her brain stem; X-ray treatment slowed its growth, but her health deteriorated to the point where she could no longer walk or talk. Two-year-old Karen died of pneumonia, related to her weakened health, on January 28, 1962. \n\nArmstrong later completed his Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California in 1970. He would eventually be awarded honorary doctorates by several universities.\n\nTest pilot\n\nFollowing his graduation from Purdue, Armstrong decided to become an experimental research test pilot. He applied at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base, which was later redesignated as the ‘‘NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center’’ in 2014. Although the committee had no open positions, it forwarded his application to the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, where Armstrong began working in March 1955. Armstrong's stint at Cleveland lasted a couple of months, and by July 1955 he had returned to Edwards AFB for a new job. \n\nOn his first day at Edwards, Armstrong was tasked his first assignments, which were to pilot chase planes during releases of experimental aircraft from modified bombers. He also flew the modified bombers, and on one of these missions had his first flight incident at Edwards. On March 22, 1956, Armstrong was in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which was to air-drop a Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. He sat in the right-hand pilot seat while the left-hand seat commander, Stan Butchart, flew the B-29. \n\nAs they ascended to 30000 ft, the number-four engine stopped and the propeller began windmilling (rotating freely) in the airstream. Hitting the switch that would stop the propeller's spinning, Butchart found the propeller slowed but then started spinning again, this time even faster than the other engines; if it spun too fast, it would break apart. Their aircraft needed to hold an airspeed of 210 mph to launch its Skyrocket payload, and the B-29 could not land with the Skyrocket attached to its belly. Armstrong and Butchart brought the aircraft into a nose-down alignment to increase speed, then launched the Skyrocket. At the instant of launch, the number-four engine propeller disintegrated. Pieces of it damaged the number-three engine and hit the number-two engine. Butchart and Armstrong were forced to shut down the number-three engine, due to damage, and the number-one engine, due to the torque it created. They made a slow, circling descent from 30000 ft using only the number-two engine, and landed safely. \n\nAs a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the paraglider research vehicle program (Paresev).\n\nArmstrong's first flight in a rocket plane was on August 15, 1957, in the Bell X-1B, to an altitude of . The nose landing gear broke on landing, which had happened on about a dozen previous flights of the Bell X-1B due to the aircraft's design. He later flew the North American X-15 seven times; his penultimate flight reached an altitude of .\n\nArmstrong was involved in several incidents that went down in Edwards folklore and/or were chronicled in the memoirs of colleagues. The first occurred during his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, while Armstrong tested a self-adjusting control system. He flew to a height of over , (the highest he flew before Gemini 8), but the aircraft nose was held up too long during descent and the X-15 bounced off the atmosphere back up to . At that altitude, the air is so thin that aerodynamic surfaces have almost no effect. He flew past the landing field at Mach 3 (2000 mph) at over 100000 ft in altitude, and ended up 40 mi south of Edwards. After sufficient descent, he turned back toward the landing area, and barely managed to land without striking Joshua trees at the south end. It was the longest X-15 flight in both time and distance from the ground track. \n\nFour days later, Armstrong was involved in a second incident, when he flew for the only time with Chuck Yeager. Their job, flying a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, was to evaluate Smith Ranch Dry Lake for use as an emergency landing site for the X-15. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote that he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings after recent rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyway. As they attempted a touch-and-go, the wheels became stuck and they had to wait for rescue. Armstrong tells a different version of events, where Yeager never tried to talk him out of it and they made a first successful landing on the east side of the lake. Then Yeager told him to try again, this time a bit slower. On the second landing, they became stuck and according to Armstrong, Yeager was in fits of laughter. \n\nMany of the test pilots at Edwards praised Armstrong's engineering ability. Milt Thompson said he was \"the most technically capable of the early X-15 pilots.\" Bill Dana said Armstrong \"had a mind that absorbed things like a sponge.\" Those who flew for the Air Force tended to have a different opinion, especially people like Yeager and Pete Knight, who did not have engineering degrees. Knight said that pilot-engineers flew in a way that was \"more mechanical than it is flying,\" and gave this as the reason why some pilot-engineers got into trouble: their flying skills did not come naturally. \n\nA few weeks later on May 21, 1962, Armstrong was involved in what Edwards' folklore called the \"Nellis Affair.\" He was sent in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to inspect Delamar Dry Lake in southern Nevada, again for emergency landings. He misjudged his altitude, and also did not realize that the landing gear had not fully extended. As he touched down, the landing gear began to retract; Armstrong applied full power to abort the landing, but the ventral fin and landing gear door struck the ground, damaging the radio and releasing hydraulic fluid. Without radio communication, Armstrong flew south to Nellis Air Force Base, past the control tower, and waggled his wings, the signal for a no-radio approach. The loss of hydraulic fluid caused the tail-hook to release, and upon landing, he caught the arresting wire attached to an anchor chain, and dragged the chain along the runway. \n\nIt took thirty minutes to clear the runway and rig an arresting cable and Armstrong telephoned Edwards and asked for someone to collect him. Milt Thompson was sent in an F-104B, the only two-seater available, but a plane Thompson had never flown. With great difficulty, Thompson made it to Nellis, but a strong crosswind caused a hard landing and the left main tire suffered a blowout. The runway was again closed to clear it, and Bill Dana was sent to Nellis in a T-33 Shooting Star, but he almost landed long—and the Nellis base operations office decided that to avoid any further problems, it would be best to find the three NASA pilots ground transport back to Edwards.\n\nArmstrong made seven flights in the X-15 from November 1960 to July 1962. He reached a top altitude of in the X-15-3, and a top speed of Mach 5.74 (3989 mph) in the X-15-1; he left the Dryden Flight Research Center with a total of 2,400 flying hours. Over his career, he flew more than 200 different models of aircraft.\n\nAstronaut career\n\nIn 1958, Armstrong had been selected for the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. In November 1960, he was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space plane under development by Boeing for the U.S. Air Force, and on March 15, 1962, he was selected by the U.S. Air Force as one of seven pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane when it got off the design board. \n\nIn the months after the announcement that applications were being sought for the second group of NASA astronauts, Armstrong became more and more excited about the prospects of both the Apollo program and of investigating a new aeronautical environment. Armstrong's astronaut application arrived about a week past the June 1, 1962, deadline. Dick Day, with whom Armstrong had worked closely at Edwards, saw the late arrival of the application and slipped it into the pile before anyone noticed. At Brooks Air Force Base at the end of June, Armstrong underwent a medical exam that many of the applicants described as painful and at times seemingly pointless. \n\nDeke Slayton called Armstrong on September 13, 1962, and asked whether he would be interested in joining the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of what the press dubbed \"the New Nine\"; without hesitation, Armstrong said yes. The selections were kept secret until three days later, although newspaper reports had been circulating since earlier that year that he would be selected as the \"first civilian astronaut.\" Armstrong was one of two civilian pilots selected for the second group; the other was Elliot See, also a former naval aviator. See was scheduled to command Gemini 9, but died in a T-38 crash in 1966 that also took the life of crewmate Charles Bassett. Armstrong was the first American civilian in space, but the first civilian was Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, nearly three years earlier. A textile worker and amateur parachutist, she was aboard Vostok 6 when it launched on June 16, 1963. \n\nGemini program\n\nGemini 8\n\nThe crew assignments for Gemini 8 were announced on September 20, 1965, with Armstrong as Command Pilot and David Scott as Pilot. Scott was the first member of the third group of astronauts to receive a prime crew assignment. The mission launched on March 16, 1966; it was to be the most complex yet, with a rendezvous and docking with the unmanned Agena target vehicle, the second American extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by Scott. In total, the mission was planned to last 75 hours and 55 orbits. After the Agena lifted off at 10 a.m. EST, the Titan II carrying Armstrong and Scott ignited at 11:41:02 am EST, putting them into an orbit from where they would chase the Agena. \n\nThe rendezvous and first-ever docking between two spacecraft was successfully completed after 6.5 hours in orbit. Contact with the crew was intermittent due to the lack of tracking stations covering their entire orbits. Out of contact with the ground, the docked spacecraft began to roll, and Armstrong attempted to correct this with the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) of the Gemini spacecraft. Following the earlier advice of Mission Control, they undocked, but found that the roll increased dramatically to the point where they were turning about once per second, which meant the problem was in their Gemini's attitude control. Armstrong decided the only course of action was to engage the Reentry Control System (RCS) and turn off the OAMS. Mission rules dictated that once this system was turned on, the spacecraft would have to reenter at the next possible opportunity. It was later thought that damaged wiring made one of the thrusters become stuck in the on position. \n\nThroughout the astronaut office there were a few people, most notably Walter Cunningham, who publicly stated that Armstrong and Scott had ignored the malfunction procedures for such an incident, and that Armstrong could have salvaged the mission if he had turned on only one of the two RCS rings, saving the other for mission objectives. These criticisms were unfounded; no malfunction procedures were written and it was possible to turn on only both RCS rings, not just one or the other. Gene Kranz wrote, \"the crew reacted as they were trained, and they reacted wrong because we trained them wrong.\" The mission planners and controllers had failed to realize that when two spacecraft are docked together, they must be considered to be one spacecraft. \n\nArmstrong himself was depressed that the mission had been cut short, canceling most mission objectives and robbing Scott of his EVA.\n\nGemini 11\n\nThe last assignment for Armstrong in the Gemini program was as the back-up Command Pilot for Gemini 11, announced two days after the landing of Gemini 8. Having trained for two flights, Armstrong was quite knowledgeable about the systems and was more in a teaching role for the rookie backup Pilot, William Anders. The launch was on September 12, 1966, with Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon on board, who successfully completed the mission objectives, while Armstrong served as CAPCOM.\n\nFollowing the flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Armstrong and his wife to take part in a 24-day goodwill tour of South America. Also on the tour, which took in 11 countries and 14 major cities, were Dick Gordon, George Low, their wives, and other government officials. In Paraguay, Armstrong impressed dignitaries by greeting them in their local language, Guarani; in Brazil he talked about the exploits of the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont, who was regarded as having beaten the Wright brothers with the first flying machine with his 14-bis. \n\nApollo program\n\nOn January 27, 1967, the date of the Apollo 1 fire, Armstrong was in Washington, D.C., with Gordon Cooper, Dick Gordon, Jim Lovell and Scott Carpenter for the signing of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty. The astronauts chatted with the assembled dignitaries until 6:45 p.m. when Carpenter went to the airport, and the others returned to the Georgetown Inn, where they each found messages to phone the Manned Spacecraft Center. During these telephone calls, they learned of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Armstrong and the group spent the rest of the night drinking scotch and discussing what had happened. \n\nOn April 5, 1967, the same day the Apollo 1 investigation released its report on the fire, Armstrong assembled with 17 other astronauts for a meeting with Deke Slayton. The first thing Slayton said was, \"The guys who are going to fly the first lunar missions are the guys in this room.\" According to Eugene Cernan, Armstrong showed no reaction to the statement. To Armstrong it came as no surprise—the room was full of veterans of Project Gemini, the only people who could fly the lunar missions. Slayton talked about the planned missions and named Armstrong to the backup crew for Apollo 9, which at that stage was planned to be a medium Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module-Command/Service Module combination. After design and manufacturing delays in the Lunar Module (LM), Apollo 9 and Apollo 8 swapped crews. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong would command Apollo 11. \n\nTo give the astronauts experience with how the LM would fly on its final landing descent, NASA commissioned Bell Aircraft to build two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles, later augmented with three Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV). Nicknamed the \"Flying Bedsteads\", they simulated the Moon's one-sixth of Earth's gravity by using a turbofan engine to support the remaining five-sixths of the craft's weight. On May 6, 1968, about 100 feet (30 m) above the ground, Armstrong's controls started to degrade and the LLTV began banking. He ejected safely (later analysis suggested that if he had ejected half a second later, his parachute would not have opened in time). His only injury was from biting his tongue. Even though he was nearly killed, Armstrong maintained that without the LLRV and LLTV, the lunar landings would not have been successful, as they gave commanders valuable experience in the behavior of lunar landing craft. \n\nApollo 11\n\nAfter Armstrong served as backup commander for Apollo 8, Slayton offered him the post of commander of Apollo 11 on December 23, 1968, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. In a meeting that was not made public until the publication of Armstrong's biography in 2005, Slayton told him that although the planned crew was Armstrong as commander, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins, he was offering the chance to replace Aldrin with Jim Lovell. After thinking it over for a day, Armstrong told Slayton he would stick with Aldrin, as he had no difficulty working with him and thought Lovell deserved his own command. Replacing Aldrin with Lovell would have made Lovell the Lunar Module Pilot, unofficially the lowest ranked member, and Armstrong could not justify placing Lovell, the commander of Gemini 12, in the number 3 position of the crew. \n\nA March 1969 meeting between Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Chris Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in some part because NASA management saw Armstrong as a person who did not have a large ego. A press conference held on April 14, 1969, gave the design of the LM cabin as the reason for Armstrong's being first; the hatch opened inwards and to the right, making it difficult for the lunar module pilot, on the right-hand side, to exit first. Slayton added, \"Secondly, just on a pure protocol basis, I figured the commander ought to be the first guy out ... I changed it as soon as I found they had the time line that showed that. Bob Gilruth approved my decision.\" At the time of their meeting, the four men did not know about the hatch consideration. The first knowledge of the meeting outside the small group came when Kraft wrote his 2001 autobiography. \n\nOn July 16, 1969, Armstrong received a crescent Moon carved out of Styrofoam from the pad leader, Guenter Wendt, who described it as a key to the Moon. In return, Armstrong gave Wendt a ticket for a \"space taxi\" \"good between two planets\". \n\nVoyage to the Moon\n\nDuring the Apollo 11 launch, Armstrong's heart reached a top rate of 110 beats per minute. He found the first stage to be the loudest—much noisier than the Gemini 8 Titan II launch—and the Apollo CSM was relatively roomy compared to the Gemini capsule. This ability to move around was suspected to be the reason why none of the Apollo 11 crew suffered from space sickness, while members of previous crews did. Armstrong was especially happy, as he had been prone to motion sickness as a child and could experience nausea after doing long periods of aerobatics. \n\nThe objective of Apollo 11 was to land safely rather than to touch down with precision on a particular spot. Three minutes into the lunar descent burn, Armstrong noted that craters were passing about two seconds too early, which meant the Eagle would probably touch down beyond the planned landing zone by several miles. As the Eagles landing radar acquired the surface, several computer error alarms appeared. The first was a code 1202 alarm, and even with their extensive training, neither Armstrong nor Aldrin was aware of what this code meant. They promptly received word from CAPCOM Charles Duke in Houston that the alarms were not a concern; the 1202 and 1201 alarms were caused by an executive overflow in the lunar module computer. As described by Buzz Aldrin in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, the overflow condition was caused by his own counter-checklist choice of leaving the docking radar on during the landing process, so the computer had to process unnecessary radar data and did not have enough time to execute all tasks, dropping lower-priority ones. Aldrin stated that he did so with the objective of facilitating re-docking with the CM should an abort become necessary, not realizing that it would cause the overflow condition.\n\nWhen Armstrong noticed they were heading towards a landing area which he believed was unsafe, he took over manual control of the LM, and attempted to find an area which seemed safer, taking longer than expected, and longer than most simulations had taken. For this reason, there was concern from mission control that the LM was running low on fuel. Upon landing, Aldrin and Armstrong believed they had about 40 seconds worth of fuel left, including the 20 seconds worth of fuel which had to be saved in the event of an abort. During training, Armstrong had landed the LLTV with less than 15 seconds left on several occasions, and he was also confident the LM could survive a straight-down fall from 50 ft if needed. Analysis after the mission showed that at touchdown there were 45 to 50 seconds of propellant burn time left. \n\nThe landing on the surface of the Moon occurred several seconds after 20:17:40 UTC on July 20, 1969, at which time one of three 67 in-long probes attached to three of the Lunar Module's four legs made contact with the surface, a panel light inside the LM lit up, and Aldrin called out, \"Contact light.\" Armstrong shut the engine off and said, \"shutdown.\" As the LM settled onto the surface, Aldrin said, \"Okay. Engine stop\", then they both called out some post-landing checklist items. After a ten-second pause, Duke acknowledged the landing with, \"We copy you down, Eagle.\" Armstrong announced the landing to Mission Control and the world with the words, \"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.\" Aldrin and Armstrong celebrated with a brisk handshake and pat on the back before quickly returning to the checklist of tasks needed to ready the lunar module for liftoff from the Moon should an emergency unfold during the first moments on the lunar surface. After Armstrong had confirmed touch-down, Duke re-acknowledged, and expressed the flight controllers' anxiety: \"Roger, ... Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.\" During the landing, Armstrong's heart rate, at one point, reached 160 beats per minute, according to the NASA Apollo 11 Mission Report.\n\nFirst Moon walk\n\nAlthough the official NASA flight plan called for a crew rest period before extra-vehicular activity, Armstrong requested that the EVA be moved to earlier in the evening, Houston time. Once Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened and Armstrong made his way down the ladder first.\n\nAt the bottom of the ladder Armstrong said, \"I'm going to step off the LEM now\" (referring to the Apollo Lunar Module). He then turned and set his left boot on the lunar surface at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969, then spoke the famous words, \"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.\" \n\nArmstrong prepared his famous epigram on his own. In a post-flight press conference, he said that he decided on the words \"just prior to leaving the LM [lunar module].\" In a 1983 interview in Esquire Magazine, Armstrong explained to George Plimpton: \"I always knew there was a good chance of being able to return to Earth, but I thought the chances of a successful touchdown on the moon surface were about even money—fifty–fifty ... Most people don't realize how difficult the mission was. So it didn't seem to me there was much point in thinking of something to say if we'd have to abort landing.\" In 2012, brother Dean Armstrong claimed that Neil had shown him a note with a draft of the line months before the launch, although historian Andrew Chaikin, who had interviewed the astronaut in 1988 for his book A Man on the Moon, disputed that he had ever claimed coming up with the line spontaneously during the mission. \n\nRecordings of Armstrong's transmission do not evidence the indefinite article \"a\" before \"man\", though NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static had obscured it. Armstrong stated he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, he eventually admitted he must have dropped the \"a\". He later said he \"would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been\". \n\nIt has since been claimed that acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing \"a\"; Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say \"a man\", but the \"a\" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time. Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis. Armstrong found Ford's analysis \"persuasive.\" However, the article by Ford was published on Ford's own web site rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman wrote of their skepticism of Ford's claims on the blog Language Log. Thus, NASA's transcript continues to show the \"a\" in parentheses. \n\nWhen Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast live via the BBC and many other stations worldwide. The estimated global audience at that moment was 450 million listeners, out of a then estimated world population of 3.631 billion people. \n\nAbout 20 minutes after the first step, Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface and became the second human to set foot on the Moon, and the duo began their tasks of investigating how easily a person could operate on the lunar surface. Early on, they unveiled a plaque commemorating their flight, and also planted the flag of the United States. The flag used on this mission had a metal rod to hold it horizontal from its pole. Since the rod did not fully extend, and the flag was tightly folded and packed during the journey, the flag ended up with a slightly wavy appearance, as if there were a breeze. Shortly after their flag planting, President Richard Nixon spoke to them by a telephone call from his office. The President spoke for about a minute, after which Armstrong responded for about thirty seconds. \n\nIn the entire Apollo 11 photographic record, there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected. The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of photographic tasks to be performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera. \n\nAfter helping to set up the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package, Armstrong went for a walk to what is now known as East Crater, 65 yd east of the LM, the greatest distance traveled from the LM on the mission. Armstrong's final task was to remind Aldrin to leave a small package of memorial items to deceased Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, and Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee. The time spent on EVA during Apollo 11 was about two and a half hours, the shortest of any of the six Apollo lunar landing missions; each of the subsequent five landings were allotted gradually longer periods for EVA activities—the crew of Apollo 17, by comparison, spent over 22 hours exploring the lunar surface.\n\nIn a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited his Moon walk to two hours because they were unsure how the spacesuits would handle the extreme temperature of the Moon. \n\nIn 2013, Popular Science's photo gallery included a photo that Armstrong took of Aldrin but his own image is visible on Aldrin's helmet as one of the best astronaut selfies. \n\nReturn to Earth\n\nAfter they re-entered the LM, the hatch was closed and sealed. While preparing for the liftoff from the lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that, in their bulky spacesuits, they had broken the ignition switch for the ascent engine; using part of a pen, they pushed the circuit breaker in to activate the launch sequence. The lunar module then continued to its rendezvous and docked with Columbia, the command and service module. The three astronauts returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, to be picked up by the . \n\nAfter being released from an 18-day quarantine to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the crew were feted across the United States and around the world as part of a 45-day \"Giant Leap\" tour. Armstrong then took part in Bob Hope's 1969 USO show, primarily to Vietnam. \n\nLater from October 29–31, 1969 he and the rest of the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the city of Tehran, capital of Iran, where he met Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rest of the nation's royal family.\n\nIn May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union to present a talk at the 13th annual conference of the International Committee on Space Research; after arriving in Leningrad from Poland, he traveled to Moscow where he met Premier Alexei Kosygin. He was the first westerner to see the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 and was given a tour of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, which Armstrong described as \"a bit Victorian in nature\". At the end of the day, he was surprised to view delayed video of the launch of Soyuz 9—it had not occurred to Armstrong that the mission was taking place, even though Valentina Tereshkova had been his host and her husband, Andriyan Nikolayev, was on board. \n\nLife after Apollo\n\nTeaching\n\nArmstrong announced shortly after the Apollo 11 flight that he did not plan to fly in space again. He was appointed Deputy Associate Administrator for aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but served in this position for only a year, and resigned from it and NASA as a whole in 1971. \n\nHe accepted a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, having decided on Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater, Purdue, because it had a small aerospace department; he hoped that the faculty members would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship with only the USC master's degree. He began the work while stationed at Edwards years before, and finally completed it after Apollo 11 by presenting a report on various aspects of Apollo, instead of a thesis on the simulation of hypersonic flight. The official job title he received at Cincinnati was University Professor of Aerospace Engineering. After teaching for eight years, he resigned in 1979 without explaining his reason for leaving. \n\nNASA accident investigations\n\nArmstrong served on two spaceflight accident investigations. The first was in 1970, after Apollo 13, where as part of Edgar Cortright's panel, he produced a detailed chronology of the flight. Armstrong opposed the report's recommendation to re-design the service module's oxygen tanks, the source of the explosion. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Rogers Commission which investigated the Space-shuttle Challenger disaster of that year. As vice-chairman, Armstrong was in charge of the operational side of the commission. \n\nBusiness activities\n\nAfter Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, he acted as a spokesman for several businesses. The first company to successfully approach him was Chrysler, for whom he appeared in advertising starting in January 1979. Armstrong thought they had a strong engineering division, plus they were in financial difficulty. He later acted as a spokesman for other companies, including General Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. He acted as a spokesman for U.S. businesses only. \n\nAlong with spokesman duties, he also served on the board of directors of several companies, including Marathon Oil, Learjet, Cinergy (Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company), Taft Broadcasting, United Airlines, Eaton Corporation, AIL Systems and Thiokol. He joined Thiokol's board after he served on the Rogers Commission; the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed due to a problem with the Thiokol-manufactured solid rocket boosters. He retired as chairman of the board of EDO Corporation in 2002. \n\nNorth Pole expedition \n\nIn 1985, professional expedition leader Mike Dunn organized a trip to take the then \"greatest explorers\" to the North Pole. The group included Armstrong, Edmund Hillary, Hillary's son Peter, Steve Fossett, and Patrick Morrow, and arrived on April 6, 1985. Armstrong said he was curious to see what the North Pole looked like from ground level, as he'd only seen it from the Moon. \n\nTelevision and film\n\nIn 2010, he voiced the character of Dr. Jack Morrow in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, a 2010 animated educational sci-fi adventure film initiated by JPL/NASA through a grant from Jet Propulsion Lab. Between 1991 and 1993, he hosted First Flights with Neil Armstrong, an aviation history documentary series on A&E. \n\nPersonal life\n\nUnlike former astronauts who actively sought political careers after leaving NASA (such as U.S. Senators John Glenn (D-OH, 1974–1999) and Harrison Schmitt (R-NM, 1977–1983)), Armstrong was approached by political groups from both parties, but declined all offers. He described his political leanings as favoring states' rights and opposing the United States acting as the \"world's policeman\". \n\nIn the late 1950s, Armstrong applied at a local Methodist church to lead a Boy Scout troop. When asked for his religious affiliation, he labeled himself as a deist. His mother later said that Armstrong's religious views caused her grief and distress in later life as she was more religious. His official biography also describes him as a deist.\n\nIn 1972, Armstrong was welcomed into the town of Langholm, Scotland, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong; he was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the town his home. The Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed 400-year-old law that required him to hang any Armstrong found in the town. \n\nIn the fall of 1979, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring caught in the wheel, tearing off the tip of his ring finger. He collected the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1991, a year after his father had died, and nine months after the death of his mother, he suffered a mild heart attack while skiing with friends at Aspen, Colorado. \n\nArmstrong married his first wife Janet Shearon on January 28, 1956. Their first son Eric was born in 1957, followed by daughter, Karen, in 1959. Karen died of a brain tumor in January 1962, and the couple's second son Mark was born in 1963. Armstrong's first wife, Janet, divorced him in 1994, after 38 years of marriage. He had met his second wife, Carol Held Knight (b. 1945), in 1992 at a golf tournament, where they were seated together at the breakfast table. She said little to Armstrong, but two weeks later she received a call from him asking what she was doing—she replied she was cutting down a cherry tree; 35 minutes later Armstrong was at her house to help out. They were married on June 12, 1994, in Ohio, and then had a second ceremony, at San Ysidro Ranch, in California. He lived in Indian Hill, Ohio. \n\nArmstrong is generally referred to as a \"reluctant\" American Hero. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, recalled Armstrong's legendary humility. \"He didn't feel that he should be out huckstering himself,\" the former Ohio senator told CNN. \"He was a humble person, and that's the way he remained after his lunar flight, as well as before.\" After 1994, Armstrong refused all requests for autographs because he found that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries were in circulation; any requests that were sent to him received a form letter in reply, saying that he had stopped signing. Although his no-autograph policy was well known, author Andrew Smith observed people at the 2002 Reno Air Races still trying to get signatures, with one person even claiming, \"If you shove something close enough in front of his face, he'll sign.\" He also stopped sending out congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, because he believed these letters should come from people who know the Scouts personally. \n\nUse of Armstrong's name, image, and famous quote caused him problems over the years. MTV wanted to use his quote for its now-famous identity depicting the Apollo 11 landing when it launched in 1981, but he refused. Armstrong sued Hallmark Cards in 1994 after they used his name and a recording of the \"one small step\" quote in a Christmas ornament without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money which Armstrong donated to Purdue. \n\nIn May 2005, Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal dispute with his barber of 20 years, Mark Sizemore. After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission. Armstrong threatened legal action against Sizemore unless he returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to retrieve the hair, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice. \n\nSince the early 1980s, Armstrong has been the subject of a hoax saying that he converted to Islam after hearing the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, while walking on the Moon. The Indonesian singer Suhaemi wrote a song called \"Gema Suara Adzan di Bulan\" (\"The Resonant Sound of the Call to Prayer on the Moon\") which described Armstrong's conversion; the song was discussed widely in various Jakarta news outlets in 1983. Other similar hoax stories were seen in Egypt and Malaysia. In March 1983, the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a global message to Muslims saying that Armstrong \"has not converted to Islam\".Hansen 2005, pp. 630–631. However, the hoax was not completely quieted; it surfaced occasionally for the next three decades. A part of the confusion stems from the similarity between Armstrong's American residence in Lebanon, Ohio, and the country Lebanon which has a majority population of Muslims. \n\nIllness and death\n\nArmstrong underwent vascular bypass surgery on August 7, 2012, to relieve blocked coronary arteries. Although he was reportedly recovering well, he developed complications in the hospital and died on August 25, in Cincinnati, Ohio. After his death, Armstrong was described, in a statement released by the White House, as \"among the greatest of American heroes—not just of his time, but of all time\". The statement further said that Armstrong had carried the aspirations of the United States' citizens and that he had delivered \"a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten.\" \n\nHis family released a statement describing Armstrong as a \"reluctant American hero [who had] served his nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut ... While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves. For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.\" This prompted many responses, including the Twitter hashtag \"#WinkAtTheMoon\". \n\nArmstrong's colleague on the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin, said that he was \"deeply saddened by the passing. I know I am joined by millions of others in mourning the passing of a true American hero and the best pilot I ever knew. I had truly hoped that on July 20th, 2019, Neil, Mike and I would be standing together to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of our moon landing ... Regrettably, this is not to be.\" Apollo 11 Command Module pilot Michael Collins said, of Armstrong, \"He was the best, and I will miss him terribly.\" NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that: \"As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own\". \n\nA tribute was held in Armstrong's honor on September 13 at Washington National Cathedral, whose Space Window depicts the Apollo 11 mission and holds a sliver of Moon rock amid its stained-glass panels. In attendance were Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmates, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin; Eugene A. Cernan, the Apollo 17 mission commander and last man to walk on the Moon; and former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. In a eulogy, Charles Bolden said, \"Neil will always be remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own, but it was the courage, grace, and humility he displayed throughout this life that lifted him above the stars.\" Eugene Cernan recalled Armstrong's low-fuel approach to the Moon: \"When the gauge says empty we all know there's a gallon or two left in the tank!\" Diana Krall sang the song \"Fly Me to the Moon\". Michael Collins led prayers. Aldrin and Collins left immediately after the event. The Apollo 15 commander, David Scott, spoke to the press; he recalled the Gemini 8 mission with Armstrong when he spoke, possibly for the first time, about an incident in which glue spilled on his harness and prevented it from locking correctly minutes before the hatch had to be sealed or the mission aborted. Armstrong then called on back-up pilot Pete Conrad to solve the problem, which he did, to continue the mission without stopping the countdown clock. \"That happened because Neil Armstrong was a team player, he always worked on behalf of the team.\" \n\nOn September 14, Armstrong's cremated remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean during a burial-at-sea ceremony aboard the . Flags were flown at half-staff on the day of Armstrong's funeral. \n\nLegacy\n\nArmstrong received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Sylvanus Thayer Award, the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association, and the Congressional Gold Medal. The lunar crater Armstrong, 31 mi (50 km) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong are named in his honor. Armstrong was also inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor, the National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crewmates were the 1999 recipients of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.\n\nThroughout the United States, there are more than a dozen elementary, middle and high schools named in his honor, and many places around the world have streets, buildings, schools, and other places named for Armstrong and/or Apollo. In 1969, folk songwriter and singer John Stewart recorded \"Armstrong\", a tribute to Armstrong and his first steps on the Moon. Purdue University announced in October 2004 that its new engineering building would be named Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering in his honor; the building cost $53.2 million and was dedicated on October 27, 2007, during a ceremony at which Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue Astronauts. In 1971, Armstrong was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point for his service to the country. The Armstrong Air and Space Museum, in Armstong's hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, and the airport in New Knoxville, where he took his first flying lessons when he was fifteen, were named after him. \n\nArmstrong's authorized biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was published in 2005. For many years, Armstrong turned down biography offers from authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James A. Michener, but agreed to work with James R. Hansen after reading one of Hansen's other biographies. \n\nIn a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Armstrong was ranked as the #1 most popular space hero, and in 2013, Flying magazine ranked him at #1 on its list of the \"51 Heroes of Aviation\". \n\nThe press often asked Armstrong for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, Armstrong said that a manned mission to Mars will be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s: \"I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo [space program] in 1961.\" In 2010, he made a rare public criticism of the decision to cancel the Ares 1 launch vehicle and the Constellation Moon landing program. \nIn an open public letter also signed by Apollo veterans Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan, he noted, \"For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature\". Armstrong had also publicly recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission, when he had believed there was only a 50 percent chance of landing on the Moon. \"I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful\", he later said. \n\nOn November 18, 2010, at age 80, Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he were asked. \n\nIn September 2012, the US Navy announced that the first is named RV Neil Armstrong. The ship, christened on March 28, 2014, was launched on March 29, 2014, passed sea trials August 7, 2015 and delivered to the Navy on September 23, 2015. It is a modern oceanographic research platform capable of supporting a wide range of oceanographic research activities conducted by academic groups. \n\nThe Space Foundation named Neil Armstrong as a recipient of its 2013 General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award."
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Nickelodeon was founded in 1979 by which company?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Nickelodeon is an American basic cable and satellite television network owned by the MTV Networks Kids & Family Group, a unit of the Viacom Media Networks division of Viacom, which focuses on programs aimed at children and teenagers; it has since expanded to include three spin-off digital cable and satellite networks in the United States, and international channels in six continents.\n\nEarly history (1977–79)\n\nNickelodeon's history dates back to December 1, 1977, when QUBE, the first two-way major market interactive cable television system was launched in Columbus, Ohio by Warner Cable (owned by Warner Communications, now known as Time Warner, and predecessor to Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment). One of the ten \"community\" channels that were offered at no additional charge to QUBE subscribers was C-3, which exclusively carried Pinwheel each day from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The channel was developed by Dr. Vivian Horner, who worked as director of research on the PBS series The Electric Company and created Pinwheel (one of Nickelodeon's earliest series, which spun off from the C-3 service), and Warner Cable CEO Gus Hauser. Nickelodeon was originally used as a loss leader for then-parent company Warner Cable. As the company saw it, having a commercial-free children's channel would prove useful in franchising its cable systems across the country, with that advantage putting them over rival companies such as HBO.\n\nRelaunch as Nickelodeon (1979–84)\n\nNickelodeon launched on April 1, 1979 (as the first ever all children's network) on Warner Cable's system in Buffalo, New York. It quickly expanded its audience reach, first to other Warner Cable systems across the country, and eventually to other cable providers. It was distributed via satellite on RCA Satcom-1, which went into orbit one week earlier on March 26 – originally transmitted on transponder space purchased from televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Despite its prior history on the QUBE system under the Pinwheel name, Nickelodeon designated 1979 as the year of the channel's official launch.\n\nInitial programming on Nickelodeon included Video Comic Book, PopClips, Pinwheel (which was reformatted as a daily hour-long series that ran in a three- to five-hour block format, and was a precursor to the Nick Jr. block that replaced it in 1988), America Goes Bananaz, Nickel Flicks, and By the Way. The network's original logo incorporated a man looking into a Nickelodeon machine that was placed in the \"N\" in the wordmark; this was replaced the following year by another wordmark with the \"Nickelodeon\" text in Pinwheel's logo typeface. As Nickelodeon originally operated as a commercial-free service, the network ran interstitials between programs, consisting of a male mime doing tricks in front of a black background. At the time of its launch, Nickelodeon's programming aired for twelve hours each weekday from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and for eleven hours on weekends from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. Premium cable network Star Channel (which later relaunched as The Movie Channel in November 1979) would take over the channel space after Nickelodeon's broadcast day ended.\n\nNew shows were added to the lineup in 1980, including Dusty's Treehouse, First Row Features, Special Delivery, What Will They Think Of Next?, Livewire, and Hocus Focus. In 1981, the network introduced a new logo, consisting of a silver pinball overlaid by multicolored \"Nickelodeon\" text. Late that year, the Canadian sketch comedy series You Can't Do That on Television made its American debut on Nickelodeon, becoming its first hit series. The green slime originally featured on that program was later adopted by Nickelodeon as a primary feature of many of its shows, including the game show Double Dare. Other shows that were part of Nickelodeon's regular schedule during its early years included Livewire, Standby: Lights, Camera, Action, The Third Eye, and Mr. Wizard's World.\n\nOn April 12, 1981, the channel expanded its daily programming to thirteen hours each day, shifting the daily schedule from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. The Movie Channel had become a separate 24-hour channel by this point, and Nickelodeon had begun turning over its channel space during its off-hours to the Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS) – a fine arts-focused network owned by the Hearst Corporation and ABC joint venture Hearst/ABC Video Services; ARTS became the Arts & Entertainment Network (A&E) in 1984, after ARTS merged with NBC's struggling cable service The Entertainment Channel. In 1983, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment began divesting its assets and spun off Nickelodeon and two other channels, music networks MTV and the (now defunct) Radio Television Station (RTS) into the newly formed subsidiary MTV Networks; in order to increase revenue, Nickelodeon began to accept corporate underwriting (a method common in public television) for its programming. \n\nGolden age (1984–96)\n\nNickelodeon struggled at first, operating at a $10 million loss by 1984. The network had lacked successful programs (shows on the network that failed to gain traction during its first few years included Against the Odds and Going Great), which stagnated viewership, finishing dead last among all U.S. cable channels. After firing its management staff, MTV Networks president Bob Pittman turned to Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman, who created MTV's iconic IDs a few years earlier, to reinvigorate Nickelodeon, leading to what many believe to be the channel's \"golden age\". \n\nSeibert and Goodman's company, Fred/Alan Inc., teamed up with Tom Corey and Scott Nash of the advertising firm Corey McPherson Nash to rebrand the network. The \"pinball\" logo was replaced with a logo featuring varied orange backgrounds (most notably a \"splat\" design) with the \"Nickelodeon\" name overlaid in the Balloon typeface, which would be used in hundreds of different variations over the next 25 years. Fred/Alan also enlisted the help of animators, writers, producers and doo-wop group The Jive Five to create new channel IDs. Within six months of the rebranding, Nickelodeon would become the dominant channel in children's programming and remained so for 26 years, even in the midst of increasing competition in more recent years from other kids-oriented cable channels such as the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. It also began promoting itself as \"The First Kids' Network\", due to its status as the first American television network aimed at children. Along with the rebrand, Nickelodeon began accepting traditional advertising.\n\nIn the summer of 1984, A&E announced that it would become a separate 24-hour channel as of the following January. After A&E stopped sharing its channel space, Nickelodeon simply went to a test pattern screen after it signed off for the night. Pittman tasked general manager Geraldine Laybourne to develop programming for the vacated timeslot; to help with ideas, Laybourne enlisted Seibert and Goodman, who conceived the idea of a classic television block modeled after the \"Greatest Hits of All Time\" oldies radio format after being presented with over 200 episodes of The Donna Reed Show. On July 1, 1985, Nickelodeon became a 24-hour service with the launch of the new nighttime block, Nick at Nite, in the 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific time period. That same year, American Express sold its stake in Warner-Amex to Warner Communications; by 1986, Warner turned MTV Networks into a private company, and sold MTV, RTS, Nickelodeon, and the newly launched music video network VH1 to Viacom for $685 million, ending Warner's venture into kids' television until they acquired Cartoon Network. In 1988, the network aired the inaugural Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards (previously known as The Big Ballot), a telecast in the vein of the People's Choice Awards in which viewers select their favorites in television, movies and sports. It also introduced an educational program block for preschool-age children called Nick Jr., which replaced the former Pinwheel block.\n\nOn June 7, 1990, Nickelodeon opened Nickelodeon Studios, a hybrid television production facility/attraction at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando, Florida, where many of its sitcoms and game shows were filmed. It also entered into a multimillion-dollar joint marketing agreement with Pizza Hut, which provided a new kid-targeted publication Nickelodeon Magazine for free at the chain's participating restaurants. On August 11, 1991, Nickelodeon debuted its first original animated series – Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show – under the Nicktoons banner. The development of these programs was a reversal of the network's previous concerns, as Nickelodeon had previously refused to produce weekly animated series due to the high production costs. The three series found success by 1993, resulting in the creation of the network's fourth Nicktoon, Rocko's Modern Life, which also became a success. Later, Nickelodeon partnered with Sony Wonder (currently of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) to release episode compilations of the network's programs on VHS, which became top sellers, until 1996. In 1996, Nickelodeon announced a distribution deal with Paramount Home Entertainment, with Paramount re-releasing episode compilations of the network's Nicktoons on VHS. Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show would both end production around that time; however, Doug would be revived in 1996 as part of ABC's Saturday morning lineup. Rugrats, on the other hand, returned from hiatus on May 9, 1997 (reruns continued to air up until that point).\n \nOn August 15, 1992, the network extended its Saturday schedule by two hours, with the launch of a primetime block called SNICK from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time; over the years, SNICK became home to shows such as Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Clarissa Explains It All, All That, The Amanda Show, and Kenan & Kel. In 2004, the block was reformatted as the Saturday edition of TEENick, which originally debuted on Sunday evenings in 2000. (The Saturday night block continues today and was not officially branded from 2009 to 2013, when the \"Gotta See Saturdays\" brand was adopted for the Saturday morning and primetime blocks; the TEENick branding, with its spelling altered to TeenNick, has since been used on the Nickelodeon sister channel previously known as The N). After a three-year absence following suspension of the publication in 1990, Nickelodeon resumed Nickelodeon Magazine under a pay/subscription model in June 1993. In March 1993, the channel enlisted the help of viewers to come up with new shapes in which to display its iconic orange logo in the network's promotions. The designs chosen – a cap, a balloon, a gear, a rocket and a top, among other shapes – were mainly 3D renderings, and debuted alongside a new promotional graphics package in June 1993. The success of the Saturday primetime block led Nickelodeon to expand its programming into primetime on other nights in 1996, with the extension of its broadcast day to 8:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time (and later extended to 9:00 p.m. from 1998 to 2009) on Sunday through Friday nights. \n\nIn 1994, Nickelodeon launched The Big Help, which spawned a spin-off program The Big Green Help in 2007; the program is intended to encourage activity and environmental preservation by children. That same year, Nickelodeon removed You Can't Do That on Television from its schedule after a 13-year run and subsequently debuted a new sketch comedy show, All That. For many years, until its cancellation in 2005, All That would launch the careers of several actors and actresses including Kenan Thompson, Amanda Bynes, and Jamie Lynn Spears. The show's executive producer, Dan Schneider, would go on to create and produce numerous hit series for Nickelodeon including The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious, and a spin-off of the latter two series, Sam & Cat. Also in 1994, Nickelodeon debuted the Nicktoon Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, which would become a hit series. In October and December 1994, Nickelodeon sold a syndication package of Halloween- and Christmas-themed episodes of its Nicktoons to television stations across the United States, in conjunction with then-new corporate relative, Paramount Domestic Television. \n\nExpansion into film, SpongeBob debuts (1996–2006)\n\nOn February 13, 1996, Herb Scannell was named President of Nickelodeon and TV Land, succeeding Geraldine Laybourne.\n\nNickelodeon released its first feature-length film in theaters in 1996, an adaptation of the Louise Fitzhugh novel Harriet the Spy starring Michelle Trachtenberg and Rosie O'Donnell. The film went on to earn twice its $13 million budget. Two years after Harriets success, Nickelodeon developed its popular Rugrats cartoon onto the big screen with The Rugrats Movie, which grossed more than $100 million in the United States and became the first non-Disney animated movie to ever earn that much. Then in May 1999, the channel debuted the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, which quickly became one of the most popular Nicktoons in the channel's history, and has remained very popular to this day, consistently ranking as the channel's highest-rated series since 2000. \n\nIn March 2004, Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite were split up in the Nielsen primetime and total day ratings, due to the different programming, advertisers and target audiences between the two services. This caused controversy by cable executives believing this manipulated the ratings, given that Nick at Nite's broadcast day takes up only a fraction of Nickelodeon's programming schedule. Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite's respective ratings periods encompass only the hours they each operate under the total day rankings, though Nickelodeon only is rated for the daytime ratings; this is due to a ruling by Nielsen in July 2004 that networks must program for 51% or more of a daypart to qualify for ratings for a particular daypart. \n\nOn June 14, 2005, Viacom decided to separate into two companies as a result of the declining performance of the company's stock; both resulting companies would be controlled by Viacom parent National Amusements. In December 2005, Nickelodeon and the remainder of the MTV Networks division, as well as Paramount Pictures, BET Networks, and Famous Music (a record label that the company sold off in 2007), were spun off to the new Viacom. The original Viacom was renamed CBS Corporation and retained CBS and its other broadcasting assets, Showtime Networks, Paramount Television (now the separate arms CBS Television Studios for network and cable production, and CBS Television Distribution for production of first-run syndicated programs and off-network series distribution), advertising firm Viacom Outdoor (which was renamed CBS Outdoor), Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Parks (which was later sold).\n\nNickelodeon Studios closed down in 2005 and was converted into the Blue Man Group Sharp Aquos Theatre in 2007; Nickelodeon now tapes its live-action series at the Nickelodeon on Sunset studios (formerly the Earl Carroll Theatre) in Hollywood, California as well as other studio facilities in Hollywood and other locations. In 2005, Nickelodeon premiered the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which became a hit series for the network.\n\nPost-CBS/Viacom split (2006–present)\n\nAfter the resignation of Herb Scannell on January 5, 2006, Cyma Zarghami was appointed president of the newly formed Kids & Family Group, which currently includes Nickelodeon, Nick@Nite, Nick Jr., TeenNick, Nicktoons, TV Land, CMT, and CMT Pure Country. \n\nIn 2007, Nickelodeon entered into a four-year development deal with Sony Music to produce music-themed TV shows for the network, to help fund and launch tie-in albums, and to produce original soundtrack songs that could be released as singles. The only greenlit series produced under the partnership, Victorious, ran from 2010 to 2013. A similar hit music-themed sitcom Big Time Rush ran from 2009 to 2013, and featured a similar partnership with Columbia Records; however Columbia was only involved with the show's music, and Sony Music became involved with the show's production midway through its first season. Big Time Rush became a hit after less than a month on the air, garnering 6.8 million viewers for its official debut on January 18, 2010 (the series originally premiered with a \"preview\" episode in November 2009); setting a new record for highest-rated live action series premiere in the channel's history.\n\nIn February 2009, Nickelodeon announced that it would rebrand Noggin and The N as Nick Jr. and TeenNick. On February 2, Nickelodeon discontinued the TEENick and Nick Jr. blocks, although the programming featured within the blocks remained. Nickelodeon later announced in May 2009 that Nickelodeon Magazine would cease publication by the end of the year. In July 2009, Nickelodeon unveiled a new logo for the first time in 25 years on the packaging of DVD sets of the network's programs, on Nickelodeon Australia, and at that year's Nickelodeon Animation Festival, intending to create a unified look that can better be conveyed across all of MTV Networks' children's channels. \n\nThe new logo as well as new on-air graphics debuted on September 28, 2009 across Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite, along with the rebranded TeenNick, Nick Jr. and Nicktoons (formerly The N, Noggin and Nicktoons Network, respectively) channels in varying versions customized for brand unification and refreshment purposes. A new logo for Nickelodeon Productions was also used in end credit tags on all Nickelodeon shows, even on episodes aired before the new logo launch (TeenNick and Nicktoons use this vanity card on end credit tags of their programs regardless of the program's original airdate, whereas Nick Jr. only uses it and its variants for original programs on episodes of series made after the rebrand). Designed by New York City–based creative director/designer Eric Zim, the overall presentation package as well as the renaming of The N and Noggin was designed to bring each of the MTV Networks Kids & Family Group channels in line with the Nickelodeon brand identity, with a new logo system introduced to represent the network's entire family of networks and other sub-brands. The 2009 logo font is called \"Litebulb\".\n\nThe wordmark logo bug was given a blimp background in the days prior to the 2010 and 2011 Kids' Choice Awards to match the award given out at the ceremony; beginning the week of September 7, 2010, the logo bug was surrounded by a splat design (in the manner of the logo used from 2006 to 2009) during new episodes of Nickelodeon original series. The new logo was adopted in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2010, in Spain on February 19, 2010, in Asia on March 15, 2010, in Latin America on April 5, 2010, and on the ABS-CBN block \"Nickelodeon on ABS-CBN\" in the Philippines on July 26, 2010. On November 2, 2009, a Canadian version of Nickelodeon was launched, in partnership between Viacom and Corus Entertainment (owners of YTV, which for years has aired and will continue to air Nickelodeon's series); as a result, versions of Nickelodeon now exist in most of North America.\n\nIn October 2009, Viacom brought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the Nickelodeon family when it purchased the franchise from Mirage Studios, with a new CGI-animated series and live action film released since then. On May 12, 2010, the network reached an agreement with Haim Saban to obtain rights to broadcast new episodes of Power Rangers (after Saban had repurchased rights to the franchise from The Walt Disney Company earlier that month). The network began airing the series starting with the February 7, 2011 debut of its 18th season, Power Rangers Samurai; as part of the deal, Nickelodeon also acquired the rights to all 700 episodes of the series produced prior to then for broadcast on sister network Nicktoons, which began airing the series later that year. On January 1, 2011, Nickelodeon debuted House of Anubis, a series based on the Nickelodeon Netherlands series Het Huis Anubis, which became the first original scripted series to be broadcast in a weekdaily strip (similar to the soap opera format). Produced in the United Kingdom, it was also the first original series by the flagship U.S. channel to be produced outside of North America.\n\n2011 saw Nickelodeon's longtime ratings dominance among all children's cable channels began to topple: it was the highest-rated cable channel during the first half of that year, only for its viewership to experience a sharp double-digit decline by the end of 2011, described as \"inexplicable\" by Viacom management. The channel would not experience a calendar week ratings increase until November 2012 (with viewership slowly rebounding after that point due to stronger programming); however its 17-year streak as the highest-rated cable network in total day viewership was broken by Disney Channel during that year. In the spring of 2013, Ubisoft and Nickelodeon partnered to develop a new animated series, Rabbids Invasion (based on the Raving Rabbids video game franchise), which premiered on August 3 of that year. On July 17, 2014, the night after ESPN held the similarly formatted ESPY Awards, the network televised the inaugural Kids' Choice Sports Awards, a spin-off of the Kids' Choice Awards that honors athletes and teams from the previous year in sports.",
"Viacom Media Networks is a division of the media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States. Sibling to Viacom Media Networks is Viacom International Media Networks.\n\nThe company was established in 1984 after Warner Communications and American Express decided to divest the basic cable assets of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, renaming it MTV Networks, Inc. Warner-Amex originally created and owned Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and The Movie Channel (TMC).\n\nViacom acquired 66% of the company in 1985, and then acquired the remaining interest in 1986. It was then folded into Viacom International Inc., a subsidiary of Viacom Inc., and is no longer a distinct legal entity.\n\nCable channels owned by Viacom Media Networks\n\nViacom Media Networks' family of brands is divided into three sections, based on the type of television programming and audiences they serve. All networks are simulcasted in high definition aside from the spinoff music networks and TeenNick.\n\nMusic and Entertainment Group\n\n* Comedy Central7\n* Epix9\n* Logo TV4\n* MTV\n** MTV2\n** MTV Hits\n** MTV Live\n** mtvU\n** Tr3s\n** MTV Classic\n* Spike8\n* VH1\n*CMT\n**CMT Music3\n\nKids and Family Group\n\n* Nickelodeon1 11 \n** Nick 2, Nickelodeon's alternate East/West feed\n** Nick at Nite, evening programming block on Nickelodeon\n* Nick Jr.5\n* Nicktoons10\n* TeenNick6\n* TV Land\n\nBET Networks\n\n* BET\n**BET Gospel\n**BET Hip-Hop\n**BET International\n**BET Jams\n**BET Soul\n* Centric\n\nFormer channels\n\n* MTVX (1998–2002)\n* Nick Gas (1999–2009)\n* NickMom (2012–15)\n* Tempo Networks (2005–07)\n* VH1 Uno (2001–08)\n\nNotes\n\n1Channel created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment prior to 1984.\n2Channel originally owned by CBS, became part of MTV Networks when CBS merged with Viacom.\n3Created as VH1 Country prior to Viacom/CBS merger.\n4Channel was originally known as VH1 MegaHits before being discontinued in July 2005 to facilitate Logo launch.\n5Channel was originally known as Noggin before being rebranded as Nick Jr. in 2009. Co-owned with Sesame Workshop from 1999 to 2002.\n6Channel was originally known as The N before being rebranded as TeenNick in 2009.\n7Channel started as Ha!, merged with HBO's The Comedy Channel the following year, became fully owned by Viacom in 2003.\n8Channel originally known as The Nashville Network until 2000 and The National Network until 2003.\n9Co-owned with sister company Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM. Viacom Media Networks handles operations.\n10Channel was originally known as Nicktoons TV until 2003 when it was rebranded as Nicktoons which was rebranded again as Nicktoons Network in 2005 and finally rebranded yet again as Nicktoons once more in 2009.\n11Channel was originally known Pinwheel until 1979 when it was rebranded as Nickelodeon.\n\nInternet properties\n\nThe company also owns internet properties, such as MTV News, MTV International, and RateMyProfessors.com (owned by mtvU). The company ran a virtual world system, Virtual MTV in the late 2000s. It formerly owned Neopets, Atom Entertainment, and other web properties before shutting them down or selling them to other companies in the 2000s and 2010s.\n\nGame properties\n\nViacom had a game division called MTV Games, which used to publish the Rock Band and Dance Central series by Harmonix Music Systems, its former subsidiary. Dance Central was the last game from MTV Games before its closure, but was resurrected in 2012 and will not publish the Rock Band and Dance Central series, as it will focus on other games, starting with The Age of Decadence by Iron Tower Studio. MTV Networks opened another game division called 345 Games in New York City and it will start to publish future games. The Rock Band series and the Dance Central series will be published by other publishers. The first game published by 345 Games was Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegaddeon based on the Comedy Central TV series, Ugly Americans. Recently, 345 Games has announced a video game based on the popular MMA franchise, Bellator Fighting Championships.\n\nViacom International Media Networks\n\nViacom International Media Networks is a division of Viacom International. Its headquarters are based in New York, London, Warsaw and Buenos Aires. It consists of 64 localized MTV channels, MTV Live HD, VH1 (6 in total), Nickelodeon, \nTMF, VIVA, Comedy Central, Game One, Nitrome Limited, Shockwave, Addicting Games, Atom Films and Xfire. MTV Networks' brands are seen globally in 560 million households in 162 countries and 33 languages via more than 150 locally programmed and operated TV channels and more than 350 digital media properties.\n\nThe Viacom International Media Networks network consists of:\n\n* Viacom International Media Networks Europe\n** Viacom International Media Networks UK, Ireland\n** Viacom International Media Networks Northern Europe\n** Viacom International Media Networks Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa\n* Viacom International Media Networks Asia\n* Viacom International Media Networks The Americas \n\nViacom Media Networks Rating Issues\n\nIn Fall 2012, media analysts began to report that ratings amongst some of MTV Networks' leading brands in the U.S. including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon are experiencing falls in viewership unlike other US broadcasters. \n\nIt has been reported that MTV Networks' portfolio of channels fourteen of the 16 channels in the MTV and Nickelodeon families had viewership declines in September, according to Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Jeunger, citing Nielsen data. MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon are of most concern to investors. The three account for roughly 50% of Viacom's operating profit, estimates David Bank of RBC Capital Markets."
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Which element along with polonium did the Curies discover?
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tc_126
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"A chemical element or element is a species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei (i.e. the same atomic number, Z). There are 118 elements that have been identified, of which the first 94 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 24 being synthetic elements. There are 80 elements that have at least one stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively radioactive isotopes, which decay over time into other elements. Iron is the most abundant element (by mass) making up Earth, while oxygen is the most common element in the crust of Earth. \n\nChemical elements constitute all of the ordinary matter of the universe. However astronomical observations suggest that ordinary observable matter is only approximately 15% of the matter in the universe: the remainder is dark matter, the composition of which is unknown, but it is not composed of chemical elements. \nThe two lightest elements, hydrogen and helium were mostly formed in the Big Bang and are the most common elements in the universe. The next three elements (lithium, beryllium and boron) were formed mostly by cosmic ray spallation, and are thus more rare than those that follow. Formation of elements with from six to twenty six protons occurred and continues to occur in main sequence stars via stellar nucleosynthesis. The high abundance of oxygen, silicon, and iron on Earth reflects their common production in such stars. Elements with greater than twenty-six protons are formed by supernova nucleosynthesis in supernovae, which, when they explode, blast these elements far into space as supernova remnants, where they may become incorporated into planets when they are formed. \n\nThe term \"element\" is used for a kind of atoms with a given number of protons (regardless of whether they are or they are not ionized or chemically bonded, e.g. hydrogen in water) as well as for a pure chemical substance consisting of a single element (e.g. hydrogen gas). For the second meaning, the terms \"elementary substance\" and \"simple substance\" have been suggested, but they have not gained much acceptance in the English-language chemical literature, whereas in some other languages their equivalent is widely used (e.g. French corps simple, Russian простое вещество). One element can form multiple substances different by their structure; they are called allotropes of the element.\n\nWhen different elements are chemically combined, with the atoms held together by chemical bonds, they form chemical compounds. Only a minority of elements are found uncombined as relatively pure minerals. Among the more common of such \"native elements\" are copper, silver, gold, carbon (as coal, graphite, or diamonds), and sulfur. All but a few of the most inert elements, such as noble gases and noble metals, are usually found on Earth in chemically combined form, as chemical compounds. While about 32 of the chemical elements occur on Earth in native uncombined forms, most of these occur as mixtures. For example, atmospheric air is primarily a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, and native solid elements occur in alloys, such as that of iron and nickel.\n\nThe history of the discovery and use of the elements began with primitive human societies that found native elements like carbon, sulfur, copper and gold. Later civilizations extracted elemental copper, tin, lead and iron from their ores by smelting, using charcoal. Alchemists and chemists subsequently identified many more, with almost all of the naturally-occurring elements becoming known by 1900.\n\nThe properties of the chemical elements are summarized on the periodic table, which organizes the elements by increasing atomic number into rows (\"periods\") in which the columns (\"groups\") share recurring (\"periodic\") physical and chemical properties. Save for unstable radioactive elements with short half-lives, all of the elements are available industrially, most of them in high degrees of purity.\n\nDescription\n\nThe lightest chemical elements are hydrogen and helium, both created by Big Bang nucleosynthesis during the first 20 minutes of the universe in a ratio of around 3:1 by mass (or 12:1 by number of atoms), along with tiny traces of the next two elements, lithium and beryllium. Almost all other elements found in nature were made by various natural methods of nucleosynthesis. On Earth, small amounts of new atoms are naturally produced in nucleogenic reactions, or in cosmogenic processes, such as cosmic ray spallation. New atoms are also naturally produced on Earth as radiogenic daughter isotopes of ongoing radioactive decay processes such as alpha decay, beta decay, spontaneous fission, cluster decay, and other rarer modes of decay.\n\nOf the 94 naturally occurring elements, those with atomic numbers 1 through 82 each have at least one stable isotope (except for technetium, element 43 and promethium, element 61, which have no stable isotopes). Isotopes considered stable are those for which no radioactive decay has yet been observed. Elements with atomic numbers 83 through 94 are unstable to the point that radioactive decay of all isotopes can be detected. Some of these elements, notably bismuth (atomic number 83), thorium (atomic number 90), uranium (atomic number 92) and plutonium (atomic number 94), have one or more isotopes with half-lives long enough to survive as remnants of the explosive stellar nucleosynthesis that produced the heavy elements before the formation of our solar system. For example, at over 1.9 years, over a billion times longer than the current estimated age of the universe, bismuth-209 (atomic number 83) has the longest known alpha decay half-life of any naturally occurring element. The very heaviest elements (those beyond plutonium, element 94) undergo radioactive decay with half-lives so short that they are not found in nature and must be synthesized.\n\nAs of 2010, there are 118 known elements (in this context, \"known\" means observed well enough, even from just a few decay products, to have been differentiated from other elements). Of these 118 elements, 94 occur naturally on Earth. Six of these occur in extreme trace quantities: technetium, atomic number 43; promethium, number 61; astatine, number 85; francium, number 87; neptunium, number 93; and plutonium, number 94. These 94 elements have been detected in the universe at large, in the spectra of stars and also supernovae, where short-lived radioactive elements are newly being made. The first 94 elements have been detected directly on Earth as primordial nuclides present from the formation of the solar system, or as naturally-occurring fission or transmutation products of uranium and thorium.\n\nThe remaining 24 heavier elements, not found today either on Earth or in astronomical spectra, have been produced artificially: these are all radioactive, with very short half-lives; if any atoms of these elements were present at the formation of Earth, they are extremely likely, to the point of certainty, to have already decayed, and if present in novae, have been in quantities too small to have been noted. Technetium was the first purportedly non-naturally occurring element synthesized, in 1937, although trace amounts of technetium have since been found in nature (and also the element may have been discovered naturally in 1925). This pattern of artificial production and later natural discovery has been repeated with several other radioactive naturally-occurring rare elements. \n\nLists of the elements are available by name, by symbol, by atomic number, by density, by melting point, and by boiling point as well as ionization energies of the elements. The nuclides of stable and radioactive elements are also available as a list of nuclides, sorted by length of half-life for those that are unstable. One of the most convenient, and certainly the most traditional presentation of the elements, is in the form of the periodic table, which groups together elements with similar chemical properties (and usually also similar electronic structures).\n\nAtomic number\n\nThe atomic number of an element is equal to the number of protons in each atom, and defines the element. For example, all carbon atoms contain 6 protons in their atomic nucleus; so the atomic number of carbon is 6. Carbon atoms may have different numbers of neutrons; atoms of the same element having different numbers of neutrons are known as isotopes of the element. \n\nThe number of protons in the atomic nucleus also determines its electric charge, which in turn determines the number of electrons of the atom in its non-ionized state. The electrons are placed into atomic orbitals that determine the atom's various chemical properties. The number of neutrons in a nucleus usually has very little effect on an element's chemical properties (except in the case of hydrogen and deuterium). Thus, all carbon isotopes have nearly identical chemical properties because they all have six protons and six electrons, even though carbon atoms may, for example, have 6 or 8 neutrons. That is why the atomic number, rather than mass number or atomic weight, is considered the identifying characteristic of a chemical element.\n\nThe symbol for atomic number is Z.\n\nIsotopes\n\nIsotopes are atoms of the same element (that is, with the same number of protons in their atomic nucleus), but having different numbers of neutrons. Most (66 of 94) naturally occurring elements have more than one stable isotope. Thus, for example, there are three main isotopes of carbon. All carbon atoms have 6 protons in the nucleus, but they can have either 6, 7, or 8 neutrons. Since the mass numbers of these are 12, 13 and 14 respectively, the three isotopes of carbon are known as carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14, often abbreviated to 12C, 13C, and 14C. Carbon in everyday life and in chemistry is a mixture of 12C (about 98.9%), 13C (about 1.1%) and about 1 atom per trillion of 14C.\n\nExcept in the case of the isotopes of hydrogen (which differ greatly from each other in relative mass—enough to cause chemical effects), the isotopes of a given element are chemically nearly indistinguishable.\n\nAll of the elements have some isotopes that are radioactive (radioisotopes), although not all of these radioisotopes occur naturally. The radioisotopes typically decay into other elements upon radiating an alpha or beta particle. If an element has isotopes that are not radioactive, these are termed \"stable\" isotopes. All of the known stable isotopes occur naturally (see primordial isotope). The many radioisotopes that are not found in nature have been characterized after being artificially made. Certain elements have no stable isotopes and are composed only of radioactive isotopes: specifically the elements without any stable isotopes are technetium (atomic number 43), promethium (atomic number 61), and all observed elements with atomic numbers greater than 82.\n\nOf the 80 elements with at least one stable isotope, 26 have only one single stable isotope. The mean number of stable isotopes for the 80 stable elements is 3.1 stable isotopes per element. The largest number of stable isotopes that occur for a single element is 10 (for tin, element 50).\n\nIsotopic mass and atomic mass\n\nThe mass number of an element, A, is the number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) in the atomic nucleus. Different isotopes of a given element are distinguished by their mass numbers, which are conventionally written as a superscript on the left hand side of the atomic symbol (e.g., 238U). The mass number is always a simple whole number and has units of \"nucleons.\" An example of a referral to a mass number is \"magnesium-24,\" which is an atom with 24 nucleons (12 protons and 12 neutrons).\n\nWhereas the mass number simply counts the total number of neutrons and protons and is thus a natural (or whole) number, the atomic mass of a single atom is a real number for the mass of a particular isotope of the element, the unit being u. In general, when expressed in u it differs in value slightly from the mass number for a given nuclide (or isotope) since the mass of the protons and neutrons is not exactly 1 u, since the electrons contribute a lesser share to the atomic mass as neutron number exceeds proton number, and (finally) because of the nuclear binding energy. For example, the atomic mass of chlorine-35 to five significant digits is 34.969 u and that of chlorine-37 is 36.966 u. However, the atomic mass in u of each isotope is quite close to its simple mass number (always within 1%). The only isotope whose atomic mass is exactly a natural number is 12C, which by definition has a mass of exactly 12, because u is defined as 1/12 of the mass of a free neutral carbon-12 atom in the ground state.\n\nThe relative atomic mass (historically and commonly also called \"atomic weight\") of an element is the average of the atomic masses of all the chemical element's isotopes as found in a particular environment, weighted by isotopic abundance, relative to the atomic mass unit (u). This number may be a fraction that is not close to a whole number, due to the averaging process. For example, the relative atomic mass of chlorine is 35.453 u, which differs greatly from a whole number due to being made of an average of 76% chlorine-35 and 24% chlorine-37. Whenever a relative atomic mass value differs by more than 1% from a whole number, it is due to this averaging effect resulting from significant amounts of more than one isotope being naturally present in the sample of the element in question.\n\nChemically pure and isotopically pure\n\nChemists and nuclear scientists have different definitions of a pure element. In chemistry, a pure element means a substance whose atoms all (or in practice almost all) have the same atomic number, or number of protons. Nuclear scientists, however, define a pure element as one that consists of only one stable isotope. \n\nFor example, a copper wire is 99.99% chemically pure if 99.99% of its atoms are copper, with 29 protons each. However it is not isotopically pure since ordinary copper consists of two stable isotopes, 69% 63Cu and 31% 65Cu, with different numbers of neutrons. However, a pure gold ingot would be both chemically and isotopically pure, since ordinary gold consists only of one isotope, 197Au.\n\nAllotropes\n\nAtoms of chemically pure elements may bond to each other chemically in more than one way, allowing the pure element to exist in multiple structures (spatial arrangements of atoms), known as allotropes, which differ in their properties. For example, carbon can be found as diamond, which has a tetrahedral structure around each carbon atom; graphite, which has layers of carbon atoms with a hexagonal structure stacked on top of each other; graphene, which is a single layer of graphite that is very strong; fullerenes, which have nearly spherical shapes; and carbon nanotubes, which are tubes with a hexagonal structure (even these may differ from each other in electrical properties). The ability of an element to exist in one of many structural forms is known as 'allotropy'.\n\nThe standard state, also known as reference state, of an element is defined as its thermodynamically most stable state at 1 bar at a given temperature (typically at 298.15 K). In thermochemistry, an element is defined to have an enthalpy of formation of zero in its standard state. For example, the reference state for carbon is graphite, because the structure of graphite is more stable than that of the other allotropes.\n\nProperties\n\nSeveral kinds of descriptive categorizations can be applied broadly to the elements, including consideration of their general physical and chemical properties, their states of matter under familiar conditions, their melting and boiling points, their densities, their crystal structures as solids, and their origins.\n\nGeneral properties\n\nSeveral terms are commonly used to characterize the general physical and chemical properties of the chemical elements. A first distinction is between metals, which readily conduct electricity, nonmetals, which do not, and a small group, (the metalloids), having intermediate properties and often behaving as semiconductors.\n\nA more refined classification is often shown in colored presentations of the periodic table. This system restricts the terms \"metal\" and \"nonmetal\" to only certain of the more broadly defined metals and nonmetals, adding additional terms for certain sets of the more broadly viewed metals and nonmetals. The version of this classification used in the periodic tables presented here includes: actinides, alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, halogens, lanthanides, transition metals, post-transition metals, metalloids, polyatomic nonmetals, diatomic nonmetals, and noble gases. In this system, the alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, and transition metals, as well as the lanthanides and the actinides, are special groups of the metals viewed in a broader sense. Similarly, the polyatomic nonmetals, diatomic nonmetals and the noble gases are nonmetals viewed in the broader sense. In some presentations, the halogens are not distinguished, with astatine identified as a metalloid and the others identified as nonmetals.\n\nStates of matter\n\nAnother commonly used basic distinction among the elements is their state of matter (phase), whether solid, liquid, or gas, at a selected standard temperature and pressure (STP). Most of the elements are solids at conventional temperatures and atmospheric pressure, while several are gases. Only bromine and mercury are liquids at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and normal atmospheric pressure; caesium and gallium are solids at that temperature, but melt at 28.4 °C (83.2 °F) and 29.8 °C (85.6 °F), respectively.\n\nMelting and boiling points\n\nMelting and boiling points, typically expressed in degrees Celsius at a pressure of one atmosphere, are commonly used in characterizing the various elements. While known for most elements, either or both of these measurements is still undetermined for some of the radioactive elements available in only tiny quantities. Since helium remains a liquid even at absolute zero at atmospheric pressure, it has only a boiling point, and not a melting point, in conventional presentations.\n\nDensities\n\nThe density at a selected standard temperature and pressure (STP) is frequently used in characterizing the elements. Density is often expressed in grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3). Since several elements are gases at commonly encountered temperatures, their densities are usually stated for their gaseous forms; when liquefied or solidified, the gaseous elements have densities similar to those of the other elements.\n\nWhen an element has allotropes with different densities, one representative allotrope is typically selected in summary presentations, while densities for each allotrope can be stated where more detail is provided. For example, the three familiar allotropes of carbon (amorphous carbon, graphite, and diamond) have densities of 1.8–2.1, 2.267, and 3.515 g/cm3, respectively.\n\nCrystal structures\n\nThe elements studied to date as solid samples have eight kinds of crystal structures: cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, hexagonal, monoclinic, orthorhombic, rhombohedral, and tetragonal. For some of the synthetically produced transuranic elements, available samples have been too small to determine crystal structures.\n\nOccurrence and origin on Earth\n\nChemical elements may also be categorized by their origin on Earth, with the first 94 considered naturally occurring, while those with atomic numbers beyond 94 have only been produced artificially as the synthetic products of man-made nuclear reactions.\n\nOf the 94 naturally occurring elements, 84 are considered primordial and either stable or weakly radioactive. The remaining 10 naturally occurring elements possess half lives too short for them to have been present at the beginning of the Solar System, and are therefore considered transient elements. (Plutonium is sometimes also considered a transient element because primordial plutonium has by now decayed to almost undetectable traces.) Of these 10 transient elements, 5 (polonium, radon, radium, actinium, and protactinium) are relatively common decay products of thorium, uranium, and plutonium. The remaining 5 transient elements (technetium, promethium, astatine, francium, and neptunium) occur only rarely, as products of rare decay modes or nuclear reaction processes involving uranium or other heavy elements.\n\nElements with atomic numbers 1 through 40 are all stable, while those with atomic numbers 41 through 82 (except technetium and promethium) are metastable. The half-lives of these metastable \"theoretical radionuclides\" are so long (at least 100 million times longer than the estimated age of the universe) that their radioactive decay has yet to be detected by experiment. Elements with atomic numbers 83 through 94 are unstable to the point that their radioactive decay can be detected. Four of these elements, bismuth (element 83), thorium (element 90), uranium (element 92), and plutonium (element 94), have one or more isotopes with half-lives long enough to survive as remnants of the explosive stellar nucleosynthesis that produced the heavy elements before the formation of our solar system. For example, at over 1.9 years, over a billion times longer than the current estimated age of the universe, bismuth-209 has the longest known alpha decay half-life of any naturally occurring element. The very heaviest elements (those beyond plutonium, element 94) undergo radioactive decay with short half-lives and do not occur in nature.\n\nThe periodic table\n\nThe properties of the chemical elements are often summarized using the periodic table, which powerfully and elegantly organizes the elements by increasing atomic number into rows (\"periods\") in which the columns (\"groups\") share recurring (\"periodic\") physical and chemical properties. The current standard table contains 118 confirmed elements as of 10 April 2010.\n\nAlthough earlier precursors to this presentation exist, its invention is generally credited to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, who intended the table to illustrate recurring trends in the properties of the elements. The layout of the table has been refined and extended over time as new elements have been discovered and new theoretical models have been developed to explain chemical behavior.\n\nUse of the periodic table is now ubiquitous within the academic discipline of chemistry, providing an extremely useful framework to classify, systematize and compare all the many different forms of chemical behavior. The table has also found wide application in physics, geology, biology, materials science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, nutrition, environmental health, and astronomy. Its principles are especially important in chemical engineering.\n\nNomenclature and symbols\n\nThe various chemical elements are formally identified by their unique atomic numbers, by their accepted names, and by their symbols.\n\nAtomic numbers\n\nThe known elements have atomic numbers from 1 through 118, conventionally presented as Arabic numerals. Since the elements can be uniquely sequenced by atomic number, conventionally from lowest to highest (as in a periodic table), sets of elements are sometimes specified by such notation as \"through\", \"beyond\", or \"from ... through\", as in \"through iron\", \"beyond uranium\", or \"from lanthanum through lutetium\". The terms \"light\" and \"heavy\" are sometimes also used informally to indicate relative atomic numbers (not densities), as in \"lighter than carbon\" or \"heavier than lead\", although technically the weight or mass of atoms of an element (their atomic weights or atomic masses) do not always increase monotonically with their atomic numbers.\n\nElement names\n\nThe naming of various substances now known as elements precedes the atomic theory of matter, as names were given locally by various cultures to various minerals, metals, compounds, alloys, mixtures, and other materials, although at the time it was not known which chemicals were elements and which compounds. As they were identified as elements, the existing names for anciently-known elements (e.g., gold, mercury, iron) were kept in most countries. National differences emerged over the names of elements either for convenience, linguistic niceties, or nationalism. For a few illustrative examples: German speakers use \"Wasserstoff\" (water substance) for \"hydrogen\", \"Sauerstoff\" (acid substance) for \"oxygen\" and \"Stickstoff\" (smothering substance) for \"nitrogen\", while English and some romance languages use \"sodium\" for \"natrium\" and \"potassium\" for \"kalium\", and the French, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese and Poles prefer \"azote/azot/azoto\" (from roots meaning \"no life\") for \"nitrogen\".\n\nFor purposes of international communication and trade, the official names of the chemical elements both ancient and more recently recognized are decided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), which has decided on a sort of international English language, drawing on traditional English names even when an element's chemical symbol is based on a Latin or other traditional word, for example adopting \"gold\" rather than \"aurum\" as the name for the 79th element (Au). IUPAC prefers the British spellings \"aluminium\" and \"caesium\" over the U.S. spellings \"aluminum\" and \"cesium\", and the U.S. \"sulfur\" over the British \"sulphur\". However, elements that are practical to sell in bulk in many countries often still have locally used national names, and countries whose national language does not use the Latin alphabet are likely to use the IUPAC element names.\n\nAccording to IUPAC, chemical elements are not proper nouns in English; consequently, the full name of an element is not routinely capitalized in English, even if derived from a proper noun, as in californium and einsteinium. Isotope names of chemical elements are also uncapitalized if written out, e.g., carbon-12 or uranium-235. Chemical element symbols (such as Cf for californium and Es for einsteinium), are always capitalized (see below).\n\nIn the second half of the twentieth century, physics laboratories became able to produce nuclei of chemical elements with half-lives too short for an appreciable amount of them to exist at any time. These are also named by IUPAC, which generally adopts the name chosen by the discoverer. This practice can lead to the controversial question of which research group actually discovered an element, a question that delayed the naming of elements with atomic number of 104 and higher for a considerable amount of time. (See element naming controversy).\n\nPrecursors of such controversies involved the nationalistic namings of elements in the late 19th century. For example, lutetium was named in reference to Paris, France. The Germans were reluctant to relinquish naming rights to the French, often calling it cassiopeium. Similarly, the British discoverer of niobium originally named it columbium, in reference to the New World. It was used extensively as such by American publications prior to the international standardization.\n\nChemical symbols\n\nSpecific chemical elements\n\nBefore chemistry became a science, alchemists had designed arcane symbols for both metals and common compounds. These were however used as abbreviations in diagrams or procedures; there was no concept of atoms combining to form molecules. With his advances in the atomic theory of matter, John Dalton devised his own simpler symbols, based on circles, to depict molecules.\n\nThe current system of chemical notation was invented by Berzelius. In this typographical system, chemical symbols are not mere abbreviations—though each consists of letters of the Latin alphabet. They are intended as universal symbols for people of all languages and alphabets.\n\nThe first of these symbols were intended to be fully universal. Since Latin was the common language of science at that time, they were abbreviations based on the Latin names of metals. Cu comes from Cuprum, Fe comes from Ferrum, Ag from Argentum. The symbols were not followed by a period (full stop) as with abbreviations. Later chemical elements were also assigned unique chemical symbols, based on the name of the element, but not necessarily in English. For example, sodium has the chemical symbol 'Na' after the Latin natrium. The same applies to \"W\" (wolfram) for tungsten, \"Fe\" (ferrum) for iron, \"Hg\" (hydrargyrum) for mercury, \"Sn\" (stannum) for tin, \"K\" (kalium) for potassium, \"Au\" (aurum) for gold, \"Ag\" (argentum) for silver, \"Pb\" (plumbum) for lead, \"Cu\" (cuprum) for copper, and \"Sb\" (stibium) for antimony.\n\nChemical symbols are understood internationally when element names might require translation. There have sometimes been differences in the past. For example, Germans in the past have used \"J\" (for the alternate name Jod) for iodine, but now use \"I\" and \"Iod\".\n\nThe first letter of a chemical symbol is always capitalized, as in the preceding examples, and the subsequent letters, if any, are always lower case (small letters). Thus, the symbols for californium or einsteinium are Cf and Es.\n\nGeneral chemical symbols\n\nThere are also symbols in chemical equations for groups of chemical elements, for example in comparative formulas. These are often a single capital letter, and the letters are reserved and not used for names of specific elements. For example, an \"X\" indicates a variable group (usually a halogen) in a class of compounds, while \"R\" is a radical, meaning a compound structure such as a hydrocarbon chain. The letter \"Q\" is reserved for \"heat\" in a chemical reaction. \"Y\" is also often used as a general chemical symbol, although it is also the symbol of yttrium. \"Z\" is also frequently used as a general variable group. \"E\" is used in organic chemistry to denote an electron-withdrawing group. \"L\" is used to represent a general ligand in inorganic and organometallic chemistry. \"M\" is also often used in place of a general metal.\n\nAt least two additional, two-letter generic chemical symbols are also in informal usage, \"Ln\" for any lanthanide element and \"An\" for any actinide element. \"Rg\" was formerly used for any rare gas element, but the group of rare gases has now been renamed noble gases and the symbol \"Rg\" has now been assigned to the element roentgenium.\n\nIsotope symbols\n\nIsotopes are distinguished by the atomic mass number (total protons and neutrons) for a particular isotope of an element, with this number combined with the pertinent element's symbol. IUPAC prefers that isotope symbols be written in superscript notation when practical, for example 12C and 235U. However, other notations, such as carbon-12 and uranium-235, or C-12 and U-235, are also used.\n\nAs a special case, the three naturally occurring isotopes of the element hydrogen are often specified as H for 1H (protium), D for 2H (deuterium), and T for 3H (tritium). This convention is easier to use in chemical equations, replacing the need to write out the mass number for each atom. For example, the formula for heavy water may be written D2O instead of 2H2O.\n\nOrigin of the elements\n\nOnly about 4% of the total mass of the universe is made of atoms or ions, and thus represented by chemical elements. This fraction is about 15% of the total matter, with the remainder of the matter (85%) being dark matter. The nature of dark matter is unknown, but it is not composed of atoms of chemical elements because it contains no protons, neutrons, or electrons. (The remaining non-matter part of the mass of the universe is composed of the even more mysterious dark energy).\n\nThe universe's 94 naturally occurring chemical elements are thought to have been produced by at least four cosmic processes. Most of the hydrogen and helium in the universe was produced primordially in the first few minutes of the Big Bang. Three recurrently occurring later processes are thought to have produced the remaining elements. Stellar nucleosynthesis, an ongoing process, produces all elements from carbon through iron in atomic number, but little lithium, beryllium, or boron. Elements heavier in atomic number than iron, as heavy as uranium and plutonium, are produced by explosive nucleosynthesis in supernovas and other cataclysmic cosmic events. Cosmic ray spallation (fragmentation) of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen is important to the production of lithium, beryllium and boron.\n\nDuring the early phases of the Big Bang, nucleosynthesis of hydrogen nuclei resulted in the production of hydrogen-1 (protium, 1H) and helium-4 (4He), as well as a smaller amount of deuterium (2H) and very minuscule amounts (on the order of 10−10) of lithium and beryllium. Even smaller amounts of boron may have been produced in the Big Bang, since it has been observed in some very old stars, while carbon has not. It is generally agreed that no heavier elements than boron were produced in the Big Bang. As a result, the primordial abundance of atoms (or ions) consisted of roughly 75% 1H, 25% 4He, and 0.01% deuterium, with only tiny traces of lithium, beryllium, and perhaps boron. Subsequent enrichment of galactic halos occurred due to stellar nucleosynthesis and supernova nucleosynthesis. However, the element abundance in intergalactic space can still closely resemble primordial conditions, unless it has been enriched by some means.\n\nOn Earth (and elsewhere), trace amounts of various elements continue to be produced from other elements as products of natural transmutation processes. These include some produced by cosmic rays or other nuclear reactions (see cosmogenic and nucleogenic nuclides), and others produced as decay products of long-lived primordial nuclides. For example, trace (but detectable) amounts of carbon-14 (14C) are continually produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays impacting nitrogen atoms, and argon-40 (40Ar) is continually produced by the decay of primordially occurring but unstable potassium-40 (40K). Also, three primordially occurring but radioactive actinides, thorium, uranium, and plutonium, decay through a series of recurrently produced but unstable radioactive elements such as radium and radon, which are transiently present in any sample of these metals or their ores or compounds. Three other radioactive elements, technetium, promethium, and neptunium, occur only incidentally in natural materials, produced as individual atoms by natural fission of the nuclei of various heavy elements or in other rare nuclear processes.\n\nHuman technology has produced various additional elements beyond these first 94, with those through atomic number 118 now known.\n\nAbundance\n\nThe following graph (note log scale) shows the abundance of elements in our solar system. The table shows the twelve most common elements in our galaxy (estimated spectroscopically), as measured in parts per million, by mass. Nearby galaxies that have evolved along similar lines have a corresponding enrichment of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The more distant galaxies are being viewed as they appeared in the past, so their abundances of elements appear closer to the primordial mixture. As physical laws and processes appear common throughout the visible universe, however, scientist expect that these galaxies evolved elements in similar abundance.\n\nThe abundance of elements in the Solar System is in keeping with their origin from nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang and a number of progenitor supernova stars. Very abundant hydrogen and helium are products of the Big Bang, but the next three elements are rare since they had little time to form in the Big Bang and are not made in stars (they are, however, produced in small quantities by the breakup of heavier elements in interstellar dust, as a result of impact by cosmic rays). Beginning with carbon, elements are produced in stars by buildup from alpha particles (helium nuclei), resulting in an alternatingly larger abundance of elements with even atomic numbers (these are also more stable). In general, such elements up to iron are made in large stars in the process of becoming supernovas. Iron-56 is particularly common, since it is the most stable element that can easily be made from alpha particles (being a product of decay of radioactive nickel-56, ultimately made from 14 helium nuclei). Elements heavier than iron are made in energy-absorbing processes in large stars, and their abundance in the universe (and on Earth) generally decreases with their atomic number.\n\nThe abundance of the chemical elements on Earth varies from air to crust to ocean, and in various types of life. The abundance of elements in Earth's crust differs from that in the Solar system (as seen in the Sun and heavy planets like Jupiter) mainly in selective loss of the very lightest elements (hydrogen and helium) and also volatile neon, carbon (as hydrocarbons), nitrogen and sulfur, as a result of solar heating in the early formation of the solar system. Oxygen, the most abundant Earth element by mass, is retained on Earth by combination with silicon. Aluminum at 8% by mass is more common in the Earth's crust than in the universe and solar system, but the composition of the far more bulky mantle, which has magnesium and iron in place of aluminum (which occurs there only at 2% of mass) more closely mirrors the elemental composition of the solar system, save for the noted loss of volatile elements to space, and loss of iron which has migrated to the Earth's core.\n\nThe composition of the human body, by contrast, more closely follows the composition of seawater—save that the human body has additional stores of carbon and nitrogen necessary to form the proteins and nucleic acids, together with phosphorus in the nucleic acids and energy transfer molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that occurs in the cells of all living organisms. Certain kinds of organisms require particular additional elements, for example the magnesium in chlorophyll in green plants, the calcium in mollusc shells, or the iron in the hemoglobin in vertebrate animals' red blood cells.\n\nHistory\n\nEvolving definitions\n\nThe concept of an \"element\" as an undivisible substance has developed through three major historical phases: Classical definitions (such as those of the ancient Greeks), chemical definitions, and atomic definitions.\n\nClassical definitions\n\nAncient philosophy posited a set of classical elements to explain observed patterns in nature. These elements originally referred to earth, water, air and fire rather than the chemical elements of modern science.\n\nThe term 'elements' (stoicheia) was first used by the Greek philosopher Plato in about 360 BCE in his dialogue Timaeus, which includes a discussion of the composition of inorganic and organic bodies and is a speculative treatise on chemistry. Plato believed the elements introduced a century earlier by Empedocles were composed of small polyhedral forms: tetrahedron (fire), octahedron (air), icosahedron (water), and cube (earth). \n\nAristotle, c. 350 BCE, also used the term stoicheia and added a fifth element called aether, which formed the heavens. Aristotle defined an element as:\n\nChemical definitions\n\nIn 1661, Robert Boyle proposed his theory of corpuscularism which favoured the analysis of matter as constituted by irreducible units of matter (atoms) and, choosing to side with neither Aristotle's view of the four elements nor Paracelsus' view of three fundamental elements, left open the question of the number of elements. The first modern list of chemical elements was given in Antoine Lavoisier's 1789 Elements of Chemistry, which contained thirty-three elements, including light and caloric. By 1818, Jöns Jakob Berzelius had determined atomic weights for forty-five of the forty-nine then-accepted elements. Dmitri Mendeleev had sixty-six elements in his periodic table of 1869.\n\nFrom Boyle until the early 20th century, an element was defined as a pure substance that could not be decomposed into any simpler substance. Put another way, a chemical element cannot be transformed into other chemical elements by chemical processes. Elements during this time were generally distinguished by their atomic weights, a property measurable with fair accuracy by available analytical techniques.\n\nAtomic definitions\n\nThe 1913 discovery by English physicist Henry Moseley that the nuclear charge is the physical basis for an atom's atomic number, further refined when the nature of protons and neutrons became appreciated, eventually led to the current definition of an element based on atomic number (number of protons per atomic nucleus). The use of atomic numbers, rather than atomic weights, to distinguish elements has greater predictive value (since these numbers are integers), and also resolves some ambiguities in the chemistry-based view due to varying properties of isotopes and allotropes within the same element. Currently, IUPAC defines an element to exist if it has isotopes with a lifetime longer than the 10−14 seconds it takes the nucleus to form an electronic cloud. \n\nBy 1914, seventy-two elements were known, all naturally occurring. The remaining naturally occurring elements were discovered or isolated in subsequent decades, and various additional elements have also been produced synthetically, with much of that work pioneered by Glenn T. Seaborg. In 1955, element 101 was discovered and named mendelevium in honor of D.I. Mendeleev, the first to arrange the elements in a periodic manner. Most recently, the synthesis of element 118 was reported in October 2006, and the synthesis of element 117 was reported in April 2010. \n\nDiscovery and recognition of various elements\n\nTen materials familiar to various prehistoric cultures are now known to be chemical elements: Carbon, copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, silver, sulfur, tin, and zinc. Three additional materials now accepted as elements, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, were recognized as distinct substances prior to 1500 AD. Phosphorus, cobalt, and platinum were isolated before 1750.\n\nMost of the remaining naturally occurring chemical elements were identified and characterized by 1900, including:\n* Such now-familiar industrial materials as aluminium, silicon, nickel, chromium, magnesium, and tungsten\n* Reactive metals such as lithium, sodium, potassium, and calcium\n* The halogens fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine\n* Gases such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, helium, argon, and neon\n* Most of the rare-earth elements, including cerium, lanthanum, gadolinium, and neodymium.\n* The more common radioactive elements, including uranium, thorium, radium, and radon\n\nElements isolated or produced since 1900 include:\n* The three remaining undiscovered regularly occurring stable natural elements: hafnium, lutetium, and rhenium\n* Plutonium, which was first produced synthetically in 1940 by Glenn T. Seaborg, but is now also known from a few long-persisting natural occurrences\n* The three incidentally occurring natural elements (neptunium, promethium, and technetium), which were all first produced synthetically but later discovered in trace amounts in certain geological samples\n* Three scarce decay products of uranium or thorium, (astatine, francium, and protactinium), and\n* Various synthetic transuranic elements, beginning with americium and curium\n\nRecently discovered elements\n\nThe first transuranium element (element with atomic number greater than 92) discovered was neptunium in 1940. Since 1999 claims for the discovery of new elements have been considered by the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party. As of January 2016, all 118 elements have been confirmed as discovered by IUPAC. The discovery of element 112 was acknowledged in 2009, and the name copernicium and the atomic symbol Cn were suggested for it. The name and symbol were officially endorsed by IUPAC on 19 February 2010. The heaviest element that is believed to have been synthesized to date is element 118, ununoctium, on 9 October 2006, by the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia. Element 117 was the latest element claimed to be discovered, in 2009. IUPAC officially recognized flerovium and livermorium, elements 114 and 116, in June 2011 and approved their names in May 2012. In December 2015, IUPAC recognized elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, and announced the elements' proposed final names on 8 June 2016. The names, nihonium (113, Nh), moscovium (115, Mc), tennessine (117, Ts), and oganesson (118, Og), are expected to be approved by the end of 2016. \n\nList of the 118 known chemical elements\n\nThe following sortable table includes the 118 known chemical elements, with the names linking to the Wikipedia articles on each.\n* Atomic number, name, and symbol all serve independently as unique identifiers.\n* Names are those accepted by IUPAC; provisional names for recently produced elements not yet formally named are in parentheses.\n* Group, period, and block refer to an element's position in the periodic table. Group numbers here show the currently accepted numbering; for older alternate numberings, see Group (periodic table).\n* State of matter (solid, liquid, or gas) applies at standard temperature and pressure conditions (STP).\n* Occurrence distinguishes naturally occurring elements, categorized as either primordial or transient (from decay), and additional synthetic elements that have been produced technologically, but are not known to occur naturally.\n* Description summarizes an element's properties using the broad categories commonly presented in periodic tables: Actinide, alkali metal, alkaline earth metal, lanthanide, post-transition metal, metalloid, noble gas, polyatomic or diatomic nonmetal, and transition metal.",
"Polonium is a chemical element with symbol Po and atomic number 84. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though it also shows resemblances to its horizontal neighbors thallium, lead, and bismuth due to its metallic character. Due to the short half-life of all its isotopes, its natural occurrence is limited to tiny traces of the fleeting polonium-210 in uranium ores, as it is the penultimate daughter of natural uranium-238: it has a half-life of 138 days. Though slightly longer-lived isotopes exist, they are much more difficult to produce. Today, polonium is more often produced in milligram quantities by the neutron irradiation of bismuth. Due to its intense radioactivity, that results in radiolysis of chemical bonds and immense radioactive self-heating, its chemistry has mostly been investigated on the trace scale only.\n\nPolonium was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie, when it was chemically separated out of uranium ore and identified solely by its strong radioactivity: it was the first element to be so discovered. It was named after Marie Curie's homeland of Poland. Applications of polonium are sparse and dependent on its radioactivity: they include heaters in space probes, antistatic devices, and sources of neutrons and alpha particles. Its intense radioactivity makes it dangerously toxic to life.\n\nCharacteristics\n\nIsotopes\n\nPolonium has 33 known isotopes, all of which are radioactive. They have atomic masses that range from 188 to 220 u. 210Po (half-life 138.376 days) is the most widely available. The longer-lived 209Po (half-life , longest-lived of all polonium isotopes) and 208Po (half-life 2.9 years) can be made through the alpha, proton, or deuteron bombardment of lead or bismuth in a cyclotron. \n\n210Po is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.4 days; it decays directly to its stable daughter isotope, 206Pb. A milligram (5 curies) of 210Po emits about as many alpha particles per second as 5 grams of 226Ra. A few curies (1 curie equals 37 gigabecquerels, 1 Ci \n 37 GBq) of 210Po emit a blue glow which is caused by ionisation of the surrounding air.\n\nAbout one in 100,000 alpha emissions causes an excitation in the nucleus which then results in the emission of a gamma ray with a maximum energy of 803 keV. \n\nSolid state form\n\nPolonium is a radioactive element that exists in two metallic allotropes. The alpha form is the only known example of a simple cubic crystal structure in a single atom basis, with an edge length of 335.2 picometers; the beta form is rhombohedral. The structure of polonium has been characterized by X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction. \n\n210Po (in common with 238Pu) has the ability to become airborne with ease: if a sample is heated in air to 55 C, 50% of it is vaporized in 45 hours to form diatomic Po2 molecules, even though the melting point of polonium is 254 C and its boiling point is 962 C.\nMore than one hypothesis exists for how polonium does this; one suggestion is that small clusters of polonium atoms are spalled off by the alpha decay.\n\nChemistry\n\nThe chemistry of polonium is similar to that of tellurium, although it also shows some similarities to its neighbor bismuth due to its metallic character. Polonium dissolves readily in dilute acids, but is only slightly soluble in alkalis. Polonium solutions are first colored in pink by the Po2+ ions, but then rapidly become yellow because alpha radiation from polonium ionizes the solvent and converts Po2+ into Po4+. This process is accompanied by bubbling and emission of heat and light by glassware due to the absorbed alpha particles; as a result, polonium solutions are volatile and will evaporate within days unless sealed. \n\nCompounds\n\nPolonium has no common compounds, and almost all of its compounds are synthetically created; more than 50 of those are known. The most stable class of polonium compounds are polonides, which are prepared by direct reaction of two elements. Na2Po has the antifluorite structure, the polonides of Ca, Ba, Hg, Pb and lanthanides form a NaCl lattice, BePo and CdPo have the wurtzite and MgPo the nickel arsenide structure. Most polonides decompose upon heating to about 600 °C, except for HgPo that decomposes at ~300 °C and the lanthanide polonides, which do not decompose but melt at temperatures above 1000 °C. For example, PrPo melts at 1250 °C and TmPo at 2200 °C.Greenwood, p. 766 PbPo is one of the very few naturally occurring polonium compounds, as polonium alpha decays to form lead. \n\nPolonium hydride () is a volatile liquid at room temperature prone to dissociation; it is thermally unstable. The two oxides PoO2 and PoO3 are the products of oxidation of polonium. \n\nHalides of the structure PoX2, PoX4 and PoF6 are known. They are soluble in the corresponding hydrogen halides, i.e., PoClX in HCl, PoBrX in HBr and PoI4 in HI. Polonium dihalides are formed by direct reaction of the elements or by reduction of PoCl4 with SO2 and with PoBr4 with H2S at room temperature. Tetrahalides can be obtained by reacting polonium dioxide with HCl, HBr or HI.Greenwood, pp. 765, 771, 775\n\nOther polonium compounds include potassium polonite as a polonite, polonate, acetate, bromate, carbonate, citrate, chromate, cyanide, formate, (II) and (IV) hydroxides, nitrate, selenate, selenite, monosulfide, sulfate, disulfate and sulfite.Figgins, P. E. (1961) [http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl\n/4034029-SolPsF/ The Radiochemistry of Polonium], National Academy of Sciences, US Atomic Energy Commission, pp. 13–14 [https://books.google.com/books?idN0MrAAAAYAAJ&printsec\nfrontcover Google Books] \n\nOxides\n* PoO\n* PoO2\n* PoO3\n\nHydrides\n* PoH2\n\nHalides\n* PoX2 (except PoF2)\n* PoX4\n* PoF6\n* PoBr2Cl2 (salmon pink)\n\nHistory\n\nAlso tentatively called \"radium F\", polonium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, [http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/curiespo.html English translation.] and was named after Marie Curie's native land of Poland (). Poland at the time was under Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian partition, and did not exist as an independent country. It was Curie's hope that naming the element after her native land would publicize its lack of independence. Polonium may be the first element named to highlight a political controversy.\n\nThis element was the first one discovered by the Curies while they were investigating the cause of pitchblende radioactivity. Pitchblende, after removal of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium, was more radioactive than the uranium and thorium combined. This spurred the Curies to search for additional radioactive elements. They first separated out polonium from pitchblende in July 1898, and five months later, also isolated radium. [http://www.aip.org/history/curie/discover.htm English translation]\n\nIn the United States, polonium was produced as part of the Manhattan Project's Dayton Project during World War II. It was a critical part of the implosion-type nuclear weapon design used in the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki in 1945. Polonium and beryllium were the key ingredients of the 'urchin' detonator at the center of the bomb's spherical plutonium pit. The urchin ignited the nuclear chain reaction at the moment of prompt-criticality to ensure the bomb did not fizzle.\n\nMuch of the basic physics of polonium was classified until after the war. The fact that it was used as an initiator was classified until the 1960s. \n\nThe Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project funded human experiments using polonium on five people at the University of Rochester between 1943 and 1947. The people were administered between 9 and of polonium to study its excretion.\n[http://contentdm.library.unr.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT/conghear&CISOPTR\n102&CISOBOX1&REC\n1#metajump American nuclear guinea pigs: three decades of radiation experiments on U.S. citizens]. United States. Congress. House. of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power, published by U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986, Identifier Y 4.En 2/3:99-NN, Electronic Publication Date 2010, at the University of Nevada, Reno, unr.edu\"Studies of polonium metabolism in human subjects\", Chapter 3 in Biological Studies with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium, National, Nuclear Energy Series, Volume VI-3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950, cited in \"American Nuclear Guinea Pigs ...\", 1986 House Energy and Commerce committee report \n\nOccurrence and production\n\nPolonium is a very rare element in nature because of the short half-life of all its isotopes. 210Po, 214Po, and 218Po appear in the decay chain of 238U; thus polonium can be found in uranium ores at about 0.1 mg per metric ton (1 part in 1010), which is approximately 0.2% of the abundance of radium. The amounts in the Earth's crust are not harmful. Polonium has been found in tobacco smoke from tobacco leaves grown with phosphate fertilizers. \n\nBecause it is present in such small concentrations, isolation of polonium from natural sources is a very tedious process. The largest batch of the element ever extracted, performed in the first half of the 20th century, contained only 40 Ci (9 mg) of polonium-210 and was obtained by processing 37 tonnes of residues from radium production. Polonium is now obtained by irradiating bismuth with high-energy neutrons or protons.Greenwood, p. 249\n\nIn 1934, an experiment showed that when natural 209Bi is bombarded with neutrons, 210Bi is created, which then decays to 210Po via beta-minus decay. The final purification is done pyrochemically followed by liquid-liquid extraction techniques. Polonium may now be made in milligram amounts in this procedure which uses high neutron fluxes found in nuclear reactors. Only about 100 grams are produced each year, practically all of it in Russia, making polonium exceedingly rare. \n\nThis process can cause problems in lead-bismuth based liquid metal cooled nuclear reactors such as those used in the Soviet Navy's K-27. Measures must be taken in these reactors to deal with the unwanted possibility of 210Po being released from the coolant. \n\nThe longer-lived isotopes of polonium, 208Po and 209Po, can be formed by proton or deuteron bombardment of bismuth using a cyclotron. Other more proton-rich and more unstable isotopes can be formed by the irradiation of platinum with carbon nuclei. \n\nApplications\n\nPolonium-based sources of alpha particles were produced in the former Soviet Union. Such sources were applied for measuring the thickness of industrial coatings via attenuation of alpha radiation. \n\nBecause of intense alpha radiation, a one-gram sample of 210Po will spontaneously heat up to above 500 C generating about 140 watts of power. Therefore, 210Po is used as an atomic heat source to power radioisotope thermoelectric generators via thermoelectric materials.Greenwood, p. 251 For instance, 210Po heat sources were used in the Lunokhod 1 (1970) and Lunokhod 2 (1973) Moon rovers to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights, as well as the Kosmos 84 and 90 satellites (1965). (in Russian). npc.sarov.ru \n\nThe alpha particles emitted by polonium can be converted to neutrons using beryllium oxide, at a rate of 93 neutrons per million alpha particles. Thus Po-BeO mixtures or alloys are used as a neutron source, for example in a neutron trigger or initiator for nuclear weapons and for inspections of oil wells. About 1500 sources of this type, with an individual activity of 1850 Ci, have been used annually in the Soviet Union. \n\nPolonium was also part of brushes or more complex tools that eliminate static charges in photographic plates, textile mills, paper rolls, sheet plastics, and on substrates (such as automotive) prior to the application of coatings. Alpha particles emitted by polonium ionize air molecules that neutralize charges on the nearby surfaces. Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 uCi of 210Po as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity. In USA, the devices with no more than 500 µCi of (sealed) 210Po per unit can be bought in any amount under a \"general license\", which means that a buyer need not be registered by any authorities. Polonium needs to be replaced in these devices nearly every year because of its short half-life; it is also highly radioactive and therefore has been mostly replaced by less dangerous beta particle sources.\n\nTiny amounts of 210Po are sometimes used in the laboratory and for teaching purposes—typically of the order of 4 -, in the form of sealed sources, with the polonium deposited on a substrate or in a resin or polymer matrix—are often exempt from licensing by the NRC and similar authorities as they are not considered hazardous. Small amounts of 210Po are manufactured for sale to the public in the United States as 'needle sources' for laboratory experimentation, and are retailed by scientific supply companies. The polonium is a layer of plating which in turn is plated with a material such as gold, which allows the alpha radiation (used in experiments such as cloud chambers) to pass while preventing the polonium from being released and presenting a toxic hazard. According to United Nuclear, they typically sell between four and eight such sources per year. \n\nBiology and toxicity\n\nOverview\n\nPolonium is highly dangerous and has no biological role. By mass, polonium-210 is around 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide (the for 210Po is less than 1 microgram for an average adult (see below) compared with about 250 milligrams for hydrogen cyanide ). The main hazard is its intense radioactivity (as an alpha emitter), which makes it very difficult to handle safely. Even in microgram amounts, handling 210Po is extremely dangerous, requiring specialized equipment (a negative pressure alpha glove box equipped with high performance filters), adequate monitoring, and strict handling procedures to avoid any contamination. Alpha particles emitted by polonium will damage organic tissue easily if polonium is ingested, inhaled, or absorbed, although they do not penetrate the epidermis and hence are not hazardous as long as the alpha particles remain outside the body. Wearing chemically resistant and intact gloves is a mandatory precaution to avoid transcutaneous diffusion of polonium directly through the skin. Polonium delivered in concentrated nitric acid can easily diffuse through inadequate gloves (e.g., latex gloves) or the acid may damage the gloves. \n\nIt has been reported that some microbes can methylate polonium by the action of methylcobalamin. This is similar to the way in which mercury, selenium and tellurium are methylated in living things to create organometallic compounds. Studies investigating the metabolism of polonium-210 in rats have shown that only 0.002 to 0.009% of polonium-210 ingested is excreted as volatile polonium-210.\n\nAcute effects\n\nThe median lethal dose (LD50) for acute radiation exposure is generally about 4.5 Sv. The committed effective dose equivalent 210Po is 0.51 µSv/Bq if ingested, and 2.5 µSv/Bq if inhaled. So a fatal 4.5 Sv dose can be caused by ingesting , about 50 nanograms (ng), or inhaling , about 10 ng. One gram of 210Po could thus in theory poison 20 million people of whom 10 million would die. The actual toxicity of 210Po is lower than these estimates, because radiation exposure that is spread out over several weeks (the biological half-life of polonium in humans is 30 to 50 days ) is somewhat less damaging than an instantaneous dose. It has been estimated that a median lethal dose of 210Po is 15 MBq, or 0.089 micrograms, still an extremely small amount. For comparison, one grain of table salt is about 0.06 mg \n 60 μg.[http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae342.cfm]\n\nLong term (chronic) effects\n\nIn addition to the acute effects, radiation exposure (both internal and external) carries a long-term risk of death from cancer of 5–10% per Sv. The general population is exposed to small amounts of polonium as a radon daughter in indoor air; the isotopes 214Po and 218Po are thought to cause the majority of the estimated 15,000–22,000 lung cancer deaths in the US every year that have been attributed to indoor radon. Tobacco smoking causes additional exposure to polonium. \n\nRegulatory exposure limits and handling\n\nThe maximum allowable body burden for ingested 210Po is only , which is equivalent to a particle massing only 6.8 picograms. The maximum permissible workplace concentration of airborne 210Po is about 10 Bq/m3 ( µCi/cm3). The target organs for polonium in humans are the spleen and liver. As the spleen (150 g) and the liver (1.3 to 3 kg) are much smaller than the rest of the body, if the polonium is concentrated in these vital organs, it is a greater threat to life than the dose which would be suffered (on average) by the whole body if it were spread evenly throughout the body, in the same way as caesium or tritium (as T2O).\n\n210Po is widely used in industry, and readily available with little regulation or restriction. In the US, a tracking system run by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was implemented in 2007 to register purchases of more than 16 Ci of polonium-210 (enough to make up 5,000 lethal doses). The IAEA \"is said to be considering tighter regulations ... There is talk that it might tighten the polonium reporting requirement by a factor of 10, to .\" As of 2013, this is still the only alpha emitting byproduct material available, as a NRC Exempt Quantity, which may be held without a radioactive material license.\n\nPolonium and its compounds must be handled in a glove box, which is further enclosed in another box, maintained at a slightly higher pressure than the glove box to prevent the radioactive materials from leaking out. Gloves made of natural rubber do not provide sufficient protection against the radiation from polonium; surgical gloves are necessary. Neoprene gloves shield radiation from polonium better than natural rubber. \n\nWell-known poisoning cases\n\n20th century\n\nPolonium was administered to humans for experimental purposes from 1943 to 1947; it was injected into four hospitalised patients, and orally given to a fifth. Studies such as this were funded by the Manhattan Project and the AEC, and conducted at the University of Rochester. The objective was to obtain data on human excretion of polonium to correlate with more extensive data from rats. Patients selected as subjects were chosen because experimenters wanted persons who had not been exposed to polonium either through work or accident. All subjects had incurable diseases. Excretion of polonium was followed, and an autopsy was conducted at that time on the deceased patient to determine which organs absorbed the polonium. Patients' ages ranged from 'early thirties' to 'early forties.' The experiments were described in Chapter 3 of Biological Studies with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium, National Nuclear Energy Series, Volume VI-3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950. Not specified is the isotope under study, but at the time polonium-210 was the most readily available polonium isotope. The DoE factsheet submitted for this experiment reported no follow up on these subjects. \n\nIt has also been suggested that Irène Joliot-Curie was the first person to die from the radiation effects of polonium. She was accidentally exposed to polonium in 1946 when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench. In 1956, she died from leukemia. \n\nAccording to the 2008 book The Bomb in the Basement, several deaths in Israel during 1957–1969 were caused by 210Po. A leak was discovered at a Weizmann Institute laboratory in 1957. Traces of 210Po were found on the hands of professor Dror Sadeh, a physicist who researched radioactive materials. Medical tests indicated no harm, but the tests did not include bone marrow. Sadeh died from cancer. One of his students died of leukemia, and two colleagues died after a few years, both from cancer. The issue was investigated secretly, and there was never any formal admission that a connection between the leak and the deaths had existed.\n\n21st century\n\nThe cause of death in the 2006 murder of the Russian KGB agent who defected to the British MI6 intelligence agency, Alexander Litvinenko was determined to be 210Po poisoning. According to Prof. Nick Priest of Middlesex University, an environmental toxicologist and radiation expert, speaking on Sky News on December 3, 2006, Litvinenko was probably the first person to die of the acute α-radiation effects of 210Po. \n\nAbnormally high concentrations of 210Po were detected in July 2012 in clothes and personal belongings of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a heavy smoker, who died on 11 November 2004 of uncertain causes. The spokesman for the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, where those items were analyzed, stressed that the \"clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not\", and that \"the only way to confirm the findings would be to exhume Arafat's body to test it for polonium-210.\" On 27 November 2012 Arafat's body was exhumed and samples were taken for separate analysis by experts from France, Switzerland and Russia. On 12 October 2013, The Lancet published the group's finding that high levels of the element were found in Arafat's blood, urine, and in saliva stains on his clothes and toothbrush. The French tests later found some polonium but stated it was from \"natural environmental origin.\" Following later Russian tests, Vladimir Uiba, the head of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency, stated in December 2013 that Arafat died of natural causes, and they had no plans to conduct further tests.\n\nTreatment\n\nIt has been suggested that chelation agents such as British Anti-Lewisite (dimercaprol) can be used to decontaminate humans. In one experiment, rats were given a fatal dose of 1.45 MBq/kg (8.7 ng/kg) of 210Po;\nall untreated rats were dead after 44 days, but 90% of the rats treated with the chelation agent\nHOEtTTC remained alive after 5 months. \n\nDetection in biological specimens\n\nPolonium-210 may be quantified in biological specimens by alpha particle spectrometry to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalized patients or to provide evidence in a medicolegal death investigation. The baseline urinary excretion of polonium-210 in healthy persons due to routine exposure to environmental sources is normally in a range of 5–15 mBq/day. Levels in excess of 30 mBq/day are suggestive of excessive exposure to the radionuclide. \n\nOccurrence in humans and the biosphere\n\nPolonium-210 is widespread in the biosphere, including in human tissues, because of its position in the uranium-238 decay chain. Natural uranium-238 in the Earth's crust decays through a series of solid radioactive intermediates including radium-226 to the radioactive gas radon-222, some of which, during its 3.8-day half-life, diffuses into the atmosphere. There it decays through several more steps to polonium-210, much of which, during its 138-day half-life, is washed back down to the Earth's surface, thus entering the biosphere, before finally decaying to stable lead-206. \n\nAs early as the 1920s Antoine Lacassagne, using polonium provided by his colleague Marie Curie, showed that the element has a very specific pattern of uptake in rabbit tissues, with high concentrations particularly in liver, kidney and testes. More recent evidence suggests that this behavior results from polonium substituting for sulfur in sulfur-containing amino-acids or related molecules and that similar patterns of distribution occur in human tissues. Polonium is indeed an element naturally present in all humans, contributing appreciably to natural background dose, with wide geographical and cultural variations, and particularly high levels in arctic residents, for example. \n\nTobacco\n\nPolonium-210 in tobacco contributes to many of the cases of lung cancer worldwide. Most of this polonium is derived from lead-210 deposited on tobacco leaves from the atmosphere; the lead-210 is a product of radon-222 gas, much of which appears to originate from the decay of radium-226 from fertilizers applied to the tobacco soils. \n\nThe presence of polonium in tobacco smoke has been known since the early 1960s. Some of the world's biggest tobacco firms researched ways to remove the substance—to no avail—over a 40-year period. The results were never published.\n\nFood\n\nPolonium is also found in the food chain, especially in seafood.",
"The curie (symbol Ci) is a non-SI unit of radioactivity, named 'in honour of' Pierre Curie, according to his widow, the famed radiation researcher Marie Curie. \n\nIt was originally defined as \"the quantity or mass of radium emanation in equilibrium with one gram of radium (element)\" but is currently defined as: 1 Ci \n 3.7 × 1010 decays per second after more accurate measurements of the activity of 226Ra (which has a specific activity of 3.66 x 1010 Bq/g. )\n\nIn 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures gave the becquerel (Bq), equal to one reciprocal second, official status as the SI unit of activity. \nTherefore:\n1 Ci 3.7 × 1010 Bq \n 37 GBq \nand\n1 Bq ≅ 2.703 × 10−11 Ci ≅ 27 pCi\n\nWhile its continued use is discouraged by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other bodies, the curie is still widely used throughout the government, industry and medicine in the United States and in other countries.\n\nThe curie is a large amount of activity, and was intentionally so. According to Bertram Boltwood, Marie Curie thought that 'the use of the name \"curie\" for so infinitesimally small (a) quantity of anything was altogether inappropriate.'\n\nThe typical human body contains roughly 0.1 μCi (14 mg) of naturally occurring potassium-40. A human body containing 16 kg of carbon (see composition of the human body) would also have about 24 nanograms or 0.1 μCi of carbon-14. Together, these would have an activity of approximately 0.2 μCi or 7400 Bq inside the person's body.\n\nCurie as a measure of quantity\n\nUnits of activity (the curie and the becquerel) also refer to a quantity of radioactive atoms. Because the probability of decay is a fixed physical quantity, for a known number of atoms of a particular radionuclide, a predictable number will decay in a given time. The number of decays that will occur in one second in one gram of atoms of a particular radionuclide is known as the specific activity of that radionuclide.\n\nThe activity of a sample decreases with time because of decay.\n\nThe rules of radioactive decay may be used to convert activity to an actual number of atoms. They state that 1 Ci of radioactive atoms would follow the expression:\nN (atoms) × λ (s−1) 1 Ci \n 3.7 × 1010 (Bq)\nand so,\nN = 3.7 × 1010 / λ,\nwhere λ is the decay constant in (s−1).\n\nWe can also express activity in moles:\n\\begin{align}\\text{1 Ci}&=\\frac{3.7\\times 10^{10}}{(\\ -ln 1/2)N_{\\rm A}}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in seconds}\\\\\n&\\approx 8.8639\\times 10^{-14}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in seconds}\\\\\n&\\approx 5.3183\\times 10^{-12}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in minutes}\\\\\n&\\approx 3.1910\\times 10^{-10}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in hours}\\\\\n&\\approx 7.6584\\times 10^{-9}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in days}\\\\\n&\\approx 2.7972\\times 10^{-6}\\text{ moles}\\times t_{1/2}\\text{ in years}\n\\end{align}\nwhere NA is Avogadro's number and t1/2 is the half life. The number of moles may be converted to grams by multiplying by the atomic mass.\n\nHere are some examples:\n\nRadiation related quantities\n\nThe following table shows radiation quantities in SI and non-SI units."
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"aliases": [
"Radium",
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In The Banana Splits what sort of animal was Snorky?
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tc_127
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"filename": [
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"title": [
"The Banana Splits"
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"The Banana Splits Adventure Hour is an hour-long, packaged television variety program featuring The Banana Splits, a fictional rock band composed of four funny animal characters. The costumed hosts of the show were Fleegle (guitar, vocals), Bingo (drums, vocals), Drooper (bass, vocals) and Snorky (keyboards, effects).\n\nThe series was produced by Hanna-Barbera, and ran for 31 episodes on NBC Saturday mornings, from September 7, 1968, to September 5, 1970. The costumes and sets were designed by Sid and Marty Krofft and the series' sponsor was Kellogg's Cereals. The show featured both live action and animated segments and was Hanna-Barbera’s first foray into mixing live action with animation.\n\nHistory and description\n\nIn 1967, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached Sid Krofft and Marty Krofft to design costumes for a television show which would feature animated and live-action segments, with the whole show hosted by a bubblegum rock group of anthropomorphic characters. The format of the show was loosely based on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The Banana Splits Adventure Hour premiered on NBC on September 7, 1968.\n\nThe Krofft brothers give credit to the success of the series for opening the door for their own entry into television. NBC picked up the Krofft series H.R. Pufnstuf, which was launched during an hour-long special hosted by The Banana Splits on August 30, 1969.\n\nThe show's live-action segment Danger Island, a cliffhanger serial, as well as the short-lived Micro Ventures, an animated series consisting of only four episodes, ran alongside the animated segments Arabian Knights and The Three Musketeers. Actor Jan Michael Vincent (billed as Michael Vincent) appeared in the live-action component Danger Island, all the live-action material filmed for the series' first season, including the Banana Splits and Danger Island segments, was directed by Richard Donner. \n\nEach show represented a meeting of the \"Banana Splits Club\", and the wraparounds featured the adventures of the club members, who doubled as a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of The Monkees. The main characters were Fleegle, a beagle; Bingo, a gorilla; Drooper, a lion; and Snorky, called \"Snork\" in the theme song lyrics, an elephant.\n\nFleegle would assume the role as leader of the Banana Splits and preside at club meetings. The characters were played by actors in voluminous fleecy costumes similar to later Sid and Marty Krofft characters such as H.R. Pufnstuf. They all spoke in English – Drooper with a Southern drawl in the manner of Michael Nesmith, Fleegle with a pronounced lisp – except for Snorky who \"spoke\" in honking noises.\n\nThe Splits' segments, including songs-of-the-week and comedy skits, served as wraparounds for a number of individual segments. In the second season, The Three Musketeers segments were replaced with repeats of The Hillbilly Bears, a cartoon segment that previously appeared on The Atom Ant Show (1965–1968).\n\nFor the first season, some of the live-action segments – specifically those used during the musical segments – were shot at Six Flags Over Texas, an amusement park located in Arlington, Texas. For the second season, filming took place at Kings Island (Cincinnati, Ohio Kings Island amusement park, located in northeastern Cincinnati, Ohio. In many episodes, the Banana Splits would be seen riding on the Runaway Mine Train roller coasters, Log Flumes, Bumper Cars, Merry-Go-Rounds, and many other rides at Six Flags and Kings Island.\n\nThe Sour Grapes Bunch is a group of human girl characters from the Banana Splits. One of the members of the club - Charley, usually played by Shirley Hillstrom - would bring a written note to the Splits. None of the Sour Grapes spoke in the entire series, however, they would also do a number with the Banana Splits. In the first season episode on October 5, 1968 titled \"Doin' The Banana Split\" as all five girls appeared together with the Splits.\n\nAlso featured were the \"Banana Buggies\" mentioned in the theme song. These were seen driven by each live-action character in the opening and closing segments and occasionally in the wraparound and music video segments as well. The buggies were customized Amphicat six-wheel drive all-terrain vehicles each decorated to resemble the character who drove them. Plastic 1/25 scale model kits were issued by Aurora Plastics Corporation under catalog number 832 beginning in 1969. These were never reissued by Aurora, but have since been released as high-end, resin-based kits. \n\nThe Banana Splits was one of the first two Hanna-Barbera series in 1968 in which Hanna and Barbera received executive producer credits, the other being Huck Finn; Edward Rosen served as producer on both series. They would not, however, assume the title full-time for another five years. This Hanna-Barbera series was also one of the first Saturday morning cartoon shows to utilize a laugh track. \n\n2008 revival\n\nIn August 2008, Warner Bros had announced a multi-platform release featuring new comedy shorts and music videos that debuted on Cartoon Network starting September 2, 2008. The relaunch included a live show and a website, as well as a CD and a DVD featuring 13 new songs released by Universal Records. In addition, a kids-themed area called Banana Splitsville was placed at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina's Hard Rock Park rock-and-roll theme park, which later became Freestyle Music Park before closing permanently in 2009. \n\nCast\n\nMusic\n\nThe show’s theme song, titled \"The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)\", was written by N. B. Winkless, Jr. on a rickety upright piano in the living room of a house in Kenilworth, Illinois. Winkless had many years experience as a jingle writer at Leo Burnett Advertising Agency (\"Good Morning, Good Morning\" for\nKellogg's Corn Flakes and the \"Snap, Crackle, Pop\" song for Rice Krispies). Winkless's connection to Hanna and Barbera through his making commercials for/with them led directly to Winkless's sons inhabiting the suits of three of the Splits. \n\nFor contractual (as opposed to actual) reasons, credit for the Tra-La-La song goes to Ritchie Adams and Mark Barkan; Barkan was one of the music directors for the show. The song was released as a single, attributed to The Banana Splits, and peaked at number 96 on Billboard's Top 100 in February 1969. The version included on the We're The Banana Splits album is the same recording heard at the beginning of the show, while the single version is an entirely different arrangement and recording of the song, featuring an additional verse.\n\nThe Banana Splits' bubblegum pop rock and roll was provided by studio professionals, including Joey Levine (\"I Enjoy Being a Boy\", \"It's a Good Day for a Parade\"); Al Kooper (\"You're the Lovin' End\"); Barry White (\"Doin' the Banana Split\"); Gene Pitney (\"Two Ton Tessie\") and Jimmy Radcliffe provided his songs (\"I'm Gonna Find a Cave\", \"Soul\", \"Don't Go Away Go-Go Girl\", \"Adam Had 'Em\" and \"The Show Must Go On\") but did not contribute vocals to Splits recordings.\n\nThe music director was music publisher Aaron Schroeder, while production duties were mainly handled by David Mook. When a heavier R&B vocal was needed, the music producers usually turned to singer Ricky Lancelotti, who was billed in the show credits under his stage name Rick Lancelot. Lancelotti went on to record several songs with Frank Zappa. In 1968, The Banana Splits released an album on Decca Records titled We're the Banana Splits.\n\nCovers\n\nUS speed punk act The Dickies covered the theme song in 1978, entitled \"Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)\". Their recording reached Number 7 in the UK charts and now appears as a bonus on the CD reissue of their 1979 album The Incredible Shrinking Dickies. They still perform this cover live at almost every concert and it was also featured in the movie soundtrack of Kick-Ass, during ten-year-old Hit-Girl's brutally violent fight scene.\n\nA cover of the show’s theme song performed by Liz Phair with Material Issue (surprisingly appropriate as Liz Phair and three cast members of the Banana Splits attended New Trier High School) is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records. Another rendition was performed by rock & roll comic C.C. Banana on the 2005 cartoon tribute album \"Complete Balanced Breakfast.\" \n\nA cover of \"Don't Go Away Go-Go Girl\" by pop-punk band Mr. T Experience was issued on the 1993 tribute album Banana Pad Riot and their Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood and Our Bodies Our Selves CD releases. The 1988 landmark release \"Sub Pop 200\" included a version of \"I'm Gonna Find a Cave\" retitled \"Gonna Find a Cave\" by the band Girl Trouble. \"Sub Pop 200\" featured recordings from many soon to be notable bands, Nirvana, Green River, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and others from Seattle's Grunge music explosion that followed.\n\nChicago-based musician Ralph Covert, who records children's music under the group name Ralph's World, covered the theme song under the title \"The Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song)\" on his 2001 album At the Bottom of the Sea. Oddest of all references is possibly that made by Bob Marley, with the striking (though not exact) similarity between the song's chorus and the bridge of the Bob Marley & The Wailers song \"Buffalo Soldier\".\n\nComics\n\nThe Banana Splits' adventures continued in comic books. Gold Key began publishing a comic version in 1969, releasing eight issues through 1971. Drawn by Jack Manning, these followed the musicians trying to find work or on the road between gigs.\n\nHome Media releases\n\nOn September 21, 2009, Warner Home Video released the complete first season on DVD in Region 2. The 6-disc set consists of 36 edited half-hour episodes of The Banana Splits and Friends Show as aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang."
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Who had an 80s No 1 hit with Can't Fight This Feeling?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"For a history of music in all times, see Timeline of musical events. \n\nFor music from a year in the 1980s, go to 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89\n\nThis article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1980s.\n\nThe 1980s saw the emergence of dance music and new wave. As disco fell out of fashion in the decade's early years, genres such as post-disco, Italo disco, Euro disco and dance-pop became more popular. Rock music continued to enjoy a wide audience. Soft rock, glam metal, thrash metal, shred guitar characterized by heavy distortion, pinch harmonics and whammy bar abuse became very popular. Adult contemporary, quiet storm, and smooth jazz gained popularity. In late 80s, glam metal became the largest, most commercially successful brand of music in the United States and worldwide. \n\nThe 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with synthpop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity. Also during this decade, several major electronic genres were developed, including electro, techno, house, freestyle and Eurodance, rising in prominence during the 1990s and beyond. Throughout the decade, R&B, hip hop and urban genres were becoming commonplace, particularly in the inner-city areas of large, metropolitan cities; rap was especially successful in the latter part of the decade, with the advent of the golden age of hip hop. These urban genres—particularly rap and hip hop—would continue their rise in popularity through the 1990s and 2000s.\n\nA 2010 survey conducted by the digital broadcaster Music Choice, which polled over 11,000 European participants, revealed that the 1980s is the most favored tune decade of the last 50 years. \n\nNorth America \n\nPop \n\nThe 1980s saw the reinvention of Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, the superstardom of Prince and the emergence of Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson—who were all the most successful musicians during this time. Their videos became a permanent fixture on MTV and gained a worldwide mass audience. Michael Jackson was the first African American artist to have his music video aired on MTV. Michael Jackson's Thriller album from 1982 is the best-selling album of all time; it is cited as selling as many as 110 million copies worldwide. Being the biggest selling artist of that decade, he was the biggest star of the 1980s. Madonna was the most successful female artist of the decade. Her third studio album, True Blue, became the best-selling female album of the 1980s. Other Madonna albums from the decade include Like a Virgin which became one of the best selling albums of all-time and Like a Prayer which was called \"as close to art as pop music gets\" by Rolling Stone. Madonna made music videos a marketing tool and was among the first to make them an art form. Many of her songs topped the Charts around the world, such as: \"Like a Virgin\", \"Papa Don't Preach\", \"La Isla Bonita\" and \"Like a Prayer\". After her Like a Prayer album release in 1989, Madonna was named artist of the decade by a number of magazines and awards. Whitney Houston became one of the best selling artist of the 1980s. Her emergence became the footprints of different singers because of her vocal gymnastics. Whitney became the second best-selling female artist of the 1980s, second only to Madonna. Her eponymous debut studio album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album of all time and her sophomore album became the first female debut at no. 1 in the history of Billboard 200 and she was the first and the only artist to chart seven consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard 100.\nBy 1980, the prominent disco genre, largely dependent on orchestras, had become heavily unfavoured, replaced by a lighter synthpop production, which subsequently fuelled dance music. In the latter half of the 1980s, teen pop experiences its first wave; bands and artists include Exposé, New Kids on the Block, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Erotic Exotic, New Edition, Stacey Q, The Bangles, Madonna, George Michael, Olivia Newton-John, Boy George and others.\n\nProminent American urban pop acts of the 1980s include Tina Turner, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston and Deniece Williams. African American artists like Lionel Richie and Prince went on to become some of the decade's biggest pop stars, ruling MTV, with Prince becoming the second biggest male superstar after Michael Jackson. Their commercial albums included 1999, Purple Rain, and Sign \"O\" the Times by Prince and Lionel Richie, Can't Slow Down and Dancing on the Ceiling by Richie.\n\nDuring the mid-1980s American pop singer Cyndi Lauper was considered the \"Voice of the MTV Generation of 80s\" and so different visual style that made the world for teens. Her first two albums She's So Unusual (1984) and True Colors (1986) were critically and commercially successful, spawning the hits, \"Girls Just Want to Have Fun\", \"Time After Time\", \"She Bop\", \"All Through the Night\", \"The Goonies 'R' Good Enough\", \"True Colors\" and \"Change of Heart\".\n\nSeveral British artists made the successful transition to pop during the 1980s and saw great commercial success, such as David Bowie and Paul McCartney. Many British pop bands also dominated the American charts in the early 1980s. Many of them became popular due to their constant exposure on MTV, these bands included Culture Club, Duran Duran, and Wham!. Between the two, they have had 7 U.S. number ones with hits like \"Karma Chameleon\", \"The Reflex\" and \"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go\"\n\nAmerican artists such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, Cher, Hall & Oates, Prince and Janet Jackson ruled the charts throughout the decade and achieved tremendous success worldwide. Their fame and commercial success lasts up to date although Whitney Houston,Michael Jackson and Prince are deceased.\n\nRock \n\nIn the 1980s, rock music was more precisely defined and split up into multiple subgenres. \nHard rock and heavy/glam metal \n\nBeginning in 1983 and peaking in success in 1986-1991, the decade saw the resurgence of hard rock music and the emergence of its glam metal subgenre. Bands such as AC/DC, Queen, Def Leppard, Kiss, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, Scorpions, Europe, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Poison, Dokken, Whitesnake, and Cinderella were among the most popular acts of the decade. The 1980s saw the emergence of wildly popular hard rock band Guns N' Roses and the successful comebacks of Aerosmith and Alice Cooper in the late 1980s. The success of hard rock act Van Halen spanned throughout the entire decade, first with singer David Lee Roth and later with Sammy Hagar. Queen, which had expanded its music to experimental and crossover genres in the early 1980s, returned to guitar-driven hard rock with The Miracle in 1989. Additionally, a few women managed to achieve stardom in the 1980s' hard rock scene: Pat Benatar, who had been around since the late 1970s, is a prime example of female success in hard rock, and so are both ex-Runaways Joan Jett and Lita Ford.\n\nThe Arena rock trend of the 1970s continued in the 1980s with bands like Styx, Rush, Journey, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, ZZ Top, and Aerosmith.\n\nTraditionally associated (and often confused) with hard rock, heavy metal was also extremely popular throughout the decade, with Ozzy Osbourne achieving success during his solo career; bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Dio were also widely popular British acts. Speed metal pioneer Motörhead maintained its popularity through the releases of several albums.\nUnderground scenes produced an array of more extreme, aggressive Metal subgenres: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Anthrax, and Megadeth, with other styles like death metal and black metal remaining subcultural phenomena.\n\nThe decade also saw the emergence of a string of guitar virtuosi: Eddie Van Halen, George Lynch, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen achieved international recognition for their skills. While considerably less numerous, bass guitar virtuosi also gained momentum in the 1980s: Billy Sheehan (of David Lee Roth and Mr. Big fame), Cliff Burton (of Metallica) and alternative/funk metal bassist Les Claypool (of Primus fame) became famous during that period. Iron Maiden founder and bassist Steve Harris has also been praised numerous times for his galloping style of bass playing.\n\nBoth Hard rock and Heavy metal were extremely popular live genres and bands toured extensively around the globe.\n\nAlternative rock \n\nBy 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels were mining from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper rational post-punk years. \n\nThroughout the 1980s, alternative rock was mainly an underground phenomena. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone, alternative rock in the 1980s was primarily relegated to independent record labels, fanzines and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the case of the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit in America, filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. \n\nEarly American alternative bands such as R.E.M., The Hits, The Feelies, and Violent Femmes combined punk influences with folk music and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; its debut album, Murmur (1983), entered the Top 40 and spawned a number of jangle pop followers. Alternative and indie pop movements sprang up in other parts of the world, from the Paisley Underground of Los Angeles (The Bangles, Rain Parade) to Scotland (Aztec Camera, Orange Juice), Australia (The Church, The Triffids), and New Zealand's Dunedin Sound (The Clean, The Chills).\n\nAmerican indie record labels SST Records, Twin/Tone Records, Touch and Go Records, and Dischord Records presided over the shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minnesota bands Hüsker Dü and The Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic.\n\nBy the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop (They Might Be Giants and Camper Van Beethoven), to noise rock (Big Black, Swans) to industrial rock (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails) and to early Grunge (Mudhoney, Nirvana). These sounds were in turn followed by the advent of Boston's the Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction.\n\nAmerican Alternative Rock bands of 1980s included Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Minutemen, R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, and Sonic Youth which were popular long before the Grunge movement of the early 1990s.\n\nSoft rock \n\nNew singers and songwriters included Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Mark Heard, Lucinda Williams, Patti Smith, Rickie Lee Jones, Terence Trent D'Arby, Stevie Nicks, Suzanne Vega, Cheryl Wheeler and Warren Zevon. Rock and even punk rock artists such as Peter Case, Phil Collins and Paul Westerberg transitioned to careers as solo singers.\n\nIn the late 1980s, the term was applied to a group of predominantly female U.S. artists, beginning with Suzanne Vega whose first album sold unexpectedly well, followed by the likes of Tracy Chapman, Nanci Griffith, k.d. lang and Tori Amos, who found success first in the United Kingdom, then in her home market.\n\nOther trends \n\nVarious older rock bands made a comeback. Bands originating from the early to mid-1960s such as The Beach Boys and The Kinks had hits with \"Kokomo\", \"Come Dancing\" and \"Do It Again\". Bands with popularity in the mid-1970s such as the Steve Miller Band and Steely Dan also had hits with \"Abracadabra\" and \"Hey Nineteen\". Singer and songwriter Bruce Springsteen released his blockbuster album Born In The USA, which produced a record-tying 7 hit singles. Stevie Ray Vaughan and George Thorogood sparked a revival of Atomic blues and Blues rock. Massively successful hard rock band Led Zeppelin disbanded after drummer John Bonham's 1980 death, while contemporaries AC/DC continued to have success after the death of former frontman Bon Scott. Country rock saw a decline after Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1977 plane crash and the 1980 disbanding of the genre's most successful band, the Eagles. The Grateful Dead had their biggest hit in band history with \"Touch of Grey\". The Who managed to provide the hit songs \"You Better You Bet\" and \"Eminence Front\" before burning out after the death of their drummer Keith Moon.\n\nHardcore punk flourished throughout the early to mid-1980s, with bands leading the genre such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, D.O.A., and Dead Kennedys amongst others. It began to wane in the latter half of the decade, with the New York hardcore scene dominating the genre. However, it experience a jumpstart in the late 1980s with emerging bands such as Operation Ivy and Green Day that would define not just the so-called \"East Bay\" sound, but impact the next decade's punk and alternative sound. Some of which is still around today.\n\nContemporary R&B \n\nContemporary R&B originated in the 1980s, when musicians started adding disco-like beats, high-tech production, and elements of hip hop, soul and funk to rhythm and blues, making it more danceable and modern. The top mainstream R&B artists of 1980s included Michael Jackson, Prince, Jermaine Jackson, The Whispers, The S.O.S. Band, Stevie Wonder, Kool & the Gang, Yarbrough and Peoples, Smokey Robinson, Rick James, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Dazz Band, Evelyn King, Marvin Gaye, Mtume, DeBarge, Midnight Star, and Freddie Jackson. \n\nIn the mid-1980s, many of the recordings by artists Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson, Sade, Anita Baker, Teddy Pendergrass, Peabo Bryson and others became known as quiet storm. The term had originated with Smokey Robinson's 1975 album A Quiet Storm. Quiet storm has been described as \"R&B's answer to soft rock and adult contemporary—while it was primarily intended for black audiences, quiet storm had the same understated dynamics, relaxed tempos and rhythms, and romantic sentiment.\" \n\nTina Turner made a comeback during the second half of the 1980s, while Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson broke into the pop music charts with a series of hits. Richard J. Ripani wrote that Janet Jackson's third studio album Control (1986) was \"important to the development of R&B for a number of reasons\", as she and her producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, \"crafted a new sound that fuses the rhythmic elements of funk and disco, along with heavy doses of synthesizers, percussion, sound effects, and a rap music sensibility.\" Ripani wrote that \"the success of Control led to the incorporation of stylistic traits of rap over the next few years, and Janet Jackson was to continue to be one of the leaders in that development.\" That same year, Teddy Riley began producing R&B recordings that included hip hop influences. This combination of R&B style and hip hop rhythms was termed new jack swing, and was applied to artists such as Bobby Brown, Keith Sweat, MC Hammer, Boyz ll Men, Guy, Jodeci, and Bell Biv DeVoe.\n\nMichael Jackson remained a prominent figure in the genre in the late 1980s, following the release of his album Bad (1987) which sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Janet Jackson's 1989 album Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 continued the development of contemporary R&B into the 1990s, as the album's title track \"Rhythm Nation\" made \"use of elements from across the R&B spectrum, including use of a sample loop, triplet swing, rapped vocal parts and blues notes.\" The release of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 became the only album in history to produce number one hits on the Billboard Charts Hot 100 in three separate calendar years—\"Miss You Much\" in 1989, \"Escapade\" and \"Black Cat\" in 1990, and \"Love Will Never Do (Without You)\" in 1991—and the only album in the history of the Hot 100 to have seven top 5 hit singles.\n\nHip hop \n\nEncompassing graffiti art, break dancing, rap music, and fashion, hip-hop became the dominant cultural movement of the African American communities in the 1980s. The Hip hop musical genre had a strong influence on pop music in the late 1980s which still continues to the present day.\n\nDuring the 1980s, the hip hop genre started embracing the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Pioneers such as Africa Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc, Melle Mel, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Whodini, Sugarhill Gang, Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. \"Human Beatbox\" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.\n\nThe 1980s also saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded \"The Message\" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-DMC's \"It's like That\" and Public Enemy's \"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos\". \n\nPopular hip hop artists of the 1980s include Kurtis Blow, Run D.M.C., Beastie Boys, NWA, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, Kid N Play, MC Lyte, EPMD, Salt N Pepa, and Ice-T, Schooly D,Slick Rick, Kool Moe Dee, Whodini, MC Hammer, among others.\n\nElectronic music \n\nIn the 1980s, dance music records made using only electronic instruments became increasingly popular, largely influenced from the Electronic music of Kraftwerk and 1970s disco music. Such music was originally born of and popularized via regional nightclub scenes in the 1980s, and became the predominant type of music played in discothèques as well as the rave scene.\n\nHouse music is a style of electronic dance music which originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA in the early 1980s. House music was strongly influenced by elements of soul- and funk-infused varieties of disco. Club play from pioneering DJs like Ron Hardy and Lil Louis, local dance music record shops, and the popular Hot Mix 5 shows on radio station WBMX-FM helped popularize house music in Chicago and among visiting DJs & producers from Detroit. Trax Records and DJ International Records, local labels with wider distribution, helped popularize house music outside of Chicago. It eventually reached Europe before becoming infused in mainstream pop & dance music worldwide during the 1990s.\n\nIt has been widely cited that the initial blueprint for Techno was developed during the mid-1980s in Detroit, Michigan, by Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May (the so-called \"Belleville Three\"), and Eddie Fowlkes, all of whom attended school together at Belleville High, near Detroit. Sicko 1999 Though initially conceived as party music that was played on daily mixed radio programs and played at parties given by cliquish, Detroit high school clubs, it has grown to be a global phenomenon.\n\nCountry music \n\nAs the 1980s dawned, pop-influenced country music was the dominant style, through such acts as Kenny Rogers, Ronnie Milsap, T.G. Sheppard, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Anne Murray and Dolly Parton. The 1980 movie Urban Cowboy, a romantic comedy starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, spawned a successful soundtrack album featuring pop-styled country songs, including \"Lookin' for Love\" by Johnny Lee, \"The Devil Went Down to Georgia\" by the Charlie Daniels Band, \"Could I Have This Dance\" by Murray and \"Love the World Away\" by Rogers. The songs, and the movie itself, resulted in an early 1980s boom in pop-styled country music, and the era is sometimes known as the \"Urban Cowboy Movement\".\n\nBy the mid-1980s, country music audiences were beginning to tire of country pop. Although some pop-country artists continued to record and release successful songs and albums, the genre in general was beginning to suffer. By 1985, a New York Times article declared country music \"dead\". However, by this time, several newcomers were working behind the scenes to reverse this perception.\n\nThe year 1986 brought forth several new artists who performed in traditional country styles, such as honky-tonk. This sparked the \"new traditionalist\" movement, or return to traditional country music. The most successful of these artists included Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Van Shelton and Holly Dunn. Also, artists like Kathy Mattea and Keith Whitley, both of whom had been performing for a few years prior, had their first major hits during 1986; Mattea was more folk-styled, while Whitley was pure honky-tonk. But the new traditionalist movement had already taken hold as early as 1981, when newcomers such as Ricky Skaggs and George Strait had their first big hits. Reba McEntire had her first big hit in 1980 followed by 15 other number one hit singles during the decade. In addition, songwriter–guitarist and Chet Atkins prodigy Steve Wariner also emerged as a popular act starting in the early 1980s. Another boom period for newcomers with new traditionalist styles was 1989, when artists such as Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lorrie Morgan and Travis Tritt had their first big hits. It was Whitley who was seen as being one of the torchbearers of the new traditionalist movement, thanks to his pure honky-tonk style in the vein of Lefty Frizzell and others, and his star power was set to rise into the 1990s; however, Whitley was a known heavy drinker, and it was alcohol poisoning that ended his life in May 1989, just weeks after a song about triumph over personal demons -- \"I'm No Stranger to the Rain\" -- became a huge country hit.\n\nVocal duos were also popular because of their harmonies, most notably The Bellamy Brothers and The Judds. Several of the Bellamy Brothers' songs included double-entendre' laden hooks, on songs such as \"Do You Love as Good As You Look\". The Judds, a mother-and-daughter duo, combined elements of contemporary pop and traditional country music on songs such as \"Why Not Me\" and \"Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ol' Days)\".\n\nCountry music groups and bands continued to rise in popularity during the 1980s. The most successful of the lot was Alabama, a Fort Payne-based band that blended traditional and pop country sounds with southern rock. Their concerts regularly sold out, while their single releases regularly reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. In 1989, Alabama was named the Artist of the Decade by the Academy of Country Music. By the end of the 1980s, the group had sold more than 24 million albums in the United States.\n\nRanking just behind Alabama in popularity, as far as groups were concerned, were The Oak Ridge Boys and The Statler Brothers, both four-part harmony groups with gospel and country-pop stylings. The popularity of those three groups sparked a boom in new groups and bands, and by the end of the 1980s, fans were listening to such acts as Restless Heart and Exile, the latter which previously enjoyed success with the pop hit \"Kiss You All Over\".\n\nDespite the prevailing pop country sound, enduring acts from the 1970s and earlier continued to enjoy great success with fans. George Jones, one of the longest-running acts of the time, recorded several successful singles, including the critically acclaimed \"He Stopped Loving Her Today\". Conway Twitty continued to have a series of No. 1 hits, with 1986's \"Desperado Love\" becoming his 40th chart-topper on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, a record that stood for nearly 20 years. The movie Coal Miner's Daughter profiled the life of Loretta Lynn (with Sissy Spacek in the lead role), while Willie Nelson also had a series of acting credits. Dolly Parton had much success in the 1980s, with several leading movie roles, two No. 1 albums and 13 number one hits, and having many successful tours; she also teamed up with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt in 1987 for the multi-plaitnum Trio album. Others who had been around for a while and continued to have great success were Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, Hank Williams Jr. and Tammy Wynette.\n\nThe UK and the rest of Europe \n\nRock \n\nPost punk \n\nSome of the most successful post-punk bands at the beginning of the decade, such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Psychedelic Furs, also continued their success during the 1980s. Members of Bauhaus and Joy Division explored new stylistic territory as Love and Rockets and New Order respectively.\n\nThe second generation of British post-punk bands that broke through in the early 1980s, including The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, The Fall, The Pop Group, The Mekons, Echo and the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes, tended to move away from dark sonic landscapes.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1337-8.\n\nEven though The Police's first hit song \"Roxanne\" was written by Sting in 1978 (reaching number 12 in the UK Charts that year), the song continued to grow in popularity in the 1980s along with the band, and it helped define the sound and repertoire of The Police, one of the biggest bands of the 1980s globally. Even though The Police had their roots in post punk, their eventual success and mega-stardom came from being able to pack the biggest stadium rock venues such as Wembley, the Oakland Coliseum and the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro. Aside from U2, they are the only other band with post punk origins to go on and achieve the kind of global success they did, with their music transforming along the way into their own brand and style of music - Sting's songwriting and voice becoming legendary, along with drummer Stewart Copeland and his widely respected, complex drumming skills and Andy Summer's masterful guitar interspersing with Sting and Stewart - helping them gain an informal but widely accepted recognition as the \"Biggest Band in The World\" during their 1983-1984 Synchronicity Tour, garnering them a nomination for 5 Grammy Awards and taking 3 at the 1984 Grammy Awards.\n\nIreland's U2 incorporated elements of religious imagery together with political commentary into their often anthemic music, and by the late 1980s had become one of the biggest bands in the world. \n\nAlthough many post-punk bands continued to record and perform, it declined as a movement in the mid-1980s as acts disbanded or moved off to explore other musical areas, but it has continued to influence the development of rock music and has been seen as a major element in the creation of the alternative rock movement. \n\nNew wave music \n\nThe arrival of MTV in 1981 would usher in new wave's most successful era. British artists, unlike many of their American counterparts, had learned how to use the music video early on.[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100891/pg_1?tag\nartBody;col1 St. James encyclopedia of Pop Culture]Rip It Up and Start Again Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds Pages 340,342-343 Several British acts signed to independent labels were able to outmarket and outsell American artists that were signed with major labels. Journalists labelled this phenomenon a \"Second British Invasion\". \n\nIn the fall of 1982, \"I Ran (So Far Away)\" by A Flock of Seagulls entered the Billboard Top Ten, arguably the first successful song that owed almost everything to video. They would be followed by bands like Duran Duran whose glossy videos would come to symbolize the power of MTV. Dire Straits' \"Money for Nothing\" gently poked fun at MTV which had helped make them international rock stars. In 1983, 30% of the record sales were from British acts. 18 of the top 40 and 6 of the top 10 singles on July 18 were by British artists. Overall record sales would rise by 10% from 1982. Newsweek magazine featured Annie Lennox and Boy George on the cover of one of its issues while Rolling Stone Magazine would release an England Swings issue. In April 1984 40 of the top 100 singles were from British acts while 8 of the top 10 singles in a May 1985 survey were of British origin. Veteran music journalist Simon Reynolds theorized that similar to the first British Invasion the use of black American influences by the British acts helped to spur success. Commentators in the mainstream media credited MTV and the British acts with bringing colour and energy to back to pop music while rock journalists were generally hostile to the phenomenon because they felt it represented image over content. MTV continued its heavy rotation of videos by new wave-oriented acts until 1987, when it changed to a heavy metal and rock dominated format. \n\nNew Romantics \n\nNew Romanticism emerged as part of the new wave music movement in London's nightclub including Billy's and The Blitz Club towards the end of the 1970s. Influenced by David Bowie and Roxy Music, it developed glam rock fashions, gaining its name from the frilly fop shirts of early Romanticism. New Romantic music often made extensive use of synthesisers. Pioneers included Visage and Ultravox and among the commercially most successful acts associated with the movement were Adam and the Ants, Culture Club, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. By about 1983 the original movement had dissolved, with surviving acts dropping most of the fashion elements to pursue mainstream careers. Other new romantic artists included Classix Nouveaux, A Flock of Seagulls, Gary Numan, Japan, Landscape, Thompson Twins, Soft Cell, ABC, The Teardrop Explodes, Yazoo and Talk Talk.\n\nGothic Rock \n\nGothic rock music developed out of the post punk scene in the later 1970s. Notable early gothic rock bands include Bauhaus (whose \"Bela Lugosi's Dead\" is often cited as the first goth record), Siouxsie and the Banshees (who may have coined the term), The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, and Fields of the Nephilim.R. Shuker, Popular music: the key concepts (Routledge, 2005), p. 128. Gothic rock gave rise to a broader goth subculture that included clubs, various fashion trends and numerous publications that grew in popularity in the 1980s, gaining notoriety by being associated by several moral panics over suicide and Satanism. \n\nHeavy metal \n\nIn the early 1980s, the new wave of British heavy metal broke into the mainstream, as albums by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon and Motörhead, reached the British top 10. In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the UK charts with No Sleep 'til Hammersmith. After a string of UK top 10 albums, Whitesnake's 1987 self-titled album was their most commercially successful, with hits, \"Here I Go Again\" and \"Is This Love\", earning them a nomination for the Brit Award for Best British Group. Many metal artists, including Def Leppard, benefited from the exposure they received on ATV and became the inspiration for American glam metal.I. Christe Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal (London: HarperCollins, 2003), ISBN 0-380-81127-8, p. 79. However, as the subgenre fragmented, much of the creative impetus moved away from Britain to American and continental Europe (particularly Germany and Scandinavia), which produced most of the major new subgenres of metal, which were then taken up by British acts. These included thrash metal and death metal, both developed in the UK; black metal and power metal, both developed in continental Europe, but influenced by the British band Venom; and doom, which was developed in the US, but which soon were adopted by a number of bands from England, including Pagan Altar and Witchfinder General. \n\nNotable bands from the hard rock and metal scene of the 1980s included Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister and others.\n\nPop \n\nPhil Collins had three UK number one singles in the 80s, seven US number one singles, another with Genesis, and when his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins had more top 40 hits on the Billboard \nHot 100 chart during the 1980s than any other artist. His former Genesis colleague, Peter Gabriel, also had a very successful solo career, which included a US number one single and three top ten UK hits (including a duet with Kate Bush). Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford also enjoyed several UK and US hits with his project Mike + The Mechanics, which included a US number one single. David Bowie saw much greater commercial success in the 1980s than he had in the previous decade, scoring four UK number one singles, including \"Let's Dance\" which proved to be his biggest ever hit. He had a total of ten UK top ten hits during the decade, two in collaboration with other artists. \n\nBoy George and his band Culture Club had great success in both the UK and US charts with major hits like \"Do You Really Want To Hurt Me\", \"Time (Clock of the Heart)\" and \"Karma Chameleon\". As well as Boy George having his own UK number one with his cover of Breads \"Everything I Own\", he is considered a major icon of this era. Liverpool band Frankie Goes to Hollywood's initially controversial dance-pop gave them three consecutive UK number ones in 1984, until they faded away in the mid-1980s. Dead or Alive, also from Liverpool, was another popular dance pop band in the mid-1980s. It was fronted by lead singer Pete Burns.\n\nProbably the most successful British pop band of the era were the duo Wham! with an unusual mix of disco, soul, ballads and even rap, who had eleven top ten hits in the UK, six of them number ones, between 1982 and 1986.P. Gambaccini, T. Rice and J. Rice, British Hit Singles (6th edn., 1985), pp. 338-9. George Michael released his debut solo album, Faith in 1987, and would go on to have seven UK number one singles. The 1985 concert Live Aid held at Wembley Stadium would see some of the biggest British artists of the era perform, with Queen stealing the show. \n\nBonnie Tyler and Dan Ellis had major hits with \"Total Eclipse of the Heart\" and \"Holding Out for a Hero\", while Robert Palmer's had two iconic music videos for \"Addicted to Love\" and \"Simply Irresistible\". The Bee Gees 1987 single \"You Win Again\" reached number one, making them first group to score a UK #1 hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Other British artists who achieved success in the pop charts in the 80s included Paul McCartney, Elton John, Culture Club, The Fixx, Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Kate Bush, Billy Idol, Paul Young, Elvis Costello, Simple Minds, Billy Ocean, Tears for Fears, UB40, Madness and Sade.\n\nIn 1988 Irish singer Enya achieved a breakthrough in her career with the album Watermark which sold over eleven million copies worldwide and helped launch Enya's successful career as a leading new-age, Celtic, World singer. Dutch band Tambourine received some notoriety in The Netherlands and Belgium toward the end of the decade.\n\nSynth pop \n\nSynthpop emerged from new wave, producing a form of pop music that followed electronic rock pioneers in the 1970s like Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre, and Tangerine Dream, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. The sounds of synthesizers came to dominate the pop music of the early 1980s as well as replacing disco in dance clubs in Europe.\n\nOther successful synthpop artists of this era included Pet Shop Boys, Alphaville, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, New Order, Gary Numan, The Human League, Thomas Dolby, Yazoo, Art of Noise, Heaven 17, A Flock of Seagulls, OMD, Japan, Thompson Twins, Visage, Ultravox, Kajagoogoo, Eurythmics, a-ha, Telex, Real Life, Erasure, Camouflage, London Boys, Modern Talking, Bananarama, Yellow Magic Orchestra, among others.\n\nLatin America \n\nPop \n\nThe 1980s gives to the rise of teenage groups such as Menudo, Timbiriche, and Los Chicos, as well as child stars such as Luis Miguel. By 1988, however, the aforementioned Luis Miguel would transform into an adult superstar at age 18 with the hit La Incondicional (1989). Not too far behind was former Los Chicos' member Chayanne as he became a leading pop star by the end of the decade, with his 1987 hit Fiesta en America. As young stars begin to rise in Latin music, veterans such as Julio Iglesias, José José, Juan Gabriel, and José Luis Rodríguez El Puma continue their dominance in Latin music. In 1985 became the worldwide breakthrough success of Conga by Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine . Argentine-Venezuelan singer Ricardo Montaner joins those veterans with his 1988 hit Tan Enamorado. After the slow decline of Fania All-Stars, the new romantic genre of salsa romantica would rise beginning in 1984. Younger salseros such as Frankie Ruiz, Luis Enrique, and Eddie Santiago would take advantage of this new genre rising salsa to new heights. Tejano Music starts to give little rise after Mazz crosses over to Mexico after their albums Una Noche Juntos and No Te Olvidare win Grammys.\n\nIn 1989, Juan Luis Guerra scores a major Merengue hit with Ojala que llueva cafe.\n\nRock \n\nThe Rock en Español movement began around the 1980s. Until the mid-80s the rock scene of most Spanish American countries were not connected, and it was rare for a rock band to gain acclaim and popularity outside its home country.\n\nArgentina, which had the largest national rock scene and music industry, became the birthplace of several influential rock acts. Soda Stereo from Buenos Aires is often acclaimed as the most influential rock band of the 80s alongside the solo careers of Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta and the new star Fito Páez from Rosario. Soda Stereo was among the first bands to successfully tour across most of Latin America. Argentina developed also during the 80s a ska rock and punk rock scene. The punk movement, that was pioneered by Los Violadores, led to the rise of the Buenos Aires Hardcore around 1990.\n\nIn Chile, that was ruled by a military dictatorship all over the 80s, Nueva canción protest songs from the 60s and 70s maintained their popularity despite severe censorship. The progressive/folk rock band Los Jaivas made a Latin American trademark album with Alturas de Macchu Picchu [sic] based on Pablo Neruda's homonymous poem. The rock band Los Prisioneros were successful in combining the protest song atmosphere of the 80s with newer trends in rock including punk, ska, new wave and techno. In late 1980s new bands such as Maná, Los Tres and La Ley would start to set the trends for the next decade.\n\nBrazil saw the emergence of BRock.\n\nSalsa \n\nThe salsa music had developed in the 1960s and '70s by Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants to the New York City area but did not enter into mainstream popularity in Latin America until the late 1980s. The salsa music became together with cumbia the two most popular dance music but did not penetrate other countries outside the Caribbean as cumbia did.\n\nThe 1980s was a time of diversification, as popular salsa evolved into sweet and smooth salsa romantica, with lyrics dwelling on love and romance, and its more explicit cousin, salsa erotica. Salsa romantica can be traced back to Noches Calientes, a 1984 album by singer José Alberto with producer Louie Ramirez. A wave of romantica singers, found wide audience among Latinos in both New York and Puerto Rico. The 1980s also saw salsa expand to Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Europe and Japan, and diversify into many new styles.\n\nIn the 1980s some performers experimented with combining elements of salsa with hip hop music, while the producer and pianist Sergio George helped to revive salsa's commercial success. He created a sound based on prominent trombones and rootsy, mambo-inspired style. He worked with the Japanese salsa band Orquesta de la Luz, and developed a studio orchestra that included Tito Nieves, Celia Cruz, José Alberto, La India, Tito Puente and Luis Enrique. The Colombian singer Joe Arroyo first rose to fame in the 1970s, but became a renowned exponent of Colombian salsa in the 1980s. Arroyo worked for many years with the Colombian arranger Fruko and his band Los Tesos. \n\nMerengue \n\nMerengue music would hit its golden years during the 1980s starting in the late 70s with acts such as Wilfrido Vargas, Johnny Ventura, and Fernando Villalona. Their orchestras would also churn future solo acts such as Eddy Herrera and Rubby Perez. By the end of the decade, La Cocoband would reinvent merengue with a more comedic style.\n\nAustralia and New Zealand \n\nAustralian rock band INXS achieved international success during the decade with a series of hit recordings, including the albums Listen Like Thieves (1985), Kick (1987), and the singles \"Original Sin\" (1984), \"Need You Tonight\" (1987), \"Devil Inside\" (1988) and \"New Sensation\" (1987). \n\nKylie Minogue first single, \"Locomotion\" became a huge hit in Minogue's native Australia spending seven weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart. The single eventually became the highest selling Australian single of the decade. Throughout Europe and Asia the song also performed well on the music charts, reaching number one in Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, and South Africa. The Australian rock band Men at Work achieved success in 1981 with the single \"Down Under\" topping Australian charts for two consecutive weeks.\n\nIn 1980, New Zealand rock band Split Enz released their album True Colours, which became an international success. Their single \"I Got You\", which was praised for its \"Beatle-esque\" chorus, reached the top ten in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, reached number twelve in the United Kingdom, and even charted the United States. Split Enz also received significant exposure in the United States upon the release of MTV, which featured several Split Enz videos in the early days of its broadcast. However, after several line-up changes, which included the departure of prominent member Tim Finn, the band broke up in 1984 (another prominent New Zealand/Australian band, Mi-Sex, known for its hit single \"Computer Games\", disbanded the same year). Neil Finn, the younger brother of Tim Finn who had become Split Enz's de facto front man after his departure in 1983, went on to form Crowded House in Australia in 1985. In 1986 Crowded House released their hugely successful self-titled debut album, which went to number one in Australia and number three in New Zealand, as well as reaching the top ten in Canada and top twenty in the United States. It spawned the song \"Don't Dream It's Over\", which hit number one in New Zealand and Canada, number two in the United States and number eight in Australia, and has since become a pop/rock anthem in Australasia. Crowded House's follow up album Temple of Low Men, released in 1988, did not achieve the same success as their debut, but was still popular in the band's homelands of Australia and New Zealand...\n\nBack at home, New Zealand continued to have a small and vibrant music scene, and the eighties saw the formation of many new bands, including The Swingers, Coconut Rough, The Crocodiles and Peking Man. Many of these bands were short-lived and did not see much success outside of New Zealand and Australia. So said.\n\nAsia \n\nIn Japan, bands such as Shonen Knife, Boredoms, The Star Club, X Japan and The Stalin began in the Japanese rock bands and Visual kei emerged in the 1980s with bands such as X Japan, Buck Tick and D'erlanger.\nJapanese noise rock emerged in the 1980s with bands such as Melt-Banana, Zeni Geva and Guitar Wolf in the Japanese's indies scene.\nThe Japanese hardcore emerged with bands such as The Star Club and GISM and Japanese idol group Onyanko Club began as Idol group in the teen fans and youth fans.",
"\"Can't Fight This Feeling\" is a power ballad performed by the American rock band REO Speedwagon, the single remained three consecutive weeks at the number one position at the U.S. Hot 100 chart from March 9 to March 23, 1985. \n\nThe song is about a man falling in love with a girl with whom he has been friends for a long time.\nThe song first appeared on REO Speedwagon's 1984 album Wheels Are Turnin'. It was the group's second number-one hit on the U.S. charts (the first being 1981's \"Keep on Loving You\", also written by Kevin Cronin) and reached number sixteen in the UK. \"Can't Fight This Feeling\" has appeared on dozens of 'various artists' compilation albums, as well as several REO Speedwagon greatest hits albums. \n\nREO Speedwagon performed the song at the 1985 Live Aid concert, they were introduced by Chevy Chase, mentioning that the song was a number one single at the moment in the United States.\n\nMusic video\n\nTwo different music videos exist for the song. One is a basic video, appearing almost homemade, featuring the band in the studio. It begins with Kevin Cronin playing the piano, attempting to find the key in which he can best sing the song (starting off in G major, he later decides he can sing it better in A). After Cronin exchanges some laughs with his bandmates, the song officially begins; the video essentially consists of the band members lip-synching to the original track of the song. It then concludes with Cronin uttering the line, \"That warmed the cockles of my cockles!\" The other version of the video is much more \"professional,\" and makes various references to the life-cycle. Both videos have been shown at various times on VH1 Classic.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nIt was referred to in The CW show Supernatural, in season 2 episode 5, \"Simon Said\". Jo Harvelle turns this song on for Dean Winchester in Harvelle's Roadhouse. Later, he sings it in the car (claiming the song had stuck in his head to a very confused Sam Winchester). \n\nIt was featured prominently in advertisements for the film, Horton Hears a Who!, and sung by the major characters near the end of the film as the titular character celebrates his vindication and his charges' salvation. \n\nPersonnel\n\nREO Speedwagon\n*Kevin Cronin - lead vocal, acoustic guitar\n*Gary Richrath - lead guitar\n*Neal Doughty - piano, Hammond Organ, keyboards\n*Alan Gratzer - drums\n*Bruce Hall - bass guitar, background vocals\n\nOther personnel\n\n*Bill Cuomo - Orchestration\n\nChart performance\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications"
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Which parallel was the truce line in the Korean War?
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tc_130
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Korean War (in South Korean , \"Korean War\"; in North Korean , \"Fatherland Liberation War\"; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China, with assistance from the Soviet Union, came to the aid of North Korea. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards.\n\nKorea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the closing days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, and liberated Korea north of the 38th parallel. U.S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The civil war escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—moved to the south to unite the country on 25 June 1950. On that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83: Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation and dispatch of the UN Forces in Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the defense of South Korea, with the United States providing 88% of the UN's military personnel.\n\nAfter the first two months of the conflict, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter. In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many of the North Korean troops. Those that escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, or into the mountainous interior. At this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951. After these dramatic reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of conflict became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies.\n\nThe fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which were deadly, have continued to the present.\n\nNames\n\nIn the U.S., the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a \"police action\" as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. It has been referred to in the Anglosphere as \"The Forgotten War\" or \"The Unknown War\" because of the lack of public attention it received both during and after the war, and in relation to the global scale of World War II, which preceded it, and the subsequent angst of the Vietnam War, which succeeded it.\n\nIn South Korea, the war is usually referred to as \"625\" or the \"6–2–5 Upheaval\" ( (), yook-i-o dongnan), reflecting the date of its commencement on 25 June.\n\nIn North Korea, the war is officially referred to as the \"Fatherland Liberation War\" (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng) or alternatively the \"Chosǒn [Korean] War\" (, Chosǒn chǒnjaeng).\n\nIn China, the war is officially called the \"War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea\" (), although the term \"Chaoxian (Korean) War\" () is also used in unofficial contexts, along with the term \"Korean Conflict\" () more commonly used in regions such as Hong Kong and Macau.\n\nBackground\n\nImperial Japanese rule (1910–45)\n\nJapan destroyed the influence of China over Korea in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), ushering in the short-lived Korean Empire. A decade later, after defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan made Korea its protectorate with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910.\n\nMany Korean nationalists fled the country. A Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was founded in 1919 in Nationalist China. It failed to achieve international recognition, failed to unite nationalist groups, and had a fractious relationship with its American-based founding President, Syngman Rhee. From 1919 to 1925 and beyond, Korean communists led internal and external warfare against the Japanese.\n\nKorea was considered to be part of the Empire of Japan as an industrialized colony along with Taiwan, and both were part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In 1937, the colonial Governor-General, General Jirō Minami, commanded the attempted cultural assimilation of Korea's 23.5 million people by banning the use and study of Korean language, literature, and culture, to be replaced with that of mandatory use and study of their Japanese counterparts. Starting in 1939, the populace was required to use Japanese names under the Sōshi-kaimei policy. Conscription of Koreans for labor in war industries began in 1939, with as many as 2 million Koreans conscripted into either the Japanese Army or into the Japanese labor force. \n\nIn China, the Nationalist National Revolutionary Army and the communist People's Liberation Army helped organize Korean refugees against the Japanese military, which had also occupied parts of China. The Nationalist-backed Koreans, led by Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the Burma Campaign (December 1941 – August 1945). The communists, led by Kim Il-sung among others, fought the Japanese in Korea and Manchuria.\n\nDuring World War II, Japan used Korea's food, livestock, and metals for their war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased from 46,000 soldiers in 1941 to 300,000 in 1945. Japanese Korea conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people were sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan. By 1942, Korean men were being conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. By January 1945, Koreans made up 32% of Japan's labor force. At the end of the war, other world powers did not recognize Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan.\n\nAt the Cairo Conference in November 1943, China, the United Kingdom, and United States all decided \"in due course Korea shall become free and independent\".\n\nSoviet-Japanese War (1945)\n\nAt the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of the victory in Europe. Accordingly, it declared war on Japan on 9 August 1945. By 10 August, the Red Army had begun to occupy the northern part of the Korean peninsula.\n\nOn the night of 10 August in Washington, American Colonels Dean Rusk and Charles H. Bonesteel III were tasked with dividing the Korean Peninsula into Soviet and U.S. occupation zones and proposed the 38th parallel. This was incorporated into America's General Order No. 1 which responded to the Japanese surrender on 15 August. Explaining the choice of the 38th parallel, Rusk observed, \"even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by U.S. forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement...we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops\". He noted that he was \"faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area\". As Rusk's comments indicate, the Americans doubted whether the Soviet government would agree to this. Stalin, however, maintained his wartime policy of co-operation, and on 16 August the Red Army halted at the 38th parallel for three weeks to await the arrival of U.S. forces in the south.\n\nKorea divided (1945–49)\n\nOn 8 September 1945, U.S. Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel. Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea as head of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48). He attempted to establish control by restoring Japanese colonial administrators to power, but in the face of Korean protests he quickly reversed this decision. The USAMGIK refused to recognize the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) due to its suspected Communist sympathies.\n\nIn December 1945, Korea was administered by a U.S.-Soviet Union Joint Commission, as agreed at the Moscow Conference, with the aim of granting independence after a five-year trusteeship. The idea was not popular among Koreans and riots broke out. To contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes on 8 December 1945 and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12 December 1945.\n\nThe right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by Syngman Rhee, who had arrived with the U.S. military, opposed the trusteeship, arguing that Korea had already suffered from foreign occupation far too long. General Hodge began to distance himself from the proposal, even though it had originated with his government.\n\nOn 23 September 1946, an 8,000-strong railroad worker strike began in Pusan. Civil disorder spread throughout the country in what became known as the Autumn uprising. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students in the Daegu Uprising; protesters counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. On 3 October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials were killed. The USAMGIK declared martial law.\n\nCiting the inability of the Joint Commission to make progress, the U.S. government decided to hold an election under United Nations auspices with the aim of creating an independent Korea. The Soviet authorities and the Korean Communists refused to co-operate on the grounds it would not be fair, and many South Korean politicians boycotted it. A general election was held in the South on 10 May 1948. It was marred by political violence and sabotage resulting in 600 deaths. North Korea held parliamentary elections three months later on 25 August.\n\nThe resultant South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on 17 July 1948, and elected Syngman Rhee as President on 20 July 1948. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on 15 August 1948. In the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the Soviet Union established a communist government led by Kim Il-sung. President Rhee's régime excluded communists and leftists from southern politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare for guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK government.\n\nMeanwhile, on 3 April 1948, what began as a demonstration commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese rule ended with the Jeju uprising where between 14,000 and 60,000 people died. South Korean Army soldiers carried out large-scale atrocities during its suppression of the uprising. In October 1948, some South Korean soldiers mutinied against the clampdown in the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion.\n\nThe Soviet Union withdrew as agreed from Korea in 1948, and U.S. troops withdrew in 1949. On 24 December 1949, South Korean forces killed 86 to 88 people in the Mungyeong massacre and blamed the crime on marauding communist bands. By early 1950, Syngman Rhee had about 30,000 alleged communists in jails and about 300,000 suspected sympathizers enrolled in the Bodo League re-education movement. \n\nChinese Civil War (1945–1949)\n\nWith the end of the war with Japan, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists. While the Communists were struggling for supremacy in Manchuria, they were supported by the North Korean government with matériel and manpower. According to Chinese sources, the North Koreans donated 2,000 railway cars worth of matériel while thousands of Koreans served in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the war. North Korea also provided the Chinese Communists in Manchuria with a safe refuge for non-combatants and communications with the rest of China.\n\nThe North Korean contributions to the Chinese Communist victory were not forgotten after the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. As a token of gratitude, between 50,000 and 70,000 Korean veterans that served in the PLA were sent back along with their weapons, and they later played a significant role in the initial invasion of South Korea. China promised to support the North Koreans in the event of a war against South Korea. The Chinese support created a deep division between the Korean Communists, and Kim Il-sung's authority within the Communist party was challenged by the Chinese faction led by Pak Il-yu, who was later purged by Kim.\n\nAfter the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government named the Western nations, led by the United States, as the biggest threat to its national security. Basing this judgment on China's century of humiliation beginning in the early 19th century, American support for the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War, and the ideological struggles between revolutionaries and reactionaries, the Chinese leadership believed that China would become a critical battleground in the United States' crusade against Communism. As a countermeasure and to elevate China's standing among the worldwide Communist movements, the Chinese leadership adopted a foreign policy that actively promoted Communist revolutions throughout territories on China's periphery.\n\nCourse of the war\n\nOutbreak of war (1950)\n\nBy 1949, South Korean forces had reduced the active number of communist guerrillas in the South from 5,000 to 1,000. However, Kim Il-sung believed that the guerrillas had weakened the South Korean military and that a North Korean invasion would be welcomed by much of the South Korean population. Kim began seeking Stalin's support for an invasion in March 1949, travelling to Moscow to attempt to persuade Stalin.\n\nInitially, Stalin did not think the time was right for a war in Korea. Chinese Communist forces were still fighting in China. American forces were still stationed in South Korea (they would complete their withdrawal in June 1949) and Stalin did not want the Soviet Union to become embroiled in a war with the United States.\n\nBy spring 1950, Stalin believed the strategic situation had changed. The Soviets had detonated their first nuclear bomb in September 1949; American soldiers had fully withdrawn from Korea; the Americans had not intervened to stop the communist victory in China, and Stalin calculated that the Americans would be even less willing to fight in Korea—which had seemingly much less strategic significance. The Soviets had also cracked the codes used by the US to communicate with the US embassy in Moscow, and reading these dispatches convinced Stalin that Korea did not have the importance to the US that would warrant a nuclear confrontation. Stalin began a more aggressive strategy in Asia based on these developments, including promising economic and military aid to China through the Sino–Soviet Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance Treaty.\n\nThroughout 1949 and 1950 the Soviets continued to arm North Korea. After the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, ethnic Korean units in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) were released to North Korea. The combat veterans from China, the tanks, artillery and aircraft supplied by the Soviets, and rigorous training increased North Korea's military superiority over the South, which had been armed by the American military with mostly small arms and given no heavy weaponry such as tanks.\n\nIn April 1950, Stalin gave Kim permission to invade the South under the condition that Mao would agree to send reinforcements if they became needed. Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat, to avoid a direct war with the Americans. Kim met with Mao in May 1950. Mao was concerned that the Americans would intervene but agreed to support the North Korean invasion. China desperately needed the economic and military aid promised by the Soviets. At that time, the Chinese were in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers. However, Mao sent more ethnic Korean PLA veterans to Korea and promised to move an army closer to the Korean border. Once Mao's commitment was secured, preparations for war accelerated. \n\nSoviet generals with extensive combat experience from the Second World War were sent to North Korea as the Soviet Advisory Group. These generals completed the plans for the attack by May. The original plans called for a skirmish to be initiated in the Ongjin Peninsula on the west coast of Korea. The North Koreans would then launch a \"counterattack\" that would capture Seoul and encircle and destroy the South Korean army. The final stage would involve destroying South Korean government remnants, capturing the rest of South Korea, including the ports.\n\nOn 7 June 1950, Kim Il-sung called for a Korea-wide election on 5–8 August 1950 and a consultative conference in Haeju on 15–17 June 1950. On 11 June, the North sent three diplomats to the South, as a peace overture that Rhee rejected. On 21 June, Kim Il-Sung revised his war plan to involve general attack across the 38th parallel, rather than a limited operation in the Ongjin peninsula. Kim was concerned that South Korean agents had learned about the plans and South Korean forces were strengthening their defenses. Stalin agreed to this change of plan.\n\nWhile these preparations were underway in the North, there were frequent clashes along the 38th parallel, especially at Kaesong and Ongjin, many initiated by the South. The Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) was being trained by the U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG). On the eve of war, KMAG's commander General William Lynn Roberts voiced utmost confidence in the ROK Army and boasted that any North Korean invasion would merely provide \"target practice\". For his part, Syngman Rhee repeatedly expressed his desire to conquer the North, including when American diplomat John Foster Dulles visited Korea on 18 June.\n\nAlthough some South Korean and American intelligence officers were predicting an attack from the North, similar predictions had been made before and nothing had eventuated. The Central Intelligence Agency did note the southward movement by the Korean People's Army (KPA), but assessed this as a \"defensive measure\" and concluded an invasion was \"unlikely\". On 23 June, UN observers inspected the border and did not detect that war was imminent. \n\nAt dawn on Sunday, 25 June 1950, the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire. The KPA justified its assault with the claim that ROK troops had attacked first, and that they were aiming to arrest and execute the \"bandit traitor Syngman Rhee\". Fighting began on the strategic Ongjin peninsula in the west. There were initial South Korean claims that they had captured the city of Haeju, and this sequence of events has led some scholars to argue that the South Koreans actually fired first. \n\nWhoever fired the first shots in Ongjin, within an hour, North Korean forces attacked all along the 38th parallel. The North Koreans had a combined arms force including tanks supported by heavy artillery. The South Koreans did not have any tanks, anti-tank weapons, nor heavy artillery, that could stop such an attack. In addition, South Koreans committed their forces in a piecemeal fashion and these were routed within a few days.\n\nOn 27 June, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with some of the government. On 28 June, at 2 am, the South Korean Army blew up the highway bridge across the Han River in an attempt to stop the North Korean army. The bridge was detonated while 4,000 refugees were crossing the bridge, and hundreds were killed. Destroying the bridge also trapped many South Korean military units north of the Han River. In spite of such desperate measures, Seoul fell that same day. A number of South Korean National Assemblymen remained in Seoul when it fell, and forty-eight subsequently pledged allegiance to the North.\n\nOn 28 June, Rhee ordered the massacre of suspected political opponents in his own country. \n\nIn five days, the South Korean forces, which had 95,000 men on 25 June, was down to less than 22,000 men. In early July, when U.S. forces arrived, what was left of the South Korean forces were placed under U.S. operational command of the United Nations Command.\n\nFactors in US intervention\n\nThe Truman administration was unprepared for the invasion. Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Military strategists were more concerned with the security of Europe against the Soviet Union than East Asia. At the same time, the Administration was worried that a war in Korea could quickly widen into another world war should the Chinese or Soviets decide to get involved as well.\n\nOne facet of the changing attitude toward Korea and whether to get involved was Japan. Especially after the fall of China to the Communists, U.S. East Asian experts saw Japan as the critical counterweight to the Soviet Union and China in the region. While there was no United States policy that dealt with South Korea directly as a national interest, its proximity to Japan increased the importance of South Korea. Said Kim: \"The recognition that the security of Japan required a non-hostile Korea led directly to President Truman's decision to intervene... The essential point... is that the American response to the North Korean attack stemmed from considerations of US policy toward Japan.\"\n\nA major consideration was the possible Soviet reaction in the event that the US intervened. The Truman administration was fretful that a war in Korea was a diversionary assault that would escalate to a general war in Europe once the United States committed in Korea. At the same time, \"[t]here was no suggestion from anyone that the United Nations or the United States could back away from [the conflict]\". Yugoslavia–a possible Soviet target because of the Tito-Stalin Split—was vital to the defense of Italy and Greece, and the country was first on the list of the National Security Council's post-North Korea invasion list of \"chief danger spots\". Truman believed if aggression went unchecked a chain reaction would be initiated that would marginalize the United Nations and encourage Communist aggression elsewhere. The UN Security Council approved the use of force to help the South Koreans and the US immediately began using what air and naval forces that were in the area to that end. The Administration still refrained from committing on the ground because some advisers believed the North Koreans could be stopped by air and naval power alone.\n\nThe Truman administration was still uncertain if the attack was a ploy by the Soviet Union or just a test of U.S. resolve. The decision to commit ground troops became viable when a communiqué was received on 27 June indicating the Soviet Union would not move against U.S. forces in Korea. The Truman administration now believed it could intervene in Korea without undermining its commitments elsewhere.\n\nUnited Nations Security Council Resolutions\n\nOn 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea, with UN Security Council Resolution 82. The Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 27 June President Truman ordered U.S. air and sea forces to help the South Korean regime. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the United States of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.\n\nThe Soviet Union challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 was based came from U.S. Intelligence; North Korea was not invited as a sitting temporary member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and the Korean conflict was beyond the UN Charter's scope, because the initial north–south border fighting was classed as a civil war. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the time, legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.\n\nComparison of military forces\n\nBy mid-1950, North Korean forces numbered between 150,000 and 200,000 troops, organized into 10 infantry divisions, one tank division, and one air force division, with 210 fighter planes and 280 tanks, who captured scheduled objectives and territory, among them Kaesong, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin. Their forces included 274 T-34-85 tanks, 200 artillery pieces, 110 attack bombers, some 150 Yak fighter planes, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft. In addition to the invasion force, the North KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in reserve in North Korea. Although each navy consisted of only several small warships, the North and South Korean navies fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.\n\nIn contrast, the ROK Army defenders were relatively unprepared and ill-equipped. In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1961), R.E. Appleman reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness as of 25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no tanks (they had been requested from the U.S. military, but requests were denied), and a 22-piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at the time of the invasion, but there were large U.S. garrisons and air forces in Japan.\n\nWithin days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee regime—were either retreating southwards or were defecting en masse to the northern side, the KPA.\n\nUnited Nations response (July – August 1950)\n\nOn Saturday, 24 June 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President Truman that the North Koreans had invaded South Korea. Truman and Acheson discussed a U.S. invasion response and agreed that the United States was obligated to act, paralleling the North Korean invasion with Adolf Hitler's aggressions in the 1930s, with the conclusion being that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated. Several U.S. industries were mobilized to supply materials, labor, capital, production facilities, and other services necessary to support the military objectives of the Korean War. However, President Truman later acknowledged that he believed fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) (declassified in 1975):\n\nIn August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State obtained the consent of Congress to appropriate $12 billion for military action in Korea.\n\nAs an initial response, Truman called for a naval blockade of North Korea, and was shocked to learn that such a blockade could be imposed only 'on paper', since the U.S. Navy no longer had the warships with which to carry out his request. In fact, because of the extensive defense cuts and the emphasis placed on building a nuclear bomber force, none of the services were in a position to make a robust response with conventional military strength. General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was faced with re-organizing and deploying an American military force that was a shadow of its World War II counterpart. The impact of the Truman administration's defense budget cutbacks were now keenly felt, as American troops fought a series of costly rearguard actions. Lacking sufficient anti-tank weapons, artillery or armor, they were driven back down the Korean peninsula to Pusan. In a postwar analysis of the unpreparedness of U.S. Army forces deployed to Korea during the summer and fall of 1950, Army Major General Floyd L. Parks stated that \"Many who never lived to tell the tale had to fight the full range of ground warfare from offensive to delaying action, unit by unit, man by man ... [T]hat we were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat ... does not relieve us from the blame of having placed our own flesh and blood in such a predicament.\" \n\nActing on State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman ordered General MacArthur to transfer matériel to the Army of the Republic of Korea while giving air cover to the evacuation of U.S. nationals. The President disagreed with advisers who recommended unilateral U.S. bombing of the North Korean forces, and ordered the US Seventh Fleet to protect the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose government asked to fight in Korea. The United States denied ROC's request for combat, lest it provoke a communist Chinese retaliation. Because the United States had sent the Seventh Fleet to \"neutralize\" the Taiwan Strait, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai criticized both the UN and U.S. initiatives as \"armed aggression on Chinese territory.\"\n\nThe Battle of Osan, the first significant American engagement of the Korean War, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division which had been flown in from Japan. On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the North Koreans' tanks. They were unsuccessful; the result was 180 dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back the US force at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon; the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including the Division's Commander, Major General William F. Dean.\n\nBy August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the Eighth United States Army to the vicinity of Pusan in southeast Korea. In their southward advance, the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals. On 20 August, General MacArthur warned North Korean leader Kim Il-sung that he was responsible for the KPA's atrocities. By September, the UN Command controlled the Pusan perimeter, enclosing about 10% of Korea, in a line partially defined by the Nakdong River.\n\nAlthough Kim's early successes had led him to predict that he would end the war by the end of August, Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. To counter a possible U.S. deployment, Zhou Enlai secured a Soviet commitment to have the Soviet Union support Chinese forces with air cover, and deployed 260,000 soldiers along the Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang. Zhou commanded Chai Chengwen to conduct a topographical survey of Korea, and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military advisor in Korea, to analyze the military situation in Korea. Lei concluded that MacArthur would most likely attempt a landing at Incheon. After conferring with Mao that this would be MacArthur's most likely strategy, Zhou briefed Soviet and North Korean advisers of Lei's findings, and issued orders to Chinese army commanders deployed on the Korean border to prepare for American naval activity in the Korea Strait.\n\nEscalation (August – September 1950)\n\nIn the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the U.S. Army withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city at the Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong, and Taegu. The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night. To deny matériel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the U.S. Navy air forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south. On 27 August, 67th Fighter Squadron aircraft mistakenly attacked facilities in Chinese territory and the Soviet Union called the UN Security Council's attention to China's complaint about the incident. The US proposed that a commission of India and Sweden determine what the US should pay in compensation but the Soviets vetoed the US proposal. \n\nMeanwhile, U.S. garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and matériel to reinforce defenders in the Pusan Perimeter. Tank battalions deployed to Korea directly from the U.S. mainland from the port of San Francisco to the port of Pusan, the largest Korean port. By late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks battle-ready. In early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers. The UN forces, once prepared, counterattacked and broke out of the Pusan Perimeter.\n\nBattle of Inchon (September 1950)\n\nAgainst the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air support. To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur recommended an amphibious landing at Inchon (now known as Incheon), near Seoul and well over 100 mi behind the KPA lines. On 6 July, he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama, Japan to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division inside the Pusan Perimeter.\n\nSoon after the war began, General MacArthur had begun planning a landing at Incheon, but the Pentagon opposed him. When authorized, he activated a combined U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and ROK Army force. The X Corps, led by General Edward Almond, Commander, consisted of 40,000 men of the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division and around 8,600 ROK Army soldiers. By 15 September, the amphibious assault force faced few KPA defenders at Incheon: military intelligence, psychological warfare, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle. However, the bombardment destroyed most of the city of Incheon.\n\nAfter the Incheon landing, the 1st Cavalry Division began its northward advance from the Pusan Perimeter. \"Task Force Lynch\" (after Lieutenant Colonel James H. Lynch), 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and two 70th Tank Battalion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon) effected the \"Pusan Perimeter Breakout\" through of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan. The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in Southern Korea.\n\nOn 18 September, Stalin dispatched General H. M. Zakharov to Korea to advise Kim Il-sung to halt his offensive around the Pusan perimeter and to redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. As the overall commander of Chinese forces, Zhou Enlai suggested that the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the enemy forces at Inchon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north.\n\nOn 25 September, Seoul was recaptured by South Korean forces. American air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and much of its artillery. North Korean troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable. During the general retreat only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers managed to rejoin the Northern KPA lines. On 27 September, Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, in which he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.\n\nUN forces cross partition line (September – October 1950)\n\nOn 27 September, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if \"at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily...\" On 29 September MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee. On 30 September, Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: \"We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel.\" During October, the ROK police executed people who were suspected to be sympathetic to North Korea, and similar massacres were carried out until early 1951.\n\nOn 30 September, Zhou Enlai warned the United States that China was prepared to intervene in Korea if the United States crossed the 38th parallel. Zhou attempted to advise North Korean commanders on how to conduct a general withdrawal by using the same tactics which had allowed Chinese communist forces to successfully escape Chiang Kai-shek's Encirclement Campaigns in the 1930s, but by some accounts North Korean commanders did not utilize these tactics effectively. Historian Bruce Cumings argues, however, the KPA's rapid withdrawal was strategic, with troops melting into the mountains from where they could launch guerrilla raids on the UN forces spread out on the coasts.\n\nBy 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea. MacArthur made a statement demanding the KPA's unconditional surrender. Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and Riwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces. The Eighth U.S. Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team (\"Rakkasans\") made their first of two combat jumps during the Korean War on 20 October 1950 at Sunchon and Sukchon. The missions of the 187th were to cut the road north going to China, preventing North Korean leaders from escaping from Pyongyang; and to rescue American prisoners of war. At month's end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war. As they neared the Sino-Korean border, the UN forces in the west were divided from those in the east by 50–100 miles of mountainous terrain.\n\nTaking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.\n\nChina intervenes (October – December 1950)\n\nOn 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the Chinese entered the war, President Truman dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, to prevent hostilities between the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). On 4 August 1950, with the PRC invasion of Taiwan aborted, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo that he would intervene in Korea when the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Taiwan invasion force was reorganized into the PLA North East Frontier Force. China justified its entry into the war as a response to \"American aggression in the guise of the UN\".\n\nOn 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the UN that \"Korea is China's neighbor... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question\". Thus, through neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea. President Truman interpreted the communication as \"a bald attempt to blackmail the UN\", and dismissed it.\n\n1 October 1950, the day that UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, was also the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On that day the Soviet ambassador forwarded a telegram from Stalin to Mao and Zhou requesting that China send five to six divisions into Korea, and Kim Il-sung sent frantic appeals to Mao for Chinese military intervention. At the same time, Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces themselves would not directly intervene.\n\nIn a series of emergency meetings that lasted from 2–5 October, Chinese leaders debated whether to send Chinese troops into Korea. There was considerable resistance among many leaders, including senior military leaders, to confronting the U.S. in Korea. Mao strongly supported intervention, and Zhou was one of the few Chinese leaders who firmly supported him. After Lin Biao politely refused Mao's offer to command Chinese forces in Korea (citing his upcoming medical treatment), Mao decided that Peng Dehuai would be the commander of the Chinese forces in Korea after Peng agreed to support Mao's position. Mao then asked Peng to speak in favor of intervention to the rest of the Chinese leaders. After Peng made the case that if U.S. troops conquered Korea and reached the Yalu they might cross it and invade China the Politburo agreed to intervene in Korea. Later, the Chinese claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace on three separate occasions and attacked Chinese targets before China intervened. On 8 October 1950, Mao Zedong redesignated the PLA North East Frontier Force as the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).\n\nIn order to enlist Stalin's support, Zhou and a Chinese delegation left for Moscow on 8 October, arriving there on 10 October at which point they flew to Stalin's home at the Black Sea. There they conferred with the top Soviet leadership which included Joseph Stalin as well as Vyacheslav Molotov, Lavrentiy Beria and Georgi Malenkov. Stalin initially agreed to send military equipment and ammunition, but warned Zhou that the Soviet Union's air force would need two or three months to prepare any operations. In a subsequent meeting, Stalin told Zhou that he would only provide China with equipment on a credit basis, and that the Soviet air force would only operate over Chinese airspace, and only after an undisclosed period of time. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951. Mao did not find Soviet air support especially useful, as the fighting was going to take place on the south side of the Yalu. Soviet shipments of matériel, when they did arrive, were limited to small quantities of trucks, grenades, machine guns, and the like.\n\nImmediately on his return to Beijing on 18 October 1950, Zhou met with Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, and Gao Gang, and the group ordered two hundred thousand Chinese troops to enter North Korea, which they did on 25 October. After consulting with Stalin, on 13 November, Mao appointed Zhou the overall commander and coordinator of the war effort, with Peng as field commander. Orders given by Zhou were delivered in the name of the Central Military Commission.\n\nUN aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection. The PVA marched \"dark-to-dark\" (19:00–03:00), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and equipment) was deployed by 05:30. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away; PVA officers were under order to shoot security violators. Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-division army to march the 286 mi from An-tung, Manchuria, to the combat zone in some 19 days. Another division night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging 18 mi daily for 18 days.\n\nMeanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the North's capital city, on 19 October 1950. Kim Il Sung and his government temporarily moved its capital to Sinuiju – although as UNC forces approached, the government again moved – this time to Kanggye.\n\nOn 15 October 1950, President Truman and General MacArthur met at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean. This meeting was much publicized because of the General's discourteous refusal to meet the President on the continental United States. To President Truman, MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention in Korea, and that the PRC's opportunity for aiding the KPA had lapsed. He believed the PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River. He further concluded that, although half of those forces might cross south, \"if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter\" without air force protection.\n\nAfter secretly crossing the Yalu River on 19 October, the PVA 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on 25 October, attacking the advancing UN forces near the Sino-Korean border. This military decision made solely by China changed the attitude of the Soviet Union. Twelve days after Chinese troops entered the war, Stalin allowed the Soviet Air Force to provide air cover, and supported more aid to China. After decimating the ROK II Corps at the Battle of Onjong, the first confrontation between Chinese and U.S. military occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of soldiers from the PVA 39th Army encircled and attacked the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment with three-prong assaults—from the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle of Unsan. The surprise assault resulted in the UN forces retreating back to the Ch'ongch'on River, while the Chinese unexpectedly disappeared into mountain hideouts following victory. It is unclear why the Chinese did not press the attack and follow up their victory.\n\nThe UN Command, however, were unconvinced that the Chinese had openly intervened because of the sudden Chinese withdrawal. On 24 November, the Home-by-Christmas Offensive was launched with the U.S. Eighth Army advancing in northwest Korea, while the US X Corps were attacking along the Korean east coast. But the Chinese were waiting in ambush with their Second Phase Offensive.\n\nOn 25 November at the Korean western front, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and overran the ROK II Corps at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, and then decimated the US 2nd Infantry Division on the UN forces' right flank. The UN Command retreated; the U.S. Eighth Army's retreat (the longest in US Army history) was made possible because of the Turkish Brigade's successful, but very costly, rear-guard delaying action near Kunuri that slowed the PVA attack for two days (27–29 November). On 27 November at the Korean eastern front, a U.S. 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3,000 soldiers) and the U.S. 1st Marine Division (12,000–15,000 marines) were unprepared for the PVA 9th Army Group's three-pronged encirclement tactics at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but they managed to escape under Air Force and X Corps support fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.\n\nBy 30 November, the PVA 13th Army Group managed to expel the U.S. Eighth Army from northwest Korea. Retreating from the north faster than they had counter-invaded, the Eighth Army crossed the 38th parallel border in mid December. UN morale hit rock bottom when commanding General Walton Walker of the U.S. Eighth Army was killed on 23 December 1950 in an automobile accident. In northeast Korea by 11 December, the U.S. X Corps managed to cripple the PVA 9th Army Group while establishing a defensive perimeter at the port city of Hungnam. The X Corps were forced to evacuate by 24 December in order to reinforce the badly depleted U.S. Eighth Army to the south.\n\nDuring the Hungnam evacuation, about 193 shiploads of UN Command forces and matériel (approximately 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies) were evacuated to Pusan. The SS Meredith Victory was noted for evacuating 14,000 refugees, the largest rescue operation by a single ship, even though it was designed to hold 12 passengers. Before escaping, the UN Command forces razed most of Hungnam city, especially the port facilities; and on 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), which remained in force until 14 September 1978. The next day (17 December 1950) Kim Il-sung was deprived of the right of command of KPA by China. After that, the leading part of the war became the Chinese army.\n\nFighting around the 38th parallel (January – June 1951)\n\nWith Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway assuming the command of the U.S. Eighth Army on 26 December, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (also known as the \"Chinese New Year's Offensive\") on New Year's Eve of 1950. Utilizing night attacks in which UN Command fighting positions were encircled and then assaulted by numerically superior troops who had the element of surprise, the attacks were accompanied by loud trumpets and gongs, which fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical communication and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers panicked, abandoning their weapons and retreating to the south. The Chinese New Year's Offensive overwhelmed UN forces, allowing the PVA and KPA to conquer Seoul for the second time on 4 January 1951.\n\nThese setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using nuclear weapons against the Chinese or North Korean interiors, with the intention that radioactive fallout zones would interrupt the Chinese supply chains. However, upon the arrival of the charismatic General Ridgway, the esprit de corps of the bloodied Eighth Army immediately began to revive.\n\nUN forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and the territory north of Samcheok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held. The PVA had outrun its logistics capability and thus were unable to press on beyond Seoul as food, ammunition, and matériel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the border at the Yalu River to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the PVA had abandoned their battle lines, General Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became Operation Roundup (5 February 1951). A full-scale X Corps advance proceeded, which fully exploited the UN Command's air superiority, concluding with the UN reaching the Han River and recapturing Wonju.\n\nAfter cease-fire negotiations failed in January, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 498 on 1 February, condemning PRC as an aggressor, and called upon its forces to withdraw from Korea. \n\nIn early February, the South Korean 11th Division ran the operation to destroy the guerrillas and their sympathizer citizens in Southern Korea. During the operation, the division and police conducted the Geochang massacre and Sancheong-Hamyang massacre. In mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the Fourth Phase Offensive and achieved initial victory at Hoengseong. But the offensive was soon blunted by the IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni in the center. Units of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a short but desperate battle that broke the attack's momentum. The battle is sometimes known as the Gettysburg of the Korean War. The battle saw 5,600 Korean, American and French troops defeat a numerically superior Chinese force. Surrounded on all sides, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division Warrior Division's 23rd Regimental Combat Team with an attached French Battalion was hemmed in by more than 25,000 Chinese Communist forces. United Nations forces had previously retreated in the face of large Communist forces instead of getting cut off, but this time they stood and fought at odds of roughly 15 to 1.\n\nIn the last two weeks of February 1951, Operation Roundup was followed by Operation Killer, carried out by the revitalized Eighth Army. It was a full-scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximum exploitation of firepower to kill as many KPA and PVA troops as possible. Operation Killer concluded with I Corps re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengseong. On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with Operation Ripper, expelling the PVA and the KPA from Seoul on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth conquest in a years' time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000, and people were suffering from severe food shortages.\n\nOn 1 March 1951 Mao sent a cable to Stalin, in which he emphasized the difficulties faced by Chinese forces and the urgent need for air cover, especially over supply lines. Apparently impressed by the Chinese war effort, Stalin finally agreed to supply two air force divisions, three anti-aircraft divisions, and six thousand trucks. PVA troops in Korea continued to suffer severe logistical problems throughout the war. In late April Peng Dehuai sent his deputy, Hong Xuezhi, to brief Zhou Enlai in Beijing. What Chinese soldiers feared, Hong said, was not the enemy, but that they had nothing to eat, no bullets to shoot, and no trucks to transport them to the rear when they were wounded. Zhou attempted to respond to the PVA's logistical concerns by increasing Chinese production and improving methods of supply, but these efforts were never completely sufficient. At the same time, large-scale air defense training programs were carried out, and the Chinese Air Force began to participate in the war from September 1951 onward.\n\nOn 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved the controversial General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea. There were several reasons for the dismissal. MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in the mistaken belief that the Chinese would not enter the war, leading to major allied losses. He believed that whether or not to use nuclear weapons should be his own decision, not the President's. MacArthur threatened to destroy China unless it surrendered. While MacArthur felt total victory was the only honorable outcome, Truman was more pessimistic about his chances once involved in a land war in Asia, and felt a truce and orderly withdrawal from Korea could be a valid solution. MacArthur was the subject of congressional hearings in May and June 1951, which determined that he had defied the orders of the President and thus had violated the U.S. Constitution. A popular criticism of MacArthur was that he never spent a night in Korea, and directed the war from the safety of Tokyo.\n\nGeneral Ridgway was appointed Supreme Commander, Korea; he regrouped the UN forces for successful counterattacks, while General James Van Fleet assumed command of the U.S. Eighth Army. Further attacks slowly depleted the PVA and KPA forces; Operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951) and Tomahawk (23 March 1951) were a joint ground and airborne infilltration meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN forces advanced to \"Line Kansas\", north of the 38th parallel. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team's (\"Rakkasans\") second of two combat jumps was on Easter Sunday, 1951, at Munsan-ni, South Korea, codenamed Operation Tomahawk. The mission was to get behind Chinese forces and block their movement north. The 60th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations, dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their objective as the unit was on a humanitarian mission.\n\nThe Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive, also known as the Chinese Spring Offensive, with three field armies (approximately 700,000 men). The offensive's first thrust fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951), blunting the impetus of the offensive, which was halted at the \"No-name Line\" north of Seoul. On 15 May 1951, the Chinese commenced the second impulse of the Spring Offensive and attacked the ROK Army and the U.S. X Corps in the east at the Soyang River. After initial success, they were halted by 20 May. At month's end, the U.S. Eighth Army counterattacked and regained \"Line Kansas\", just north of the 38th parallel. The UN's \"Line Kansas\" halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the stalemate that lasted until the armistice of 1953.\n\nStalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)\n\nFor the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong. On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, and Li Kenong and Qiao Guanghua headed the negotiation team. Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the UN Command forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea and to avoid losing territory. The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later effected military and psychological operations in order to test the UN Command's resolve to continue the war.\n\nThe principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August–15 September 1951), the Battle of the Punchbowl (31 August-21 September 1951), the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September–15 October 1951), the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June–4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October–25 November 1952), the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March–21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–29 May 1953), the Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March–16 July 1953), and the Battle of Kumsong (13–27 July 1953).\n\nChinese troops suffered from deficient military equipment, serious logistical problems, overextended communication and supply lines, and the constant threat of UN bombers. All of these factors generally led to a rate of Chinese casualties that was far greater than the casualties suffered by UN troops. The situation became so serious that, on November 1951, Zhou Enlai called a conference in Shenyang to discuss the PVA's logistical problems. At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available to the army, and to improve air defense by any means possible. These commitments did little to directly address the problems confronting PVA troops.\n\nIn the months after the Shenyang conference Peng Dehuai went to Beijing several times to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. Peng was convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the near future. On 24 February 1952, the Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: \"You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?\" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.\n\nArmistice (July 1953 – November 1954)\n\nThe on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years, first at Kaesong, on the border between North and South Korea, and then at the neighbouring village of Panmunjom. A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation. The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north, which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans. In the final armistice agreement, signed on 27 July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, under the chairman Indian General K. S. Thimayya, was set up to handle the matter.\n\nIn 1952, the United States elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War. With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands.\n\nThe Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally was in pre-war South Korea, but now is part of North Korea. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953 to end the fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point, even though there was no peace treaty. North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.\n\nAfter the war, Operation Glory was conducted from July to November 1954, to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the South Korean government. After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl), on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American, and all but 416 were identified by name. From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.\n\nDivision of Korea (1954–present)\n\nThe Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ.\n\nIn April 1975, South Vietnam's capital was captured by the North Vietnamese army. Encouraged by the success of Communist revolution in Indochina, Kim Il-sung saw it as an opportunity to invade the South. Kim visited China in April of that year, and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to ask for military aid. Despite Pyongyang's expectations, however, Beijing refused to help North Korea for another war in Korea. \n\nSince the armistice, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression by North Korea. In 1976, the axe murder incident was widely publicized. Since 1974, four incursion tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. Again in 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians.\n\nAfter a new wave of UN sanctions, on 11 March 2013, North Korea claimed that it had invalidated the 1953 armistice. On 13 March 2013, North Korea confirmed it ended the 1953 Armistice and declared North Korea \"is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression\". On 30 March 2013, North Korea stated that it had entered a \"state of war\" with South Korea and declared that \"The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over\". Speaking on 4 April 2013, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, informed the press that Pyongyang had \"formally informed\" the Pentagon that it had \"ratified\" the potential usage of a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan and the United States of America, including Guam and Hawaii. Hagel also stated that the United States would deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system to Guam, because of a credible and realistic nuclear threat from North Korea. \n\nIn 2016, it was revealed that North Korea approached the United States about conducting formal peace talks to formally end the war. While the White House agreed to secret peace talks, the plan was rejected due to the country's refusal to discuss nuclear disarmament as part of the terms of the treaty. Any possibility of talks ended on 6 January when they conducted their fourth nuclear test. \n\nCharacteristics\n\nCasualties\n\nAccording to the data from the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths, during the Korean War. U.S. battle deaths were 8,516 up to their first engagement with the Chinese on 1 November 1950. South Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths. Western sources estimate the PVA suffered about 400,000 killed and 486,000 wounded, while the KPA suffered 215,000 killed and 303,000 wounded.\n\nData from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan, while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China. Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a \"large\" number of civilian deaths.\n\nIn return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from the United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were \"eliminated\" from the battlefield.\n\nRecent scholarship has put the full battle death toll on all sides at just over 1.2 million. \n\nArmored warfare\n\nThe initial assault by North Korean KPA forces was aided by the use of Soviet T-34-85 tanks. A North Korean tank corps equipped with about 120 T-34s spearheaded the invasion. These drove against a ROK Army with few anti-tank weapons adequate to deal with the Soviet T-34s. Additional Soviet armor was added as the offensive progressed. The North Korean tanks had a good deal of early successes against South Korean infantry, elements of the 24th Infantry Division, and the United States built M24 Chaffee light tanks that they encountered. Interdiction by ground attack aircraft was the only means of slowing the advancing Korean armor. The tide turned in favour of the United Nations forces in August 1950 when the North Koreans suffered major tank losses during a series of battles in which the UN forces brought heavier equipment to bear, including M4A3 Sherman medium tanks backed by U.S. M26 heavy tanks, along with British Centurion, Churchill, and Cromwell tanks.\n\nThe U.S. landings at Inchon on 15 September cut off the North Korean supply lines, causing their armored forces and infantry to run out of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies. As a result, the North Koreans had to retreat, and many of the T-34s and heavy weapons had to be abandoned. By the time the North Koreans withdrew from the South, a total of 239 T-34s and 74 SU-76s had been lost. After November 1950, North Korean armor was rarely encountered. \n\nFollowing the initial assault by the north, the Korean War saw limited use of the tank and featured no large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, forested terrain, especially in the Eastern Central Zone, was poor tank country, limiting their mobility. Through the last two years of the war in Korea, UN tanks served largely as infantry support and mobile artillery pieces.\n\nNaval warfare\n\nFurther information: List of U.S. Navy ships sunk or damaged in action during the Korean conflict\n\nBecause neither Korea had a significant navy, the Korean War featured few naval battles. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the U.S. Navy cruiser , the Royal Navy cruiser , and the frigate fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.\nUSS Juneau later sank several ammunition ships that had been present. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship PC-703 sank a North Korean mine layer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by PC-703 two days later in the Yellow Sea. Thereafter, vessels from the UN nations held undisputed control of the sea about Korea. The gun ships were used in shore bombardment, while the aircraft carriers provided air support to the ground forces.\n\nDuring most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea, sinking supply and ammunition ships and denying the North Koreans the ability to resupply from the sea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the main threat to United States and UN navy ships was from magnetic mines. During the war, five U.S. Navy ships were lost to mines: two minesweepers, two minesweeper escorts, and one ocean tug. Mines and gunfire from North Korean coastal artillery damaged another 87 U.S. warships, resulting in slight to moderate damage. \n\nAerial warfare\n\nThe Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played the central role in air combat. Once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—relinquished their air-superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, Gloster Meteor and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s.\n\nThe Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters. The heavily armed MiGs were faster than first-generation UN jets and so could reach and destroy U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber flights despite their fighter escorts. With increasing B-29 losses, the Air Force was forced to switch from a daylight bombing campaign to a safer but less accurate nighttime bombing of targets. \n\nThe USAF countered the MiG-15 by sending over three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre. These arrived in December 1950. The MiG was designed as a bomber interceptor. It had a very high service ceiling—50000 ft and carried very heavy weaponry: one 37 mm cannon and two 23 mm cannons. They had a ceiling of 42000 ft and were armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were range adjusted by radar gunsights. If coming in at higher altitude the advantage of engaging or not went to the MiG. Once in a level flight dogfight, both swept-wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around 660 mi/h. The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better.\n\nIn summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.\n\nUnlike the Vietnam War, in which the Soviet Union only officially sent \"advisers\", in the Korean aerial war Soviet forces participated via the 64th Airborne Corps. Fearful of confronting the United States directly, the Soviet Union denied involvement of their personnel in anything other than an advisory role, but air combat quickly resulted in Soviet pilots dropping their code signals and speaking over the wireless in Russian. This known direct Soviet participation was a casus belli that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand to include the Soviet Union, and potentially escalate into atomic warfare. 1,106 enemy airplanes were officially downed by the Soviet pilots, 52 of whom got ace status. The Soviet system of confirming air kills erred on the conservative side; the pilot's words had to be corroborated and enemy aircraft falling into the sea were not counted, the number might exceed 1,106. \n\nAfter the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire. The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed F-86s, respectively. However, one unconfirmed source claims that the U.S. Air Force has more recently cited 230 losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea.\n\nThe Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac). In 1944–1945, during the Second World War, the YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a speedy medevac vehicle, helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War (1965–75).\n\nBombing North Korea\n\nThe first major U.S. strategic bombing campaign against North Korea, begun in late July 1950, was conceived much along the lines of the major offensives of World War II. On 12 August 1950, the U.S. Air Force dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons. After the Chinese intervention in November, General MacArthur ordered the increased bombing campaign on North Korea, including incendiary attacks against their arsenals and communications centers and especially against the \"Korean end\" of all the bridges across the Yalu River. As with the aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II, the nominal objective of the U.S. Air Force was to destroy North Korea's war infrastructure and shatter their morale. After MacArthur was removed as Supreme Commander in Korea in April 1951, his successors continued this policy and eventually extended it to all of North Korea. Overall, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs—including 32,557 tons of napalm—on Korea, more than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. \n\nAs a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. The war's highest-ranking American POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean, reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wastelands. North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground, and air defenses were \"virtually non-existent.\" In November 1950, the North Korean leadership instructed their population to build dugouts and mud huts, as well as dig underground tunnels, in order to solve the acute housing problem. U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay commented, \"we went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too.\" Pyongyang, which saw 75 percent of its area destroyed, was so devastated that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets. On 28 November, Bomber Command reported on the campaign's progress: 95 percent of Manpojin was destroyed, along with 90 percent of Hoeryong, Namsi and Koindong, 85 percent of Chosan, 75 percent of both Sakchu and Huichon, and 20 percent of Uiju. According to USAF damage assessments, \"eighteen of twenty-two major cities in North Korea had been at least half obliterated.\" By the end of the campaign, US bombers had difficulty in finding targets and were reduced to bombing footbridges or jettisoning their bombs into the sea. \n\nAs well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the U.S. had used biological weapons. These claims have been disputed; Conrad Crane asserts that while the U.S. worked towards developing chemical and biological weapons, the American military \"possessed neither the ability, nor the will\", to use them in combat. \n\nU.S. threat of atomic warfare\n\nOn 5 November 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs \"to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets\", which he never transmitted.\n\nMany American officials viewed the deployment of nuclear-capable (but not nuclear-armed) B-29 bombers to Britain as helping to resolve the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. Truman and Eisenhower both had military experience and viewed nuclear weapons as potentially usable components of their military. During Truman's first meeting to discuss the war on 25 June 1950, he ordered plans be prepared for attacking Soviet forces if they entered the war. By July, Truman approved another B-29 deployment to Britain, this time with bombs (but without their cores), to remind the Soviets of American offensive ability. Deployment of a similar fleet to Guam was leaked to The New York Times. As United Nations forces retreated to Pusan, and the CIA reported that mainland China was building up forces for a possible invasion of Taiwan, the Pentagon believed that Congress and the public would demand using nuclear weapons if the situation in Korea required them. \n\nAs Chinese forces pushed back the United States forces from the Yalu River, Truman stated during a 30 November 1950 press conference that using nuclear weapons had \"always been [under] active consideration\", with control under the local military commander. The Indian ambassador, K. Madhava Panikkar, reports \"that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities.\"\n\nAfter his statement caused concern in Europe, Truman met on 4 December 1950 with UK prime minister and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The United States' forgoing atomic warfare was not because of \"a disinclination by the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China to escalate\" the Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless while the United States fought China, who then might persuade the Soviet Union to conquer Western Europe. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised Truman to tell Attlee that the United States would use nuclear weapons only if necessary to protect an evacuation of UN troops, or to prevent a \"major military disaster\".\n\nOn 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major General Edwin K. Wright met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassing the next weeks and months of warfare.\n\n* In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN Command was forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without ROC reinforcements, and without an increase in U.S. forces until April 1951 (four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.\n* In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command had blockaded China and had effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the ROC soldiers were maximally exploited, and tactical atomic bombing was to hand, then the UN forces could hold positions deep in North Korea.\n* In the third scenario: if China agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border, General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The U.S. Eighth Army would remain to protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of the armistice.\n\nBoth the Pentagon and the State Department were nonetheless cautious about using nuclear weapons because of the risk of general war with China and the diplomatic ramifications. Truman and his senior advisors agreed, and never seriously considered using them in early December 1950 despite the poor military situation in Korea.\n\nIn 1951, the U.S. escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because China had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, \"lacking only the essential pit nuclear cores\". In October 1951, the United States effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish a nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practised individual bombing runs from Okinawa to North Korea (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs), coordinated from Yokota Air Base in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested \"actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming\". The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the \"timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare.\"\n\nRidgway was authorized to use nuclear weapons if a major air attack originated from outside Korea. An envoy was sent to Hong Kong to deliver a warning to China. The message likely caused Chinese leaders to be more cautious about potential American use of nuclear weapons, but whether they learned about the B-29 deployment is unclear and the failure of the two major Chinese offensives that month likely was what caused them to shift to a defensive strategy in Korea. The B-29s returned to the United States in June.\n\nDespite the greater destructive power deploying atomic weapons would bring to the war, their effects on determining the war's outcome would have likely been minimal. Tactically, given the dispersed nature of Chinese and North Korean forces, the relatively primitive infrastructure for staging and logistics centers, and the small number of bombs available (most would have been conserved for use against the Soviets), atomic attacks would have limited effects against the ability of China to mobilize and move forces. Strategically, attacking Chinese cities to destroy civilian industry and infrastructure would cause the immediate dispersion of the leadership away from such areas and give propaganda value for the communists to galvanize the support of Chinese civilians. Since the Soviets were not expected to intervene with their few primitive atomic weapons on China or North Korea's behalf if the U.S. used theirs first, factors such as little operational value and the lowering of the \"threshold\" for using atomic weapons against non-nuclear states in future conflicts played more of a role in not employing them than the threat of a possible nuclear exchange. \n\nWhen Eisenhower succeeded Truman in early 1953 he was similarly cautious about using nuclear weapons in Korea, including for diplomatic purposes to encourage progress in the ongoing truce discussions. The administration prepared contingency plans for using them against China, but like Truman, the new president feared that doing so would result in Soviet attacks on Japan. The war ended as it had begun, without American nuclear weapons deployed near battle.\n\nWar crimes\n\nCivilian deaths and massacres\n\nThere were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean war committed by both the North and South Koreans. Many of them started on the first days of the war. South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered the Bodo League massacre on 28 June, beginning numerous killings of more than 100,000 suspected leftist sympathizers and their families by South Korean officials and right-wing groups. During the massacre, the British protested to their allies and saved some citizens.\n\nIn occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the NPA retreat.\n\nR. J. Rummel estimated that the North Korean Army executed at least 500,000 civilians during the Korean War, with many dying in North Korea's drive to conscript South Koreans to contribute to their war effort. When the North Koreans retreated north in September 1950, they abducted tens of thousands of South Korean men. The reasons are not clear, but the intention might have been to acquire skilled professionals to the North.\n\nIn addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the UN forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees. These soldiers disguised as refugees would approach UN forces asking for food and help, then open fire and attack. U.S. troops acted under a \"shoot-first-ask-questions-later\" policy against any civilian refugee approaching U.S. battlefield positions, a policy that led U.S. soldiers to kill an estimated 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950) in central Korea because they believed some of the refugees to be North Korean soldiers in disguise. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission defended this policy as a \"military necessity\". \n\nBeginning in 2005, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has investigated numerous atrocities committed by the Japanese colonial government, North Korean military, U.S. military, and the authoritarian South Korean government. It has investigated atrocities before, during and after the Korean War. \n\nThe Commission has verified over 14,000 civilians were killed in the Jeju uprising (1948–49) that involved South Korean military and paramilitary units against pro-North Korean guerrillas. Although most of the fighting had subsided by 1949, fighting continued until 1950. The Commission estimates 86% of the civilians were killed by South Korean forces. The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.\n\nPrisoners of war\n\nDuring the first days of the war North Korean soldiers committed the Seoul National University Hospital massacre.\n\nThe United States reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.\n\nThe KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon; these massacres were discovered afterwards by the UN forces. Later, a U.S. Congress war crimes investigation, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, reported that \"two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes\".\n\nAlthough the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their North Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese-run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of all U.S. POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to logistical difficulties. The UN POWs pointed out that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border, and that the Chinese withheld food to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrination programs. According to the reports of China, over a thousand U.S. POWs died by the end of June 1951, while only a dozen British POWs died, and all Turkish POW survived. The reason was, according to Hastings, that while the British POWs could help each other, the Americans thought sorghum, corn, and pickle, which were also the main food for Chinese soldiers, were livestock feed, and many refused to eat, partially because of their depression, called as \"give-upitise\" by British POWs. U.S. POWs also threw sick comrades out of their room to freezing outside. Turkish POWs felt most comfortable, as some of them even thought the food was better than what they ate at home. \n\nChinese claimed that UN soldiers helped anti-Communism POWs to torture Chinese POWs, such as to put anti-Communism tattoos on their body by force, so that they would have to refuse to be repatriated back to the north. They even killed Communist POWs in public, to frighten the others. \n\nThe unpreparedness of U.S. POWs to resist heavy communist indoctrination during the Korean War led to the Code of the United States Fighting Force which governs how U.S. military personnel in combat should act when they must \"evade capture, resist while a prisoner or escape from the enemy\". \n\nNorth Korea may have detained up to 50,000 South Korean POWs after the ceasefire. Over 88,000 South Korean soldiers were missing and the Communists' themselves had claimed that they had captured 70,000 South Koreans. However, when ceasefire negotiations began in 1951, the Communists reported that they held only 8,000 South Koreans. The UN Command protested the discrepancies and alleged that the Communists were forcing South Korean POWs to join the KPA.\n\nThe Communist side denied such allegations. They claimed that their POW rosters were small because many POWs were killed in UN air raids and that they had released ROK soldiers at the front. They insisted that only volunteers were allowed to serve in the KPA. By early 1952, UN negotiators gave up trying to get back the missing South Koreans. The POW exchange proceeded without access to South Korean POWs not on the Communist rosters.\n\nNorth Korea continued to claim that any South Korean POW who stayed in the North did so voluntarily. However, since 1994, South Korean POWs have been escaping North Korea on their own after decades of captivity. As of 2010, the South Korean Ministry of Unification reported that 79 ROK POWs had escaped the North. The South Korean government estimates 500 South Korean POWs continue to be detained in North Korea. \n\nThe escaped POWs have testified about their treatment and written memoirs about their lives in North Korea. They report that they were not told about the POW exchange procedures, and were assigned to work in mines in the remote northeastern regions near the Chinese and Russian border. Declassified Soviet Foreign Ministry documents corroborate such testimony. \n\nIn 1997, the Geoje POW Camp in South Korea was turned into a memorial.\n\nStarvation\n\nIn December 1950, National Defense Corps was founded; the soldiers were 406,000 drafted citizens.\nIn the winter of 1951, 50,000 to 90,000 South Korean National Defense Corps soldiers starved to death while marching southward under the Chinese offensive when their commanding officers embezzled funds earmarked for their food. This event is called the National Defense Corps Incident. There is no evidence that Syngman Rhee was personally involved in or benefited from the corruption.\n\nRecreation\n\nIn 1950, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall and Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews called on the USO which was disbanded by 1947 to provide support for U.S. servicemen. By the end of the war, more than 113,000 American USO volunteers were working at home front and abroad. Many stars came to Korea to give their performances. Throughout the Korean War, UN Comfort Stations were operated by South Korean officials for UN soldiers. \n\nAftermath\n\nPostwar recovery was different in the two Koreas. South Korea stagnated in the first postwar decade. In 1953, South Korea and the United States concluded a Mutual Defense Treaty. In 1960, the April Revolution occurred and students joined an anti-Syngman Rhee demonstration; 142 were killed by police; in consequence Syngman Rhee resigned and left for exile in the United States. Park Chung-hee's May 16 coup enabled social stability. In the 1960s, prostitution and related services earned 25 percent of South Korean GNP. From 1965 to 1973, South Korea dispatched troops to Vietnam and received $235,560,000 allowance and military procurement from the United States. GNP increased fivefold during the Vietnam War. South Korea industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea remains underdeveloped. South Korea had one of the world's fastest-growing economies from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana, and by 2010 it was ranked thirteenth in the world (Ghana was 86th).\n\nFollowing extensive USAF bombing, North Korea \"had been virtually destroyed as an industrial society.\" After the armistice, Kim Il-Sung requested Soviet economic and industrial assistance. In September 1953, the Soviet government agreed to \"cancel or postpone repayment for all ... outstanding debts\", and promised to grant North Korea one billion rubles in monetary aid, industrial equipment and consumer goods. Eastern European members of the Soviet Bloc also contributed with \"logistical support, technical aid, [and] medical supplies.\" China cancelled North Korea's war debts, provided 800 million yuan, promised trade cooperation, and sent in thousands of troops to rebuild damaged infrastructure.\n\nPostwar, about 100,000 North Koreans were executed in purges. According to Rummel, forced labor and concentration camps were responsible for over one million deaths in North Korea from 1945 to 1987; others have estimated 400,000 deaths in concentration camps alone. Estimates based on the most recent North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s North Korean famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths in North Korea from 1993 to 2008. The North Korean government has been accused of \"crimes against humanity\" for its alleged culpability in creating and prolonging the 1990s famine. A study by South Korean anthropologists of North Korean children who had defected to China found that 18-year-old males were 5 inches shorter than South Koreans their age because of malnutrition. \n\nRacial integration efforts in the U.S. military began during the Korean War, where African Americans fought in integrated units for the first time. Among the 1.8 million American soldiers who fought in the Korean War there were more than 100,000 African Americans.\n\nSouth Korean anti-Americanism after the war was fueled by the presence and behavior of American military personnel (USFK) and U.S. support for the authoritarian regime, a fact still evident during the country's democratic transition in the 1980s. However, anti-Americanism has declined significantly in South Korea in recent years, from 46% favorable in 2003 to 74% favorable in 2011, making South Korea one of the most pro-American countries in the world. \n\nIn addition, a large number of mixed-race \"G.I. babies\" (offspring of American and other UN soldiers and Korean women) were filling up the country's orphanages. Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of race. Children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in South Korean society. International adoption of Korean children began in 1954. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1952 legalized the naturalization of non-whites as American citizens, and made possible the entry of military spouses and children from South Korea after the Korean War. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans, Koreans became one of the fastest-growing Asian groups in the United States.\n\nMao Zedong's decision to take on the United States in the Korean War was a direct attempt to confront what the Communist bloc viewed as the strongest anti-Communist power in the world, undertaken at a time when the Chinese Communist regime was still consolidating its own power after winning the Chinese Civil War. Mao supported intervention not to save North Korea, but because he believed that a military conflict with the United States was inevitable after the United States entered the Korean War, and also to appease the Soviet Union in order to secure military dispensation and achieve Mao's goal of making China a major world military power. Mao was equally ambitious in improving his own prestige inside the communist international community by demonstrating that his Marxist concerns were international. In his later years Mao believed that Stalin only gained a positive opinion of him after China's entrance into the Korean War. Inside Mainland China, the war improved the long-term prestige of Mao, Zhou, and Peng, allowing the Chinese Communist Party to increase its legitimacy while weakening anti-Communist dissent.\n\nThe Chinese government have encouraged the point of view that the war was initiated by the United States and South Korea, though ComIntern documents have shown that Mao sought approval from Joseph Stalin to enter the war. In Chinese media, the Chinese war effort is considered as an example of China's engaging the strongest power in the world with an under-equipped army, forcing it to retreat, and fighting it to a military stalemate. These successes were contrasted with China's historical humiliations by Japan and by Western powers over the previous hundred years, highlighting the abilities of the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party. The most significant negative long-term consequence of the war (for China) was that it led the United States to guarantee the safety of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Taiwan, effectively ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control until the present day. Mao had also discovered the usefulness of large-scale mass movements in the war while implementing them among most of his ruling measures over PRC. Finally, anti-American sentiments, which were already a significant factor during the Chinese Civil War, was ingrained into Chinese culture during the Communist propaganda campaigns of the Korean War. \n\nThe Korean War affected other participant combatants. Turkey, for example, entered NATO in 1952 and the foundation was laid for bilateral diplomatic and trade relations with South Korea."
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On a computer keyboard which letter is between A and D?
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tc_131
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"In computing, a computer keyboard is a typewriter-style device which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as a mechanical lever or electronic switch. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the main input device for computers.\n\nA keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. However, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs (characters), other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or execute computer commands.\n\nDespite the development of alternative input devices, such as the mouse, touchscreen, pen devices, character recognition and voice recognition, the keyboard remains the most commonly used device for direct (human) input of alphanumeric data into computers.\n\nIn normal usage, the keyboard is used as a text entry interface to type text and numbers into a word processor, text editor or other programs. In a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software. Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is also used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows' Control-Alt-Delete combination, which brings up a task window or shuts down the machine.\nA command-line interface is a type of user interface operated entirely through a keyboard, or another device doing the job of one.\n\nHistory \n\nWhile typewriters are the definitive ancestor of all key-based text entry devices, the computer keyboard as a device for electromechanical data entry and communication derives largely from the utility of two devices: teleprinters (or teletypes) and keypunches. It was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts.\n\nAs early as the 1870s, teleprinter-like devices were used to simultaneously type and transmit stock market text data from the keyboard across telegraph lines to stock ticker machines to be immediately copied and displayed onto ticker tape. The teleprinter, in its more contemporary form, was developed from 1907 to 1910 by American mechanical engineer Charles Krum and his son Howard, with early contributions by electrical engineer Frank Pearne. Earlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House and Frederick G. Creed.\n\nEarlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. \n\nThe keyboard on the teleprinter played a strong role in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication for most of the 20th century, while the keyboard on the keypunch device played a strong role in data entry and storage for just as long. The development of the earliest computers incorporated electric typewriter keyboards: the development of the ENIAC computer incorporated a keypunch device as both the input and paper-based output device, while the BINAC computer also made use of an electromechanically controlled typewriter for both data entry onto magnetic tape (instead of paper) and data output.\n\nFrom the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the main means of data entry and output for computing, becoming integrated into what were known as computer terminals. Because of the limitations of terminals based upon printed text in comparison to the growth in data storage, processing and transmission, a general move toward video-based computer terminals was effected by the 1970s, starting with the Datapoint 3300 in 1967.\n\nThe keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a consumer device in 1984. By this time, text-only user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively graphics-rich icons on screen. However, keyboards remain central to human-computer interaction to the present, even as mobile personal computing devices such as smartphones and tablets adapt the keyboard as an optional virtual, touchscreen-based means of data entry.\n\nKeyboard types \n\nOne factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience.\n\nFurther the keyboard size depends on the extent to which a system is used where a single action is produced by a combination of subsequent or simultaneous keystrokes (with modifier keys, see below), or multiple pressing of a single key. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad. See also text entry interface.\n\nAnother factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Reduction is limited by the practical consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys.\n\nStandard \n\nStandard alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers (0.750 inches, 19.05 mm), and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches (3.81 mm). Desktop computer keyboards, such as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include alphabetic characters, punctuation symbols, numbers and a variety of function keys. The internationally common 102/104 key keyboards have a smaller left shift key and an additional key with some more symbols between that and the letter to its right (usually Z or Y). Also the enter key is usually shaped differently. Computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys, such as the command or Windows keys. There is no standard computer keyboard, although many manufacture imitate the keyboard of PCs. There are actually three different PC keyboard: the original PC keyboard with 84 keys, the AT keyboard also with 84 keys and the enhanced keyboard with 101 keys. The three differ some what in the placement of function keys, the control keys, the return key, and the shift key.\n\nLaptop-size \n\nKeyboards on laptops and notebook computers usually have a shorter travel distance for the keystroke, shorter over travel distance, and a reduced set of keys. They may not have a numerical keypad, and the function keys may be placed in locations that differ from their placement on a standard, full-sized keyboard. The switch mechanism for a laptop keyboard is more likely to be a scissor switch than a rubber dome; this is opposite the trend for full-size keyboards.\n\nFlexible keyboards \n\nFlexible keyboards are a junction between normal type and laptop type keyboards, normal from the full arrangement of keys, and laptop from the sort key distance, additionally the flexibility it allows the user to fold/roll the keyboard for better storage / transfer, however for typing, the keyboard must be resting on a hard surface. The vast majority of flexible keyboards in market are made from silicone, this material makes it water and dust proof, a very pleasant feature especially in hospitals where keyboards are subjected to frequent washing. For connection with the computer, the keyboards having USB cable and the support of operating systems reach far back as the Windows 2000.\n\nHandheld \n\nHandheld ergonomic keyboards are designed to be held like a game controller, and can be used as such, instead of laid out flat on top of a table surface. Typically handheld keyboards hold all the alphanumeric keys and symbols that a standard keyboard would have, yet only be accessed by pressing two sets of keys at once; one acting as a function key similar to a 'Shift' key that would allow for capital letters on a standard keyboard. Handheld keyboards allow the user the ability to move around a room or to lean back on a chair while also being able to type in front or away from the computer. Some variations of handheld ergonomic keyboards also include a trackball mouse that allow mouse movement and typing included in one handheld device.\n\nThumb-sized \n\nSmaller external keyboards have been introduced for devices without a built-in keyboard, such as PDAs, and smartphones. Small keyboards are also useful where there is a limited workspace.\n\nA chorded keyboard allows users to press several keys simultaneously. For example, the GKOS keyboard has been designed for small wireless devices. Other two-handed alternatives more akin to a game controller, such as the AlphaGrip, are also used to input data and text.\n\nA thumb keyboard (thumb board) is used in some personal digital assistants such as the Palm Treo and BlackBerry and some Ultra-Mobile PCs such as the OQO.\n\nNumeric keyboards contain only numbers, mathematical symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, a decimal point, and several function keys. They are often used to facilitate data entry with smaller keyboards that do not have a numeric keypad, commonly those of laptop computers. These keys are collectively known as a numeric pad, numeric keys, or a numeric keypad, and it can consist of the following types of keys: Arithmetic operators, numbers, arrow keys, Navigation keys, Num Lock and Enter key.\n\nMultifunctional \n\nMultifunctional keyboards provide additional function beyond the standard keyboard. Many are programmable, configurable computer keyboards and some control multiple PCs, workstations (incl. SUN) and other information sources (incl. Thomson Reuters FXT/Eikon, Bloomberg, EBS, etc.) usually in multi-screen work environments. Users have additional key functions as well as the standard functions and can typically use a single keyboard and mouse to access multiple sources. \n\nMultifunctional keyboards may feature customised keypads, fully programmable function or soft keys for macros/pre-sets, biometric or smart card readers, trackballs, etc. New generation multifunctional keyboards feature a touchscreen display to stream video, control audio visual media and alarms, execute application inputs, configure individual desktop environments, etc. Multifunctional keyboards may also permit users to share access to PCs and other information sources. Multiple interfaces (serial, USB, audio, Ethernet, etc.) are used to integrate external devices. Some multifunctional keyboards are also used to directly and intuitively control video walls.\n\nCommon environments for multifunctional keyboards are complex, high-performance workplaces for financial traders and control room operators (emergency services, security, air traffic management; industry, utilities management, etc.).\n\nNon-standard layout and special-use types \n\nChorded \n\nWhile other keyboards generally associate one action with each key, chorded keyboards associate actions with combinations of key presses. Since there are many combinations available, chorded keyboards can effectively produce more actions on a board with fewer keys. Court reporters' stenotype machines use chorded keyboards to enable them to enter text much faster by typing a syllable with each stroke instead of one letter at a time. The fastest typists (as of 2007) use a stenograph, a kind of chorded keyboard used by most court reporters and closed-caption reporters. Some chorded keyboards are also made for use in situations where fewer keys are preferable, such as on devices that can be used with only one hand, and on small mobile devices that don't have room for larger keyboards. Chorded keyboards are less desirable in many cases because it usually takes practice and memorization of the combinations to become proficient.\n\nSoftware \n\nSoftware keyboards or on-screen keyboards often take the form of computer programs that display an image of a keyboard on the screen. Another input device such as a mouse or a touchscreen can be used to operate each virtual key to enter text. Software keyboards have become very popular in touchscreen enabled cell phones, due to the additional cost and space requirements of other types of hardware keyboards. Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and some varieties of Linux include on-screen keyboards that can be controlled with the mouse. In software keyboards, the mouse has to be maneuvered onto the on-screen letters given by the software. On the click of a letter, the software writes the respective letter on the respective spot.\n\nProjection (as by laser) \n\nProjection keyboards project an image of keys, usually with a laser, onto a flat surface. The device then uses a camera or infrared sensor to \"watch\" where the user's fingers move, and will count a key as being pressed when it \"sees\" the user's finger touch the projected image. Projection keyboards can simulate a full size keyboard from a very small projector. Because the \"keys\" are simply projected images, they cannot be felt when pressed. Users of projected keyboards often experience increased discomfort in their fingertips because of the lack of \"give\" when typing. A flat, non-reflective surface is also required for the keys to be projected. Most projection keyboards are made for use with PDAs and smartphones due to their small form factor.\n\nOptical keyboard technology \n\nAlso known as photo-optical keyboard, light responsive keyboard, photo-electric keyboard and optical key actuation detection technology.\n\nAn optical keyboard technology utilizes light emitting devices and photo sensors to optically detect actuated keys. Most commonly the emitters and sensors are located in the perimeter, mounted on a small PCB. The light is directed from side to side of the keyboard interior and it can only be blocked by the actuated keys. Most optical keyboards require at least 2 beams (most commonly vertical beam and horizontal beam) to determine the actuated key. Some optical keyboards use a special key structure that blocks the light in a certain pattern, allowing only one beam per row of keys (most commonly horizontal beam).\n\nLayout \n\nAlphabetic \n\nThere are a number of different arrangements of alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation symbols on keys. These different keyboard layouts arise mainly because different people need easy access to different symbols, either because they are inputting text in different languages, or because they need a specialized layout for mathematics, accounting, computer programming, or other purposes. The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The common QWERTY-based layout was designed early in the era of mechanical typewriters, so its ergonomics were compromised to allow for the mechanical limitations of the typewriter.\n\nAs the letter-keys were attached to levers that needed to move freely, inventor Christopher Sholes developed the QWERTY layout to reduce the likelihood of jamming. With the advent of computers, lever jams are no longer an issue, but nevertheless, QWERTY layouts were adopted for electronic keyboards because they were widely used. Alternative layouts such as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard are not in widespread use.\n\nThe QWERTZ layout is widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.\n\nAnother situation takes place with \"national\" layouts. Keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, to release the space for Ñ ñ; similarly, those for Portuguese, French and other European languages may have a special key for the character Ç ç. The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some neighbouring countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout in that the A and Q are swapped, the Z and W are swapped, and the M is moved from the right of N to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard). The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters.\n\nKeyboards in many parts of Asia may have special keys to switch between the Latin character set and a completely different typing system. Japanese layout keyboards can be switched between various Japanese input methods and the Latin alphabet by signaling the operating system's input interpreter of the change, and some operating systems (namely the Windows family) interpret the character \"\\\" as \"¥\" for display purposes without changing the bytecode which has led some keyboard makers to mark \"\\\" as \"¥\" or both. In the Arab world, keyboards can often be switched between Arabic and Latin characters.\n\nIn bilingual regions of Canada and in the French-speaking province of Québec, keyboards can often be switched between an English and a French-language keyboard; while both keyboards share the same QWERTY alphabetic layout, the French-language keyboard enables the user to type accented vowels such as \"é\" or \"à\" with a single keystroke. Using keyboards for other languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the keys, because the standard keyboard layouts do not share even similar characters of different languages (see the example in the figure above).\n\nKey types \n\nAlphanumeric \n\nAlphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys are used in the same fashion as a typewriter keyboard to enter their respective symbol into a word processing program, text editor, data spreadsheet, or other program. Many of these keys will produce different symbols when modifier keys or shift keys are pressed. The alphabetic characters become uppercase when the shift key or Caps Lock key is depressed. The numeric characters become symbols or punctuation marks when the shift key is depressed. The alphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys can also have other functions when they are pressed at the same time as some modifier keys.\nThe Space bar is a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, which is significantly wider than other keys. Like the alphanumeric characters, it is also descended from the mechanical typewriter. Its main purpose is to enter the space between words during typing. It is large enough so that a thumb from either hand can use it easily. Depending on the operating system, when the space bar is used with a modifier key such as the control key, it may have functions such as resizing or closing the current window, half-spacing, or backspacing. In computer games and other applications the key has myriad uses in addition to its normal purpose in typing, such as jumping and adding marks to check boxes. In certain programs for playback of digital video, the space bar is used for pausing and resuming the playback.\n\nModifier keys \n\nModifier keys are special keys that modify the normal action of another key, when the two are pressed in combination. For example, + in Microsoft Windows will close the program in an active window. In contrast, pressing just will probably do nothing, unless assigned a specific function in a particular program. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing.\nThe most widely used modifier keys include the Control key, Shift key and the Alt key. The AltGr key is used to access additional symbols for keys that have three symbols printed on them. On the Macintosh and Apple keyboards, the modifier keys are the Option key and Command key, respectively. On MIT computer keyboards, the Meta key is used as a modifier and for Windows keyboards, there is a Windows key. Compact keyboard layouts often use a Fn key. \"Dead keys\" allow placement of a diacritic mark, such as an accent, on the following letter (e.g., the Compose key).\nThe Enter/Return key typically causes a command line, window form or dialog box to operate its default function, which is typically to finish an \"entry\" and begin the desired process. In word processing applications, pressing the enter key ends a paragraph and starts a new one.\n\nCursor keys \n\nNavigation keys or cursor keys include a variety of keys which move the cursor to different positions on the screen. Arrow keys are programmed to move the cursor in a specified direction; page scroll keys, such as the Page Up and Page Down keys, scroll the page up and down. The Home key is used to return the cursor to the beginning of the line where the cursor is located; the End key puts the cursor at the end of the line. The Tab key advances the cursor to the next tab stop.\nThe Insert key is mainly used to switch between overtype mode, in which the cursor overwrites any text that is present on and after its current location, and insert mode, where the cursor inserts a character at its current position, forcing all characters past it one position further. The Delete key discards the character ahead of the cursor's position, moving all following characters one position \"back\" towards the freed place. On many notebook computer keyboards the key labeled Delete (sometimes Delete and Backspace are printed on the same key) serves the same purpose as a Backspace key. The Backspace key deletes the preceding character.\nLock keys lock part of a keyboard, depending on the settings selected. The lock keys are scattered around the keyboard. Most styles of keyboards have three LEDs indicating which locks are enabled, in the upper right corner above the numeric pad. The lock keys include Scroll lock, Num lock (which allows the use of the numeric keypad), and Caps lock.\n\nSystem commands \n\nThe SysRq and Print screen commands often share the same key. SysRq was used in earlier computers as a \"panic\" button to recover from crashes (and it is still used in this sense to some extent by the Linux kernel; see Magic SysRq key). The Print screen command used to capture the entire screen and send it to the printer, but in the present it usually puts a screenshot in the clipboard. The Break key/Pause key no longer has a well-defined purpose. Its origins go back to teleprinter users, who wanted a key that would temporarily interrupt the communications line. The Break key can be used by software in several different ways, such as to switch between multiple login sessions, to terminate a program, or to interrupt a modem connection.\nIn programming, especially old DOS-style BASIC, Pascal and C, Break is used (in conjunction with Ctrl) to stop program execution. In addition to this, Linux and variants, as well as many DOS programs, treat this combination the same as Ctrl+C. On modern keyboards, the break key is usually labeled Pause/Break. In most Windows environments, the key combination Windows key+Pause brings up the system properties.\nThe Escape key (often abbreviated Esc) is used to initiate an escape sequence. As most computer users no longer are concerned with the details of controlling their computer's peripherals, the task for which the escape sequences were originally designed, the escape key was appropriated by application programmers, most often to \"escape\" or back out of a mistaken command. This use continues today in Microsoft Windows's use of escape as a shortcut in dialog boxes for No, Quit, Exit, Cancel, or Abort.\nA common application today of the Esc key is as a shortcut key for the Stop button in many web browsers. On machines running Microsoft Windows, prior to the implementation of the Windows key on keyboards, the typical practice for invoking the \"start\" button was to hold down the control key and press escape. This process still works in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.\nThe Enter key is located: One in the alphanumeric keys and the other one is in the numeric keys. When one worked something on their computer and wanted to do something with their work, pressing the enter key would do the command they ordered. Another function is to create a space for next paragraph. When one typed and finished typing a paragraph and they wanted to have a second paragraph, they could press enter and it would do spacing.\nShift key: when one presses shift and a letter, it will capitalize the letter pressed with the shift key. Another use is to type more symbols than appear to be available, for instance the apostrophe key is accompanied with a quotation mark on the top. If one wants to type the quotation mark but pressed that key alone, the symbol that would appear would be the apostrophe. The quotation mark will only appear if both the required key and the Shift key are pressed.\nThe Menu key or Application key is a key found on Windows-oriented computer keyboards. It is used to launch a context menu with the keyboard rather than with the usual right mouse button. The key's symbol is usually a small icon depicting a cursor hovering above a menu. On some Samsung keyboards the cursor in the icon is not present, showing the menu only. This key was created at the same time as the Windows key. This key is normally used when the right mouse button is not present on the mouse. Some Windows public terminals do not have a Menu key on their keyboard to prevent users from right-clicking (however, in many Windows applications, a similar functionality can be invoked with the Shift+F10 keyboard shortcut).\nMiscellaneous \n\nMany, but not all,computer keyboards have a numeric keypad to the right of the alphabetic keyboard which contains numbers, basic mathematical symbols (e.g., addition, subtraction, etc.), and a few function keys. On Japanese/Korean keyboards, there may be Language input keys for changing the language to use. Some keyboards have power management keys (e.g., power key, sleep key and wake key); Internet keys to access a web browser or E-mail; and/or multimedia keys, such as volume controls or keys that can be programmed by the user to launch a specified software or command like launching a game or minimize all windows.\n\nNumeric keys \n\nWhen we calculate, we use these numeric keys to type numbers. Symbols concerned with calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division symbols are located in this group of keys. The enter key in this keys indicate the equal sign.\n\nMultiple layouts \n\nIt is possible to install multiple keyboard layouts within an operating system and switch between them, either through features implemented within the OS, or through an external application. Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac provide support to add keyboard layouts and choose from them.\n\nLayout changing software \n\nThe character code produced by any key press is determined by the keyboard driver software. A key press generates a scancode which is interpreted as an alphanumeric character or control function. Depending on operating systems, various application programs are available to create, add and switch among keyboard layouts. Many programs are available, some of which are language specific.\n\nThe arrangement of symbols of specific language can be customized. An existing keyboard layout can be edited, and a new layout can be created using this type of software.\n\nFor example, for Mac, The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and open-source Avro Keyboard for Windows provide the ability to customize the keyboard layout as desired.\n\nIllumination \n\nKeyboards and keypads may be illuminated from inside, especially on equipment for mobile use. Illumination facilitates the use of the keyboard or keypad in dark environments. Some gaming keyboards have lighted keys, to make it easier for gamers to find command keys while playing in a dark room. Some keyboards may have small LED lights in a few important function keys, to remind users that the function is activated (see photo).\n\nTechnology \n\nKey switches \n\nIn the first electronic keyboards in the early 1970s, the key switches were individual switches inserted into holes in metal frames. These keyboards cost from USD $80 to $120 and were used in mainframe data terminals. The most popular switch types were reed switches (contacts enclosed in a vacuum in a glass capsule, affected by a magnet mounted on the switch plunger).\n\nIn the mid-1970s, lower-cost direct-contact key switches were introduced, but their life in switch cycles was much shorter (rated ten million cycles) because they were open to the environment. This became more acceptable, however, for use in computer terminals at the time, which began to see increasingly shorter model lifespans as they advanced.\n\nIn 1978, Key Tronic Corporation introduced keyboards with capacitive-based switches, one of the first keyboard technologies to not use self-contained switches. There was simply a sponge pad with a conductive-coated Mylar plastic sheet on the switch plunger, and two half-moon trace patterns on the printed circuit board below. As the key was depressed, the capacitance between the plunger pad and the patterns on the PCB below changed, which was detected by integrated circuits (IC). These keyboards were claimed to have the same reliability as the other \"solid-state switch\" keyboards such as inductive and Hall-Effect, but competitive with direct-contact keyboards. Prices of $60 for keyboards were achieved and Key Tronic rapidly became the largest independent keyboard manufacturer.\n\nMeanwhile, IBM made their own keyboards, using their own patented technology: Keys on older IBM keyboards were made with a \"buckling spring\" mechanism, in which a coil spring under the key buckles under pressure from the user's finger, triggering a hammer that presses two plastic sheets (membranes) with conductive traces together, completing a circuit. This produces a clicking sound, and gives physical feedback for the typist indicating that the key has been depressed. \n\nThe first electronic keyboards had a typewriter key travel distance of 0.187 inches (4.75 mm), keytops were a half-inch (12.7 mm) high, and keyboards were about two inches (5 cm) thick. Over time, less key travel was accepted in the market, finally landing on 0.110 inches (2.79 mm). Coincident with this, Key Tronic was the first company to introduce a keyboard which was only about one inch thick. And now keyboards measure only about a half-inch thick.\n\nKeytops are an important element of keyboards. In the beginning, keyboard keytops had a \"dish shape\" on top, like typewriters before them. Keyboard key legends must be extremely durable over tens of millions of depressions, since they are subjected to extreme mechanical wear from fingers and fingernails, and subject to hand oils and creams, so engraving and filling key legends with paint, as was done previously for individual switches, was never acceptable. So, for the first electronic keyboards, the key legends were produced by two-shot (or double-shot, or two-color) molding, where either the key shell or the inside of the key with the key legend was molded first, and then the other color molded second. But, to save cost, other methods were explored, such as sublimation printing and laser engraving, both methods which could be used to print a whole keyboard at the same time.\n\nInitially, sublimation printing, where a special ink is printed onto the keycap surface and the application of heat causes the ink molecules to penetrate and commingle with the plastic modules, had a problem because finger oils caused the molecules to disperse, but then a necessarily very hard clear coating was applied to prevent this. Coincident with sublimation printing, which was first used in high volume by IBM on their keyboards, was the introduction by IBM of single-curved-dish keycaps to facilitate quality printing of key legends by having a consistently curved surface instead of a dish. But one problem with sublimation or laser printing was that the processes took too long and only dark legends could be printed on light-colored keys. On another note, IBM was unique in using separate shells, or \"keycaps\", on keytop bases. This might have made their manufacturing of different keyboard layouts more flexible, but the reason for doing this was that the plastic material that needed to be used for sublimation printing was different from standard ABS keytop plastic material.\n\nThree final mechanical technologies brought keyboards to where they are today, driving the cost well under $10:\n# \"Monoblock\" keyboard designs were developed where individual switch housings were eliminated and a one-piece \"monoblock\" housing used instead. This was possible because of molding techniques that could provide very tight tolerances for the switch-plunger holes and guides across the width of the keyboard so that the key plunger-to-housing clearances were not too tight or too loose, either of which could cause the keys to bind.\n# The use of contact-switch membrane sheets under the monoblock. This technology came from flat-panel switch membranes, where the switch contacts are printed inside of a top and bottom layer, with a spacer layer in between, so that when pressure is applied to the area above, a direct electrical contact is made. The membrane layers can be printed by very-high volume, low-cost \"reel-to-reel\" printing machines, with each keyboard membrane cut and punched out afterwards.\n\nPlastic materials played a very important part in the development and progress of electronic keyboards. Until \"monoblocks\" came along, GE's \"self-lubricating\" Delrin was the only plastic material for keyboard switch plungers that could withstand the beating over tens of millions of cycles of lifetime use. Greasing or oiling switch plungers was undesirable because it would attract dirt over time which would eventually affect the feel and even bind the key switches (although keyboard manufacturers would sometimes sneak this into their keyboards, especially if they could not control the tolerances of the key plungers and housings well enough to have a smooth key depression feel or prevent binding). But Delrin was only available in black and white, and was not suitable for keytops (too soft), so keytops use ABS plastic. However, as plastic molding advanced in maintaining tight tolerances, and as key travel length reduced from 0.187-inch to 0.110-inch (4.75 mm to 2.79 mm), single-part keytop/plungers could be made of ABS, with the keyboard monolocks also made of ABS.\n\nControl processor \n\nComputer keyboards include control circuitry to convert key presses into key codes (usually scancodes) that the computer's electronics can understand. The key switches are connected via the printed circuit board in an electrical X-Y matrix where a voltage is provided sequentially to the Y lines and, when a key is depressed, detected sequentially by scanning the X lines.\n\nThe first computer keyboards were for mainframe computer data terminals and used discrete electronic parts. The first keyboard microprocessor was introduced in 1972 by General Instruments, but keyboards have been using the single-chip 8048 microcontroller variant since it became available in 1978. The keyboard switch matrix is wired to its inputs, it converts the keystrokes to key codes, and, for a detached keyboard, sends the codes down a serial cable (the keyboard cord) to the main processor on the computer motherboard. This serial keyboard cable communication is only bi-directional to the extent that the computer's electronics controls the illumination of the caps lock, num lock and scroll lock lights.\n\nOne test for whether the computer has crashed is pressing the caps lock key. The keyboard sends the key code to the keyboard driver running in the main computer; if the main computer is operating, it commands the light to turn on. All the other indicator lights work in a similar way. The keyboard driver also tracks the Shift, alt and control state of the keyboard.\n\nSome lower-quality keyboards have multiple or false key entries due to inadequate electrical designs. These are caused by inadequate keyswitch \"debouncing\" or inadequate keyswitch matrix layout that don't allow multiple keys to be depressed at the same time, both circumstances which are explained below:\n\nWhen pressing a keyboard key, the key contacts may \"bounce\" against each other for several milliseconds before they settle into firm contact. When released, they bounce some more until they revert to the uncontacted state. If the computer were watching for each pulse, it would see many keystrokes for what the user thought was just one. To resolve this problem, the processor in a keyboard (or computer) \"debounces\" the keystrokes, by aggregating them across time to produce one \"confirmed\" keystroke.\n\nSome low-quality keyboards also suffer problems with rollover (that is, when multiple keys pressed at the same time, or when keys are pressed so fast that multiple keys are down within the same milliseconds). Early \"solid-state\" keyswitch keyboards did not have this problem because the keyswitches are electrically isolated from each other, and early \"direct-contact\" keyswitch keyboards avoided this problem by having isolation diodes for every keyswitch. These early keyboards had \"n-key\" rollover, which means any number of keys can be depressed and the keyboard will still recognize the next key depressed. But when three keys are pressed (electrically closed) at the same time in a \"direct contact\" keyswitch matrix that doesn't have isolation diodes, the keyboard electronics can see a fourth \"phantom\" key which is the intersection of the X and Y lines of the three keys. Some types of keyboard circuitry will register a maximum number of keys at one time. \"Three-key\" rollover, also called \"phantom key blocking\" or \"phantom key lockout\", will only register three keys and ignore all others until one of the three keys is lifted. This is undesirable, especially for fast typing (hitting new keys before the fingers can release previous keys), and games (designed for multiple key presses).\n\nAs direct-contact membrane keyboards became popular, the available rollover of keys was optimized by analyzing the most common key sequences and placing these keys so that they do not potentially produce phantom keys in the electrical key matrix (for example, simply placing three or four keys that might be depressed simultaneously on the same X or same Y line, so that a phantom key intersection/short cannot happen), so that blocking a third key usually isn't a problem. But lower-quality keyboard designs and unknowledgeable engineers may not know these tricks, and it can still be a problem in games due to wildly different or configurable layouts in different games.\n\nConnection types \n\nThere are several ways of connecting a keyboard to a system unit (more precisely, to its keyboard controller) using cables, including the standard AT connector commonly found on motherboards, which was eventually replaced by the PS/2 and the USB connection. Prior to the iMac line of systems, Apple used the proprietary Apple Desktop Bus for its keyboard connector.\n\nWireless keyboards have become popular for their increased user freedom. A wireless keyboard often includes a required combination transmitter and receiver unit that attaches to the computer's keyboard port. The wireless aspect is achieved either by radio frequency (RF) or by infrared (IR) signals sent and received from both the keyboard and the unit attached to the computer. A wireless keyboard may use an industry standard RF, called Bluetooth. With Bluetooth, the transceiver may be built into the computer. However, a wireless keyboard needs batteries to work and may pose a security problem due to the risk of data \"eavesdropping\" by hackers. Wireless solar keyboards charge their batteries from small solar panels using sunlight or standard artificial lighting. An early example of a consumer wireless keyboard is that of the Olivetti Envision.\n\nAlternative text-entering methods \n\nOptical character recognition (OCR) is preferable to rekeying for converting existing text that is already written down but not in machine-readable format (for example, a Linotype-composed book from the 1940s). In other words, to convert the text from an image to editable text (that is, a string of character codes), a person could re-type it, or a computer could look at the image and deduce what each character is. OCR technology has already reached an impressive state (for example, Google Book Search) and promises more for the future.\n\nSpeech recognition converts speech into machine-readable text (that is, a string of character codes). This technology has also reached an advanced state and is implemented in various software products. For certain uses (e.g., transcription of medical or legal dictation; journalism; writing essays or novels) speech recognition is starting to replace the keyboard. However, the lack of privacy when issuing voice commands and dictation makes this kind of input unsuitable for many environments.\n\nPointing devices can be used to enter text or characters in contexts where using a physical keyboard would be inappropriate or impossible. These accessories typically present characters on a display, in a layout that provides fast access to the more frequently used characters or character combinations. Popular examples of this kind of input are Graffiti, Dasher and on-screen virtual keyboards.\n\nOther issues \n\nKeystroke logging \n\nUnencrypted wireless bluetooth keyboards are known to be vulnerable to signal theft by placing a covert listening devices in the same room as the keyboard to sniff and record bluetooth packets for the purpose of logging keys typed by the user. Microsoft wireless keyboards 2011 and earlier are documented to have this\nvulnerability. \n\nKeystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a method of capturing and recording user keystrokes. While it is used legally to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks, or by law enforcement agencies to find out about illegal activities, it is also used by hackers for various illegal or malicious acts. Hackers use keyloggers as a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypass other security measures.\n\nKeystroke logging can be achieved by both hardware and software means. Hardware key loggers are attached to the keyboard cable or installed inside standard keyboards. Software keyloggers work on the target computer's operating system and gain unauthorized access to the hardware, hook into the keyboard with functions provided by the OS, or use remote access software to transmit recorded data out of the target computer to a remote location. Some hackers also use wireless keylogger sniffers to collect packets of data being transferred from a wireless keyboard and its receiver, and then they crack the encryption key being used to secure wireless communications between the two devices.\n\nAnti-spyware applications are able to detect many keyloggers and cleanse them. Responsible vendors of monitoring software support detection by anti-spyware programs, thus preventing abuse of the software. Enabling a firewall does not stop keyloggers per se, but can possibly prevent transmission of the logged material over the net if properly configured. Network monitors (also known as reverse-firewalls) can be used to alert the user whenever an application attempts to make a network connection. This gives the user the chance to prevent the keylogger from \"phoning home\" with his or her typed information. Automatic form-filling programs can prevent keylogging entirely by not using the keyboard at all. Most keyloggers can be fooled by alternating between typing the login credentials and typing characters somewhere else in the focus window. \n\nKeyboards are also known to emit electromagnetic signatures that can be detected using special spying equipment to reconstruct the keys pressed on the keyboard. Neal O'Farrell, executive director of the Identity Theft Council, revealed to InformationWeek that \"More than 25 years ago, a couple of former spooks showed me how they could capture a user's ATM PIN, from a van parked across the street, simply by capturing and decoding the electromagnetic signals generated by every keystroke,\" O'Farrell said. \"They could even capture keystrokes from computers in nearby offices, but the technology wasn't sophisticated enough to focus in on any specific computer.\" \n\nPhysical injury \n\nThe use of any keyboard may cause serious injury (that is, carpal tunnel syndrome or other repetitive strain injury) to hands, wrists, arms, neck or back. The risks of injuries can be reduced by taking frequent short breaks to get up and walk around a couple of times every hour. As well, users should vary tasks throughout the day, to avoid overuse of the hands and wrists. When inputting at the keyboard, a person should keep the shoulders relaxed with the elbows at the side, with the keyboard and mouse positioned so that reaching is not necessary. The chair height and keyboard tray should be adjusted so that the wrists are straight, and the wrists should not be rested on sharp table edges. Wrist or palm rests should not be used while typing.\n\nSome adaptive technology ranging from special keyboards, mouse replacements and pen tablet interfaces to speech recognition software can reduce the risk of injury. Pause software reminds the user to pause frequently. Switching to a much more ergonomic mouse, such as a vertical mouse or joystick mouse may provide relief. Switching from using a mouse to using a stylus pen with graphic tablet or a trackpad can lessen the repetitive strain on the arms and hands.\n\nPathogen transmission \n\nSome keyboards were found to contain five times more potentially harmful germs than a toilet seat. \nThis can be a concern when using shared keyboards; the keyboards can serve as vectors for pathogens that cause the cold, flu, and other communicable diseases easily spread by indirect contact.",
"A letter is a grapheme (written character) in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters also appear in abjads and abugidas (variants of alphabets in which vowel marking is secondary or absent). Letters broadly denote phonemes in the spoken form of the language, although there is rarely a consistent exact correspondence between letters and phonemes.\n\nWritten signs in other writing systems are best called syllabograms (which denote a syllable) or logograms (which denote a word or phrase).\n\nDefinition and usage\n\n\"Letter,\" borrowed from Old French lettre, entered Middle English around AD 1200, eventually displacing the native English term bocstaf (i.e. bookstaff). Letter derives from Latin littera, which may have derived, via Etruscan, from the Greek \"διφθέρα\" (writing tablet). The Middle English plural lettres could refer to an epistle or written document, reflecting the use of the Latin plural litteræ. Use of the singular letter to refer to a written document emerged in the 14th century.\n\nAs symbols that denote segmental speech, letters are associated with phonetics. In a purely phonemic alphabet, a single phoneme is denoted by a single letter, but in history and practice letters often denote more than one phoneme. A pair of letters designating a single phoneme is called a digraph. Examples of digraphs in English include \"ch\", \"sh\" and \"th\". A phoneme can also be represented by three letters, called a trigraph. An example is the combination \"sch\" in German.\n\nA letter may also be associated with more than one phoneme, with the phoneme depending on the surrounding letters or etymology of the word. As an example of positional effects, the Spanish letter c is pronounced [k] before a, o, or u (e.g. cantar, corto, cuidado), but is pronounced [θ] before e or i (e.g. centimo, ciudad).\n\nLetters also have specific names associated with them. These names may differ with language, dialect and history. Z, for example, is usually called zed in all English-speaking countries except the U.S., where it is named zee.\n\nLetters, as elements of alphabets, have prescribed orders. This may generally be known as \"alphabetical order\" though collation is the science devoted to the complex task of ordering and sorting of letters and words in different languages. In Spanish, for instance, ñ is a separate letter being sorted after n. In English, n and ñ are sorted alike.\n\nLetters may also have numerical value. This is true of Roman numerals and the letters of other writing systems. In English, Arabic numerals are typically used instead of letters.\n\nLetters may be used as words. The words a (lower or uppercase) and I (always uppercase) are the most common English letter-words. Sometimes O is used for \"Oh\" in poetic situations. In extremely informal cases of writing (such as SMS language) individual letters may replace words, e.g. u may be used instead of \"you\" in English, when the letter name is pronounced as a homophone of the word.\n\nPeople and objects are sometimes named after letters, for one of these reasons:\n# The letter is an abbreviation, e.g. \"G-man\" as slang for a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, arose as short for \"Government Man\".\n# Alphabetical order used as a counting system, e.g. Plan A, Plan B, etc.; alpha ray, beta ray, gamma ray, delta ray, epsilon ray\n# The shape of the letter, e.g. D-ring, F-clamp, G-clamp, H-block, H engine, O-ring, R-clip, U engine, V engine, Z-drive, a river delta\n# Other reasons, e.g. X-ray after \"x the unknown\" in algebra, because the discoverer did not know what they were.\n\nA classical definition\n\nGuilhem Molinier, a member of the Consistori del Gay Saber, which was the first literary academy in the world and held the Floral Games to award the best troubadour with the violeta d'aur top prize, gave a definition of the letter in his Leys d'Amors (1328–1337), a book aimed at regulating the then flourishing Occitan poetry:\n\nHistory\n\nThe first consonantal alphabet found has emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from this development or were inspired by its design. The Greek alphabet, invented around 800 BCE, was the first alphabet assigning letters not only to consonants, but also to vowels. \n\nTypes of letters\n\nVarious scripts\n\nThe following alphabets, abjads, and individual letters are discussed in related articles. Each represents a different script:\n\nBangla alphabet:অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও, ঔ, ক, খ, গ, ঘ, ঙ, চ, ছ, জ, ঝ, ঞ, ট, ঠ, ড, ঢ, ণ, ত, থ, দ, ধ, ন, প, ফ, ব, ভ, ম, য, ৰ, ল, ৱ, শ, ষ, স, হ, ড়, ঢ়, য়, ৎ, ং, ঃ, ঁ\n\nArabic alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .\n\nSyriac alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) ܐ, ܒ, ܓ, ܕ, ܗ, ܘ, ܙ, ܚ, ܛ, ܝ, ܟܟ, ܠ, ܡܡ, ܢܢ, ܣ, ܥ, ܦ, ܨ, ܩ, ܪ, ܫ, ܬ.\n\nCyrillic script: А, Б, В, Г, Ґ, Ѓ, Д, Е, Є, Ж, З, Ѕ, И, І, Ї, Й, К, Ќ, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ю, Я, Ъ, Ь, Ђ, Љ, Њ, Ћ, Џ, Ы.\n\nGeorgian script: ა, ბ, გ, დ, ე, ვ, ზ, თ, ი, კ, ლ, მ, ნ, ო, პ, ჟ, რ, ს, ტ, უ, ფ, ქ, ღ, ყ, შ, ჩ, ც, ძ, წ, ჭ, ხ, ჯ, ჰ\n\nGreek alphabet: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω.\n\nHebrew alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) א, ב, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כ, ל, מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, ק, ר, ש, ת.\n\nEnglish alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.\n\nHangul: ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ\n\nBopomofo: ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ ㄉ ㄊ ㄋ ㄌ ㄍ ㄎ ㄏ ㄐ ㄑ ㄒ ㄓ ㄔ ㄕ ㄖ ㄗ ㄘ ㄙ ㄚ ㄛ ㄜ ㄝ ㄞ ㄟ ㄠ ㄡ ㄢ ㄣ ㄤ ㄥ ㄦ ㄧ ㄨ ㄩ ㄭ\n\nOgham: ᚁ ᚂ ᚃ ᚄ ᚅ ᚆ ᚇ ᚈ ᚉ ᚊ ᚋ ᚌ ᚍ ᚎ ᚏ ᚐ ᚑ ᚒ ᚓ ᚔ ᚕ ᚖ ᚗ ᚘ ᚙ ᚚ ᚛ ᚜\n\nEthiopic ሀ ለ ሐ መ ሠ ረ ሰ ቀ በ\t ተ ኀ ነ አ ከ ወ ዐ ዘ የ ደ ገ ጠ ጰ ጸ ፀ ፈ ፐ\n\nInternational Phonetic Alphabet - used to represent exact pronunciation\n\nFor other writing systems and their letters, see List of writing systems.\n\nUpper and lower case\n\nSome writing systems have two major forms for each letter: an upper case form (also called capital or majuscule) and a lower case form (also called minuscule). Upper and lower case forms represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing. Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, as the first letter of a proper name, or in inscriptions or headers. They may also serve other functions, such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters.\n\nTypeface and font\n\nA letter may be printed in a number of different sizes or forms, depending on choice of typeface. A typeface is a single, stylistically consistent set of forms for letters (or glyphs). A particular typeface may alter standard forms of characters, may present them with different optical weight, or may angle or embellish their forms. A font is more specific than a typeface, since it specifies the size of the letters as well as the form.\n\nIn calligraphy, letters are written artistically and may or may not be consistent throughout a work.\n\nLetter frequencies\n\nThe average distribution of letters, or the relative frequency of each letter's occurrence in text in a given language can be obtained analyzing large amounts of representative text. This information can be useful in cryptography and for other purposes as well. Letter frequencies vary in different types of writing. In English, the most frequently appearing ten letters are e, t, a, o, i, n, s, h, r, and d, in that order, with the letter e appearing about 13% of the time.\n\nFootnotes"
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What was Hitchcock's first sound movie?
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tc_134
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE, (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as \"The Master of Suspense\". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1955. \n\nOver a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. His stylistic trademarks include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside \"icy blonde\" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of murder and other violence. Many of the mysteries, however, are used as decoys or \"MacGuffins\" that serve the films' themes and the psychological examinations of their characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and sometimes feature strong sexual overtones.\n\nHitchcock became a highly visible public figure through interviews, movie trailers, cameo appearances in his own films, and the ten years in which he hosted the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1978, film critic John Russell Taylor described Hitchcock as \"the most universally recognizable person in the world\", and \"a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius.\"\n\nHitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker. He came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: \"Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from viewers) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.\" Prior to 1980 there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film. Critic Roger Ebert wrote: \"Other British directors like Sir Carol Reed and Sir Charlie Chaplin were knighted years ago, while Hitchcock, universally considered by film students to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, was passed over\". Hitchcock was later to receive his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. In 2002, the magazine MovieMaker named Hitchcock the most influential filmmaker of all time. \n\nEarly life\n\nAlfred Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, which at the time was part of Essex. He was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock (1862–1914), a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock (born Whelan; 1863–1942). He was named after his father's brother. Hitchcock was brought up as a Roman Catholic and was sent to Salesian College and the Jesuit Classic school St Ignatius' College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry. He often described a lonely and sheltered childhood worsened by his obesity. Around age five, Hitchcock said that he was sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for five minutes as punishment for behaving badly. This incident implanted a lifetime fear of policemen in Hitchcock, and such harsh treatment and wrongful accusations are frequent themes in his films. \n\nWhen Hitchcock was 15, his father died. In the same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company called Henley's. During the First World War, Hitchcock was called up to serve in the British Army. He was excused from military service with a 'C3' classification due to his size, height or an unnamed medical condition, but he was \"able to stand service conditions in garrisons at home\". Hitchcock signed up to a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917. His military stint was limited; he received theoretical briefings, weekend drills and exercises. Hitchcock would march around London's Hyde Park and was required to wear puttees, though he never mastered the proper wrapping of them. \n\nWhile working at Henley's, Hitchcock began to dabble creatively. The company's in-house publication The Henley Telegraph was founded in 1919, and he often submitted short articles and eventually became one of its most prolific contributors. His first piece was \"Gas\" (1919), published in the first issue, in which a young woman imagines that she is being assaulted one night in London – only for the twist to reveal that it was all just a hallucination in the dentist's chair induced by the anesthetic. \n\nHitchcock's second piece was \"The Woman's Part\" (1919), which involves the conflicted emotions that a husband feels as he watches his actress wife perform onstage. \"Sordid\" (1920) surrounds an attempt to buy a sword from an antiques dealer, with another twist ending. The short story \"And There Was No Rainbow\" (1920) is Hitchcock's first brush with possibly censurable material. A young man goes out looking for a brothel, only to stumble into the house of his best friend's girl. \"What's Who?\" (1920) at first glance seems to be a precursor to Abbott and Costello's \"Who's on First?\" routine. It is a very short dialogue piece that resembles a bit of antic dialogue from a music hall skit. It captures the zany confusion that happens when a group of actors decide to put together a sketch in which they will impersonate themselves. In the story’s 40 sentences, confusion regarding the questions “Who’s me?” and \"Who’s you?” rise to comic emotional heights. \"The History of Pea Eating\" (1920) is a satirical disquisition on the various attempts that people have made over the centuries to eat peas successfully. His final piece, \"Fedora\" (1921), is his shortest and most enigmatic contribution. It also gives a strikingly accurate description of his future wife Alma Reville, whom he had not yet met. \n\nInter-war British career\n\nSilent films\n\nHitchcock became intrigued by photography and started working in film production, working as a title card designer for the London branch of what became Paramount Pictures. In 1920, he received a full-time position designing the titles for silent movies at Islington Studios with its American owner Famous Players-Lasky and their British successor Gainsborough Pictures. His rise from title designer to film director took five years. During this period, he became an unusual combination of screenwriter, art director, and assistant director on a series of five films for producer Michael Balcon and director Graham Cutts: Woman to Woman (1923), The White Shadow (1924), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard (1925), and The Prude's Fall (1925). \n\nHitchcock's penultimate collaboration with Cutts, The Blackguard (German: Die Prinzessin und der Geiger, 1925), was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, where Hitchcock observed part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film The Last Laugh (1924). He was very impressed with Murnau's work and later used many techniques for the set design in his own productions. In a book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock also said that he was influenced by Fritz Lang's film Destiny (1921). He was likewise influenced by other foreign filmmakers whose work he absorbed as one of the earliest members of the \"seminal\" London Film Society, formed in 1925.\n\nHitchcock's first few films faced a string of bad luck. His first directing project came in 1922 with the aptly titled Number 13, filmed in London. The production was cancelled because of financial problems; the few scenes that had been finished at that point have been lost. Michael Balcon gave Hitchcock another opportunity for a directing credit with The Pleasure Garden (1925), a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka, which he made at the Geiselgasteig studio near Munich in the summer of 1925. The film was a commercial flop. Next, Hitchcock directed a drama called The Mountain Eagle (1926), possibly released under the title Fear o' God, in the United States. This film is lost. \n\nHitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), a suspense film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper type of serial killer in London. Released in January 1927, it was a major commercial and critical success in the United Kingdom. As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany. Some commentators regard this piece as the first truly \"Hitchcockian\" film, incorporating such themes as the \"wrong man\". \n\nFollowing the success of The Lodger, Hitchcock hired a publicist to help strengthen his growing reputation. On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director, Alma Reville, at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington, London. Their only child, daughter Patricia, was born on 7 July 1928. Alma was to become Hitchcock's closest collaborator, but her contributions to his films (some of which were credited on screen) Hitchcock would discuss only in private, as she was keen to avoid public attention. \n\nEarly sound films\n\nHitchcock began work on his tenth film Blackmail (1929) when its production company British International Pictures (BIP) decided to convert its Elstree facility to sound, and to utilise that new technology in Blackmail. It was an early 'talkie', often cited by film historians as a landmark film, and is often considered to be the first British sound feature film. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax of the film taking place on the dome of the British Museum. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word \"knife\" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder. During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP musical film revue Elstree Calling (1930) and directed a short film featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners entitled An Elastic Affair (1930). Another BIP musical revue, Harmony Heaven (1929), reportedly had minor input from Hitchcock, but his name does not appear in the credits.\n\nIn 1933, Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont British. His first film for the company The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) was a success and his second The 39 Steps (1935) is often considered one of the best films from his early period, with the British Film Institute ranking it the fourth best British film of the 20th century. The film was acclaimed in Britain, and it made Hitchcock a star in the United States, and established the quintessential English \"Hitchcock blonde\" Madeleine Carroll as the template for his succession of ice cold and elegant leading ladies. This film was also one of the first to introduce the \"MacGuffin\". In The 39 Steps, the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans. Hitchcock told French director François Truffaut:\n\nThere are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, \"Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?\", \"Oh\", says the other, \"that's a Macguffin.\", \"Well\", says the first man, \"what's a Macguffin?\", The other answers, \"It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.\", \"But\", says the first man, \"there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.\", \"Well\", says the other, \"then that's no Macguffin.\" \n\nHitchcock's next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), a fast-paced film about the search for kindly old Englishwoman Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) who disappears while on board a train in the fictional country of Bandrika. The Guardian called the film \"one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era\", and a contender for the \"title of best comedy thriller ever made\". In 1939, Hitchcock received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, the only time he received an award for his direction. \n\nHitchcock was lauded in Britain, where he was dubbed \"Alfred the Great\" by Picturegoer magazine, and his reputation was beginning to soar overseas by the end of the 1930s, with a New York Times feature writer stating: \"Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not. Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world.\" Variety magazine referred to him as, \"probably the best native director in England.\" \n\nHollywood\n\nSelznick contract\n\nDavid O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. The suspense and the gallows humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in his films continued to appear in his American productions. The working arrangements with Selznick were less than ideal. Selznick suffered from constant financial problems, and Hitchcock was often displeased with Selznick's creative control over his films. In a later interview, Hitchcock commented:\n\n[Selznick] was the Big Producer. ... Producer was king, The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the \"only director\" he'd \"trust with a film\". \n\nSelznick lent Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. Selznick made only a few films each year, as did fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. Hitchcock was quickly impressed with the superior resources of the American studios compared with the financial limits that he had often faced in Britain. \n\nThe Selznick picture Rebecca (1940) was Hitchcock's first American film, set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier. The film stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The story concerns a naïve (and unnamed) young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She goes to live in his huge English country house, and struggles with the lingering reputation of the elegant and worldly first wife, whose name was Rebecca and who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940. The statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer. Hitchcock was nominated for the Best Director award, his first of five such nominations, but did not win.\n\nThere were additional problems between Selznick and Hitchcock, with Selznick known to impose restrictive rules on Hitchcock. At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's \"goddamn jigsaw cutting\", which meant that the producer did not have nearly the leeway to create his own film as he liked, but had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product. \n\nHitchcock's second American film was the European-set thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), based on Vincent Sheean's Personal History and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock and other British subjects felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while their country was at war; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort. The movie was filmed in the first year of the Second World War and was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as fictionally covered by an American newspaper reporter portrayed by Joel McCrea. The film mixed footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood back lot. It avoided direct references to Nazism, Germany and Germans to comply with Hollywood's Production Code censorship. \n\nEarly war years\n\nHitchcock's films were diverse during the 1940s, ranging from the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), to the courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947), to the dark and disturbing film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943).\n\nIn September 1940 the Hitchcocks bought the 200 acre Cornwall Ranch near Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ranch became the holiday home of the Hitchcocks. Their primary residence was an English-style home in Bel Air which was purchased in 1942. Suspicion (1941) marks Hitchcock's first film as a producer as well as director. It is set in England, and Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz, California for the English coastline sequence. This film is the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. Joan Fontaine won Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Grant plays an irresponsible English con man whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his shy young English wife (Fontaine). In one scene Hitchcock uses a lightbulb to illuminate what might be a fatal glass of milk that Grant is bringing to his wife. The character that Grant plays in the film is a killer in the book the film is based on, Before the Fact by Francis Iles, but Hitchcock and the studio felt that Grant's image would be tarnished by that. So instead Hitchcock settled for an ambiguous finale, though, as he stated to François Truffaut, a murder would have suited him better. \n\nSaboteur (1942) is the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal during the decade. Hitchcock was forced to use Universal contract player Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane (a freelancer who signed a one-picture deal with Universal), both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. Breaking with Hollywood conventions of the time, Hitchcock did extensive location filming, especially in New York City, and depicted a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty. That year, he also directed Have You Heard?, a photographic dramatisation of the dangers of rumours during wartime, for Life magazine. \n\nShadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite of all his films and the second of the early Universal films. It is about young Charlotte \"Charlie\" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa during the summer of 1942. The director showcased his personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.\n\nWorking at 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock adapted a script of John Steinbeck's, which recorded the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack in the film Lifeboat (1944). The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance. That was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for \"Reduco-Obesity Slayer\". \n\nWhile at Fox Hitchcock seriously considered directing the film version of A. J. Cronin's novel about a Catholic priest in China, The Keys of the Kingdom, but the plans for this fell through. John M. Stahl ended up directing the 1944 film, which was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Gregory Peck. \n\nWartime non-fiction films\n\nHitchcock returned to the UK for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944. While there he made two short films for the British Ministry of Information: Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. The two British propaganda films made for the Free French were the only films that Hitchcock made in the French language, and they \"feature typical Hitchcockian touches\". On his motivation for making the films, Hitchcock stated: \"I felt the need to make a little contribution to the war effort, and I was both overweight and over-age for military service. I knew that if I did nothing, I'd regret it for the rest of my life.\" \n\nFrom late June to late July 1945, Hitchcock served as \"treatment advisor\" on a Holocaust documentary which used footage provided by the Allied Forces. It was produced by Sidney Bernstein of the British Ministry of Information, and was assembled in London. Bernstein brought his future 1948–49 production partner Hitchcock on board as a consultant for the film editing process for the British Ministry of Information and the American Office of War Information. \n\nThe film-makers were commissioned to provide irrefutable evidence of the Nazis' crimes, and the film recorded the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. It was transferred in 1952 from the British War Office film vaults to London's Imperial War Museum and remained unreleased until 1985, when an edited version was broadcast as an episode of the PBS network series Frontline under the title which the Imperial War Museum had given it: Memory of the Camps. The full-length version of the film German Concentration Camps Factual Survey was completed in 2014, and was restored by film scholars at the Imperial War Museum.\n\nLater Selznick films\n\nHitchcock worked for Selznick again when he directed Spellbound (1945), which explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past. The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned, having been edited by Selznick to make it \"play\" more effectively. Two point-of-view shots were achieved by building a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on some copies of the black-and-white film.\nThe original musical score by Miklós Rózsa makes use of the theremin, and some of it was later adapted by the composer into a concert piano concerto.\n\nNotorious (1946) followed Spellbound. Hitchcock gave a book-length interview to François Truffaut, in which he said that Selznick had sold the director, the two stars (Grant and Bergman), and the screenplay (by Ben Hecht) to RKO Radio Pictures as a \"package\" for $500,000 due to cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). Notorious stars Hitchcock regulars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium and South America. His prescient use of uranium as a plot device led to Hitchcock's being briefly under FBI surveillance. McGilligan writes that Hitchcock consulted Dr. Robert Millikan of Caltech about the development of an atomic bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was \"science fiction\", only to be confronted by the news stories of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. \n\nHis last film under his contract with Selznick was The Paradine Case (1947), a courtroom drama which critics thought lost momentum because it apparently ran too long and exhausted its resource of ideas.\n\nSidney Bernstein and Transatlantic Pictures\n\nHitchcock formed an independent production company with his friend Sidney Bernstein called Transatlantic Pictures, through which he made two films, his first in colour and making use of long takes. With Rope (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshaling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1944). The film appears to have been shot in a single take, but it was actually shot in 10 takes ranging from 4-½ to 10 minutes each, a 10-minute length of film being the maximum that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. It features James Stewart in the leading role, and was the first of four films that Stewart made with Hitchcock. It was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s.\n\nUnder Capricorn (1949), set in 19th century Australia, also uses the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white films for several years. Transatlantic Pictures became inactive after these two unsuccessful films. But Hitchcock continued to produce his own films for the rest of his life.\n\n1950s: Peak years\n\nHitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) at studios in Elstree, England where he had worked during his British International Pictures contract many years before. He matched one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the expatriate German actress Marlene Dietrich and used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first proper production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties. \n\nHis film Strangers on a Train (1951) was based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In it, Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for \"boy-next-door\" roles, played the villain. \n\nI Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three popular colour films starring Grace Kelly. Dial M for Murder (1954) was adapted from the stage play by Frederick Knott. Ray Milland plays the scheming villain, an ex-tennis pro who tries to murder his unfaithful wife (Kelly) for her money. She kills the hired assassin in self-defence, so Milland manipulates the evidence to make it look like a premeditated murder by his wife. Her lover Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) work urgently to save her from execution. With Dial M, Hitchcock experimented with 3D cinematography, with the film now being available in the 3D format on Blu-ray.\n\nHitchcock then moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character is a photographer (based on Robert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. Out of boredom, he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, and then becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart tries to convince both his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his glamorous model-girlfriend (Kelly, whom screenwriter John Michael Hayes based on his own wife), and eventually he succeeds. As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters are confined, in this case to Stewart's small studio apartment overlooking a large courtyard. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions to all that he sees, \"from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment\".\n\nIn 1955, Hitchcock became a United States citizen. His third Grace Kelly film To Catch a Thief (1955) is set in the French Riviera, and pairs her with Cary Grant. He plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him. \"Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success.\" It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and ended her film career.\n\nHitchcock remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. This time, the film starred James Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song \"Que Sera, Sera\", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a big hit for her. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, London. \n\nThe Wrong Man (1957), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Bros., is a low-key black-and-white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock to star Henry Fonda, who plays a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief who is arrested and tried for robbery, while his wife (Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes. \n\nVertigo (1958) again starred James Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Stewart plays \"Scottie\", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman that he is shadowing (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Some critics, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo represents the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman that he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other film in his filmography. \n\nThe film contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts that has been copied many times by filmmakers commonly referred to as a dolly zoom. It was premiered in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell. Vertigo is considered a classic today, but it met with some negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and was the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. It had previously been ranked just behind Citizen Kane (1941) in earlier Sight and Sound decade polls, but it was voted best ever film in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll.\n\nBy this time, Hitchcock had filmed in many areas of the US. He followed Vertigo with three more successful films, which are also recognised as among his best films: North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963).\n\nIn North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. He is hotly pursued across the United States by enemy agents, apparently one of them being Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who is in reality working undercover.\n\n1960: Psycho\n\nPsycho is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film. Produced on a constrained budget of $800,000, it was shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from his television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early death of the heroine and the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer became the defining hallmarks of a new horror film genre and have been copied by many authors of subsequent films. \n\nThe public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of cinemas as people had to wait for the next showing. It broke box-office records in the United Kingdom, France, South America, the United States and Canada and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period. It was the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career; Hitchcock personally earned well in excess of $15 million. He subsequently swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc. and his own boss at Universal, in theory at least, but that did not stop them from interfering with him. \n\nAfter 1960\n\nThe Birds (1963), inspired by a short story by English author Daphne du Maurier and by a news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in Capitola, California, was Hitchcock's 49th film, and the location scenes were filmed in Bodega Bay, California. Newcomer Tippi Hedren co-starred with Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing live and animated sequences. The cause of the birds' attack is left unanswered, \"perhaps highlighting the mystery of forces unknown\". Hitchcock cast Hedren again opposite Sean Connery in Marnie (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller. Decades later, Hedren called Hitchcock a misogynist and said that Hitchcock effectively ended her career by keeping her to an exclusive contract for two years when she rebuffed his sexual advances. However, Hedren appeared in two TV shows during the two years after Marnie. In 2012, Hedren described Hitchcock as a \"sad character\"; a man of \"unusual genius\", yet \"evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting.\" In response, a Daily Telegraph article quoted several actresses who had worked with Hitchcock, including Eva Marie Saint, Doris Day and Kim Novak, none of whom shared Hedren's opinion about him. Novak, who worked on Hitchcock's Vertigo, told the Telegraph \"I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody.\" \n\nPsycho and The Birds had unconventional soundtracks: the screeching strings played in the murder scene in Psycho were unusually dissonant, and The Birds dispensed with any conventional score, instead using a new technique of electronically produced sound effects. Bernard Herrmann composed the former and was a consultant on the latter.\n\nFailing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal \"forced\" two movies on him, Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969). Both were spy thrillers set with Cold War-related themes. The first, Torn Curtain (1966), with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the twelve-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann was sacked when Hitchcock was unsatisfied with his score. Topaz (1969), based on a Leon Uris novel, is partly set in Cuba. Both received mixed reviews from critics.\n\nHitchcock returned to Britain to film his penultimate film Frenzy (1972). After two espionage films, the plot marks a return to the murder thriller genre, and is based upon the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. The plot centres on a serial killer in contemporary London. The basic story recycles his early film The Lodger. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect for the \"Necktie Murders,\" which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites, as in Strangers on a Train. Only one of them, however, has crossed the line to murder. For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had previously been taboo, in one of his films. He also shows rare sympathy for the chief inspector and his comic domestic life. \n\nBiographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the longtime head of Hollywood's Production Code. Many times Hitchcock slipped in subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such things and were actually amused as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's \"inescapable inferences\". Beginning with Torn Curtain, Hitchcock was finally able to blatantly include plot elements previously forbidden in American films.\n\nFamily Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It relates the escapades of \"Madam\" Blanche Tyler, played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern, making a living from her phony powers. William Devane, Karen Black and Cathleen Nesbitt co-starred. It is the only Hitchcock film scored by John Williams. While Family Plot was based on the Victor Canning novel The Rainbird Pattern, the novel's tone is more sinister and dark than what Hitchcock wanted for the film. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman originally wrote the film with a dark tone but was pushed to a lighter, more comical tone by Hitchcock. The film went through various titles including Deceit and Missing Heir. It was changed to Family Plot at the suggestion of the studio.\n\nLast project and death\n\nNear the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a projected spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with James Costigan, Ernest Lehman and David Freeman. Despite some preliminary work, the screenplay was never filmed. This was caused primarily by Hitchcock's seriously declining health and his concerns for his wife, Alma, who had suffered a stroke. The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's 1999 book The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock. \n\nHitchcock died aged 80 in his Bel Air home of renal failure on 29 April 1980. While biographer Spoto wrote that Hitchcock \"rejected suggestions that he allow a priest ... to come for a visit, or celebrate a quiet, informal ritual at the house for his comfort,\" Jesuit priest Father Mark Henninger wrote that he and fellow priest Tom Sullivan celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home; Father Sullivan heard Hitchcock's confession. He was survived by his wife and their daughter. Lew Wasserman, board chairman and chief executive officer of MCA Inc. and previously Hitchcock’s longtime agent, stated:\n\nI am deeply saddened by the death of my close friend and colleague, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, whose death today at his home deprives us all of a great artist and an even greater human being. Almost every tribute paid to Sir Alfred in the past by film critics and historians has emphasised his continuing influence in the world of film. It is that continuing influence, embodied in the magnificent series of films he has given the world, during the last half-century, that will preserve his great spirit, his humour and his wit, not only for us but for succeeding generations of film-goers.\n\nHitchcock's funeral Mass was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills on 30 April 1980, after which his body was cremated and his remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean on 10 May 1980. \n\nAesthetic\n\nSignature appearances in his films\n\nHitchcock appears briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (Strangers on a Train), walking dogs out of a pet shop (The Birds), fixing a neighbour's clock (Rear Window), as a shadow (Family Plot), sitting at a table in a photograph (Dial M for Murder) and missing a bus (North by Northwest).\n\nThemes, plot devices and motifs\n\nHitchcock returned several times to cinematic devices such as suspense, the audience as voyeur, and his well-known \"MacGuffin,\" a plot device that is essential to the characters on the screen, but is irrelevant to the audience. Thus, the MacGuffin was always hazily described (in North By Northwest, Leo G. Carroll describes James Mason as an \"importer-exporter.\") A central theme of Hitchcock's films was murder and the psychology behind it. \n\nPsychology of characters\n\nHitchcock's films sometimes feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant's character) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in Frenzy (1972) has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious has a clearly conflictual relationship with his mother, who is (correctly) suspicious of his new bride Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman). Norman Bates has troubles with his mother in Psycho.\n\nHitchcock heroines tend to be blondes. The famous victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie (1964), the title character (played by Tippi Hedren) is a thief. In To Catch a Thief (1955), Francie (Grace Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Rear Window, Lisa (Grace Kelly again) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. The best-known example is in Psycho where Janet Leigh's unfortunate character steals $40,000 and is murdered by a reclusive psychopath. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in Family Plot (1976), his final film. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black could also fit that role, as she wears a long blonde wig in various scenes and becomes increasingly uncomfortable about her line of work. The English 'Hitchcock blonde' was based on his preference for the heroines to have an \"indirect\" sex appeal of English women, ladylike in public, but whores in the bedroom, with Hitchcock stating to Truffaut:\n\nStyle of working\n\nWriting\n\nHitchcock once commented, \"The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest.\" In an interview with Roger Ebert in 1969, Hitchcock elaborated further:\n\nIn Writing with Hitchcock, a book-length study of Hitchcock's working method with his writers, author Steven DeRosa noted that \"Although he rarely did any actual 'writing', especially on his Hollywood productions, Hitchcock supervised and guided his writers through every draft, insisting on a strict attention to detail and a preference for telling the story through visual rather than verbal means. While this exasperated some writers, others admitted the director inspired them to do their very best work. Hitchcock often emphasised that he took no screen credit for the writing of his films. However, over time the work of many of his writers has been attributed solely to Hitchcock's creative genius, a misconception he rarely went out of his way to correct. Notwithstanding his technical brilliance as a director, Hitchcock relied on his writers a great deal.\" \n\nStoryboards and production\n\nAccording to the majority of commentators, Hitchcock's films were extensively storyboarded to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to, though in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternate takes to consider.\n\nHowever, this view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by the book Hitchcock at Work, written by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of Cahiers du cinéma. Krohn, after investigating several script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock alongside inspection of storyboards, and other production material, has observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned. He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. A great example would be the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of North by Northwest which was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.\n\nEven when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's extensive analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines utilised during many other film productions.\n\nKrohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternate takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how he/she chooses (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency of giving himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work. According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock.\n\nHis fastidiousness and attention to detail also found its way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films. \n\nApproach to actors\n\nHitchcock became known for his alleged observation, \"Actors are cattle\". He once said that he first made this remark as early as the late 1920s, in connection to stage actors who were snobbish about motion pictures. However, the actor Michael Redgrave said that Hitchcock had made the statement during the filming of The Lady Vanishes (1938). Later, in Hollywood, during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Carole Lombard brought some heifers onto the set with name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise the director. Hitchcock said he was misquoted: \"I said 'Actors should be treated like cattle'.\" \n\nMuch of Hitchcock's supposed dislike of actors has been exaggerated. Hitchcock simply did not tolerate the method approach, as he believed that actors should only concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. In a Sight and Sound interview, he stated that, 'the method actor is OK in the theatre because he has a free space to move about. But when it comes to cutting the face and what he sees and so forth, there must be some discipline'. He often used the same actors in many of his films.\n\nDuring the making of Lifeboat, Walter Slezak, who played the German villain, stated that Hitchcock knew the mechanics of acting better than anyone he knew. Several critics have observed that despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, several actors who worked with him gave fine, often brilliant performances and these performances contribute to the film's success. As more fully discussed above, in \"Inter-War British Career,\" actress Dolly Haas, who was a personal friend of Hitchcock and who acted for him in the 1953 film I Confess, stated that Hitchcock regarded actors as \"animated props.\"\n\nFor Hitchcock, the actors, like the props, were part of the film's setting, as he said to Truffaut:\n\nIn my opinion, the chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be utilised and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights. \n\nRegarding Hitchcock's sometimes less than pleasant relationship with actors, there was a persistent rumour that he had said that actors were cattle. Hitchcock addressed this story in his interview with François Truffaut:\n\nI'm not quite sure in what context I might have made such a statement. It may have been made ... when we used actors who were simultaneously performing in stage plays. When they had a matinee, and I suspected they were allowing themselves plenty of time for a very leisurely lunch. And this meant that we had to shoot our scenes at breakneck speed so that the actors could get out on time. I couldn't help feeling that if they'd been really conscientious, they'd have swallowed their sandwich in the cab, on the way to the theatre, and get there in time to put on their make-up and go on stage. I had no use for that kind of actor. \n\nIn the late 1950s, French New Wave critics, especially Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut, were among the first to see and promote Hitchcock's films as artistic works. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the artistic authority of the director in the film-making process.\n\nHitchcock's innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers and actors. His influence helped start a trend for film directors to control artistic aspects of their films without answering to the film's producer.\n\nInspiration for suspense and psychological thrillers\n\nIn a 1963 interview with Oriana Fallaci, Hitchcock was asked in spite of looking like a pleasant, innocuous man, he seemed to have fun making films which involve a lot of suspense and terrifying crime, to which he responded,\n\nTelevision, radio and books\n\nAlong with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was among the first prominent film producers to fully envisage just how popular the medium of television would become. From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series titled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While his films had made Hitchcock's name strongly associated with suspense, the TV series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His irony-tinged voice and signature droll delivery, gallows humour, iconic image and mannerisms became instantly recognisable and were often the subject of parody.\n\nThe title-sequence of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of Hitchcock's profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled. His introductions before the stories in his programme always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are now shown with a sign \"Two chairs—no waiting!\". He directed 18 episodes of the TV series himself, which aired from 1955 to 1965 in two versions. It became The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962.\n\nThe series theme tune was Funeral March of a Marionette, by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893), the composer of the 1859 opera Faust. The composer Bernard Herrmann suggested the music be used. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra included the piece on one of their extended play 45-rpm discs for RCA Victor during the 1950s. In the 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.\n\nHitchcock appears as a character in the popular juvenile detective book series, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The long-running detective series was created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first several books, although other authors took over after he left the series. The Three Investigators—Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Peter Crenshaw—were amateur detectives, slightly younger than the Hardy Boys. In the introduction to each book, \"Alfred Hitchcock\" introduces the mystery, and he sometimes refers a case to the boys to solve. At the end of each book, the boys report to Hitchcock, and sometimes give him a memento of their case.\n\nAt the height of Hitchcock's success, he was also asked to introduce a set of books with his name attached. The series was a collection of short stories by popular short-story writers, primarily focused on suspense and thrillers. These titles included Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked, Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbinders in Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Witch's Brew, Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock's A Hangman's Dozen, Alfred Hitchcock's Stories Not For the Nervous and Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful. Hitchcock himself was not actually involved in the reading, reviewing, editing or selection of the short stories; in fact, even his introductions were ghost-written. The entire extent of his involvement with the project was to lend his name and collect a cheque.\n\nSome notable writers whose works were used in the collection include Shirley Jackson (Strangers in Town, The Lottery), T. H. White (The Once and Future King), Robert Bloch, H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and the creator of The Three Investigators, Robert Arthur. In a similar manner, Hitchcock's name was licensed for a digest-sized monthly, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, which has been published since 1956.\n\nHitchcock also wrote a mystery story for Look magazine in 1943, \"The Murder of Monty Woolley\". This was a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to inspect the pictures for clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick and make-up man Guy Pearce, whom Hitchcock identified, in the last photo, as the murderer. The article was reprinted in Games Magazine in November/December 1980.\n\nIn 2012, Hitchcock featured in the BBC Radio 4 series The New Elizabethans to mark the diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A panel of 7 academics, journalists and historians named Hitchcock among the group of people in the UK \"whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character\". \n\nAwards and honours\n\nHitchcock was a multiple nominee and winner of a number of prestigious awards, receiving two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, as well as being five times nominated for, albeit never winning, an Academy Award as Best Director. His film Rebecca (nominated for 11 Oscars) won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940—another Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent, was also nominated that year. Hitchcock has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, receiving one for his contribution to television and another for his work in motion pictures.\n\nAfter refusing a CBE in 1962, Hitchcock received a knighthood in 1980 when he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Asked by a reporter why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, \"I suppose it was a matter of carelessness\". An English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled in 1999, marks where Sir Alfred Hitchcock lived in London at 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington and Chelsea, SW5.\n\nIn June 2013, nine restored versions of Hitchcock's early silent films, including his directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden (1925), were shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre. Known as \"The Hitchcock 9,\" the travelling tribute was made possible by a $3 million programme organised by the British Film Institute.\n\nArchives\n\nThe Alfred Hitchcock Collection is housed at the Academy Film Archive. The collection includes home movies, 16mm film shot on the set of Blackmail (1929) and Frenzy (1972), and the earliest known colour footage of Hitchcock. The Academy Film Archive preserved many of Hitchcock's home movies. The Alfred Hitchcock papers at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library complement the film material. \n\nPortrayals in film and television\n\n* Anthony Hopkins in the 2012 film Hitchcock.\n* Toby Jones in the 2012 HBO telefilm The Girl.\n* Roger Ashton-Griffiths in the 2014 film Grace of Monaco.\n\nFilmography\n\n* Number 13 (1922, unfinished)\n* Always Tell Your Wife (1923, short)\n* The Pleasure Garden (1925)\n* The Mountain Eagle (1926, lost)\n* The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)\n* The Ring (1927)\n* Downhill (1927)\n* The Farmer's Wife (1928)\n* Easy Virtue (1928)\n* Champagne (1928)\n* The Manxman (1929)\n* Blackmail (1929)\n* Juno and the Paycock (1930)\n* Murder! (1930)\n* Elstree Calling (1930)\n* The Skin Game (1931)\n* Mary (1931)\n* Rich and Strange (1931)\n* Number Seventeen (1932)\n* Waltzes from Vienna (1934)\n* The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)\n* The 39 Steps (1935)\n* Secret Agent (1936)\n* Sabotage (1936)\n* Young and Innocent (1937)\n* The Lady Vanishes (1938)\n* Jamaica Inn (1939)\n* Rebecca (1940)\n* Foreign Correspondent (1940)\n* Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)\n* Suspicion (1941)\n* Saboteur (1942)\n* Shadow of a Doubt (1943)\n* Lifeboat (1944)\n* Aventure Malgache (1944, short)\n* Bon Voyage (1944, short)\n* Spellbound (1945)\n* Notorious (1946)\n* The Paradine Case (1947)\n* Rope (1948)\n* Under Capricorn (1949)\n* Stage Fright (1950)\n* Strangers on a Train (1951)\n* I Confess (1953)\n* Dial M for Murder (1954)\n* Rear Window (1954)\n* To Catch a Thief (1955)\n* The Trouble with Harry (1955)\n* The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)\n* The Wrong Man (1956)\n* Vertigo (1958)\n* North by Northwest (1959)\n* Psycho (1960)\n* The Birds (1963)\n* Marnie (1964)\n* Torn Curtain (1966)\n* Topaz (1969)\n* Frenzy (1972)\n* Family Plot (1976)\n* The Short Night (1979, cancelled)",
"A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.\n\nThe primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s. At first, the sound films incorporating synchronized dialogue—known as \"talking pictures\", or \"talkies\"—were exclusively shorts; the earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures.\n\nBy the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial systems (see Cinema of the United States). In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema. In Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the nation's film industry.\n\nHistory \n\nEarly steps \n\nThe idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27, 1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. Muybridge later claimed that on this occasion, six years before the first commercial motion picture exhibition, he proposed a scheme for sound cinema that would combine his image-casting zoopraxiscope with Edison's recorded-sound technology. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a \"peep-show\" system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection. In 1899, a projected sound-film system known as Cinemacrophonograph or Phonorama, based primarily on the work of Swiss-born inventor François Dussaud, was exhibited in Paris; similar to the Kinetophone, the system required individual use of earphones. An improved cylinder-based system, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, was developed by Clément-Maurice Gratioulet and Henri Lioret of France, allowing short films of theater, opera, and ballet excerpts to be presented at the Paris Exposition in 1900. These appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition. \n\nThree major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization: pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, which were difficult to start and maintain in tandem.Sound engineer Mark Ulano, in [http://www.filmsound.org/ulano/talkies2.htm \"The Movies Are Born a Child of the Phonograph\"] (part 2 of his essay \"Moving Pictures That Talk\"), describes the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre version of synchronized sound cinema:\n\nThis system used an operator adjusted non-linkage form of primitive synchronization. The scenes to be shown were first filmed, and then the performers recorded their dialogue or songs on the Lioretograph (usually a Le Éclat concert cylinder format phonograph) trying to match tempo with the projected filmed performance. In showing the films, synchronization of sorts was achieved by adjusting the hand cranked film projector's speed to match the phonograph. the projectionist was equipped with a telephone through which he listened to the phonograph which was located in the orchestra pit.\n Sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. While motion picture projectors soon allowed film to be shown to large theater audiences, audio technology before the development of electric amplification could not project satisfactorily to fill large spaces. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity. The primitive systems of the era produced sound of very low quality unless the performers were stationed directly in front of the cumbersome recording devices (acoustical horns, for the most part), imposing severe limits on the sort of films that could be created with live-recorded sound. \n\nCinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. An increasing number of motion picture systems relied on gramophone records—known as sound-on-disc technology; the records themselves were often referred to as \"Berliner discs\", after one of the primary inventors in the field, German-American Emile Berliner. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, to the French Photographic Society. Four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons. Despite\nhigh expectations, Gaumont's sound innovations had only limited commercial success—though improvements, they still did not satisfactorily address the three basic issues with sound film and were expensive as well. For some years, American inventor E. E. Norton's Cameraphone was the primary competitor to the Gaumont system (sources differ on whether the Cameraphone was disc- or cylinder-based); it ultimately failed for many of the same reasons that held back the Chronophone.Altman (2005), pp. 158–65; Altman (1995).\n\nIn 1913, Edison introduced a new cylinder-based synch-sound apparatus known, just like his 1895 system, as the Kinetophone; instead of films being shown to individual viewers in the Kinetoscope cabinet, they were now projected onto a screen. The phonograph was connected by an intricate arrangement of pulleys to the film projector, allowing—under ideal conditions—for synchronization. However, conditions were rarely ideal, and the new, improved Kinetophone was retired after little more than a year. By the mid-1910s, the groundswell in commercial sound motion picture exhibition had subsided. Beginning in 1914, The Photo-Drama of Creation, promoting Jehovah's Witnesses' conception of mankind's genesis, was screened around the United States: eight hours worth of projected visuals involving both slides and live action were synchronized with separately recorded lectures and musical performances played back on phonograph. \n\nMeanwhile, innovations continued on another significant front. In 1907, French-born, London-based Eugene Lauste—who had worked at Edison's lab between 1886 and 1892—was awarded the first patent for sound-on-film technology, involving the transformation of sound into light waves that are photographically recorded direct onto celluloid. As described by historian Scott Eyman,\n\nIt was a double system, that is, the sound was on a different piece of film from the picture.... In essence, the sound was captured by a microphone and translated into light waves via a light valve, a thin ribbon of sensitive metal over a tiny slit. The sound reaching this ribbon would be converted into light by the shivering of the diaphragm, focusing the resulting light waves through the slit, where it would be photographed on the side of the film, on a strip about a tenth of an inch wide. \n\nThough sound-on-film would eventually become the universal standard for synchronized sound cinema, Lauste never successfully exploited his innovations, which came to an effective dead end. In 1914, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt was granted German patent 309,536 for his sound-on-film work; that same year, he apparently demonstrated a film made with the process to an audience of scientists in Berlin. Hungarian engineer Denes Mihaly submitted his sound-on-film Projectofon concept to the Royal Hungarian Patent Court in 1918; the patent award was published four years later. Whether sound was captured on cylinder, disc, or film, none of the available technology was adequate for big-league commercial purposes, and for many years the heads of the major Hollywood film studios saw little benefit in producing sound motion pictures. \n\nCrucial innovations \n\nA number of technological developments contributed to making sound cinema commercially viable by the late 1920s. Two involved contrasting approaches to synchronized sound reproduction, or playback:\n\nAdvanced sound-on-film \n\nIn 1919, American inventor Lee De Forest was awarded several patents that would lead to the first optical sound-on-film technology with commercial application. In De Forest's system, the sound track was photographically recorded onto the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or \"married\", print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, Theodore Case. \n\nAt the University of Illinois, Polish-born research engineer Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner was working independently on a similar process. On June 9, 1922, he gave the first reported U.S. demonstration of a sound-on-film motion picture to members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. As with Lauste and Tigerstedt, Tykociner's system would never be taken advantage of commercially; however, De Forest's soon would.\n\nOn April 15, 1923, at New York City's Rivoli Theater, came the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film, the future standard: a set of shorts under the banner of De Forest Phonofilms, accompanying a silent feature. That June, De Forest entered into an extended legal battle with an employee, Freeman Harrison Owens, for title to one of the crucial Phonofilm patents. Although De Forest ultimately won the case in the courts, Owens is today recognized as a central innovator in the field. The following year, De Forest's studio released the first commercial dramatic film shot as a talking picture—the two-reeler Love's Old Sweet Song, directed by J. Searle Dawley and featuring Una Merkel. However, phonofilm's stock in trade was not original dramas but celebrity documentaries, popular music acts, and comedy performances. President Calvin Coolidge, opera singer Abbie Mitchell, and vaudeville stars such as Phil Baker, Ben Bernie, Eddie Cantor and Oscar Levant appeared in the firm's pictures. Hollywood remained suspicious, even fearful, of the new technology. As Photoplay editor James Quirk put it in March 1924, \"Talking pictures are perfected, says Dr. Lee De Forest. So is castor oil.\" De Forest's process continued to be used through 1927 in the United States for dozens of short Phonofilms; in the UK it was employed a few years longer for both shorts and features by British Sound Film Productions, a subsidiary of British Talking Pictures, which purchased the primary Phonofilm assets. By the end of 1930, the Phonofilm business would be liquidated. \n\nIn Europe, others were also working on the development of sound-on-film. In 1919, the same year that DeForest received his first patents in the field, three German inventors patented the Tri-Ergon sound system. On September 17, 1922, the Tri-Ergon group gave a public screening of sound-on-film productions—including a dramatic talkie, Der Brandstifter (The Arsonist) —before an invited audience at the Alhambra Kino in Berlin. By the end of the decade, Tri-Ergon would be the dominant European sound system. In 1923, two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, patented a system that recorded sound on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont licensed the technology and briefly put it to commercial use under the name Cinéphone. \n\nDomestic competition, however, eclipsed Phonofilm. By September 1925, De Forest and Case's working arrangement had fallen through. The following July, Case joined Fox Film, Hollywood's third largest studio, to found the Fox-Case Corporation. The system developed by Case and his assistant, Earl Sponable, given the name Movietone, thus became the first viable sound-on-film technology controlled by a Hollywood movie studio. The following year, Fox purchased the North American rights to the Tri-Ergon system, though the company found it inferior to Movietone and virtually impossible to integrate the two different systems to advantage. In 1927, as well, Fox retained the services of Freeman Owens, who had particular expertise in constructing cameras for synch-sound film. \n\nAdvanced sound-on-disc \n\nParallel with improvements in sound-on-film technology, a number of companies were making progress with systems that recorded movie sound on phonograph discs. In sound-on-disc technology from the era, a phonograph turntable is connected by a mechanical interlock to a specially modified film projector, allowing for synchronization. In 1921, the Photokinema sound-on-disc system developed by Orlando Kellum was employed to add synchronized sound sequences to D. W. Griffith's failed silent film Dream Street. A love song, performed by star Ralph Graves, was recorded, as was a sequence of live vocal effects. Apparently, dialogue scenes were also recorded, but the results were unsatisfactory and the film was never publicly screened incorporating them. On May 1, 1921, Dream Street was re-released, with love song added, at New York City's Town Hall theater, qualifying it—however haphazardly—as the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence. There would be no others for more than six years.\n\nIn 1925, Sam Warner of Warner Bros., then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, saw a demonstration of the Western Electric sound-on-disc system and was sufficiently impressed to persuade his brothers to agree to experiment with using this system at New York's Vitagraph Studios, which they had recently purchased. The tests were convincing to the Warner Brothers, if not to the executives of some other picture companies who witnessed them. Consequently, in April 1926 the Western Electric Company entered into a contract with Warner Brothers and W. J. Rich, a financier, giving them an exclusive license for recording and reproducing sound pictures under the Western Electric system. To exploit this license the Vitaphone Corporation was organized with Samuel L. Warner as its president. \nVitaphone, as this system was now called, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of the nearly three-hour-long Don Juan; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its soundtrack contained a musical score and added sound effects, but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film. Accompanying Don Juan, however, were eight shorts of musical performances, mostly classical, as well as a four-minute filmed introduction by Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, all with live-recorded sound. These were the first true sound films exhibited by a Hollywood studio. Warner Bros.' The Better 'Ole, technically similar to Don Juan, followed in October. \n\nSound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages:\n* Synchronization: no interlock system was completely reliable, and sound could fall out of synch due to disc skipping or minute changes in film speed, requiring constant supervision and frequent manual adjustment\n* Editing: discs could not be directly edited, severely limiting the ability to make alterations in their accompanying films after the original release cut\n* Distribution: phonograph discs added expense and complication to film distribution\n* Wear and tear: the physical process of playing the discs degraded them, requiring their replacement after approximately twenty screenings \n\nNonetheless, in the early years, sound-on-disc had the edge over sound-on-film in two substantial ways:\n* Production and capital cost: it was generally less expensive to record sound onto disc than onto film and the exhibition systems—turntable/interlock/projector—were cheaper to manufacture than the complex image-and-audio-pattern-reading projectors required by sound-on-film\n* Audio quality: phonograph discs, Vitaphone's in particular, had superior dynamic range to most sound-on-film processes of the day, at least during the first few playings; while sound-on-film tended to have better frequency response, this was outweighed by greater distortion and noise \n\nAs sound-on-film technology improved, both of these disadvantages were overcome.\n\nThe third crucial set of innovations marked a major step forward in both the live recording of sound and its effective playback:\n\nFidelity electronic recording and amplification \n\nIn 1913, Western Electric, the manufacturing division of AT&T, acquired the rights to the de Forest audion, the forerunner of the triode vacuum tube. Over the next few years they developed it into a predictable and reliable device that made electronic amplification possible for the first time. Western Electric then branched-out into developing uses for the vacuum tube including public address systems and an electrical recording system for the recording industry. Beginning in 1922, the research branch of Western Electric began working intensively on recording technology for both sound-on-disc and sound-on film synchronised sound systems for motion-pictures.\n\nThe engineers working on the sound-on-disc system were able to draw on expertise that Western Electric already had in electrical disc recording and were thus able to make faster initial progress. The main change required was to increase the playing time of the disc so that it could match that of a standard 1000 ft reel of 35 mm film. The chosen design used a disc measuring 16 in rotating at 33 1/3 rpm. This could play for 11 minutes, the running time of 1000 ft of film at 90 ft/min (24 frames/s). Because of the larger diameter the minimum groove velocity of 70 ft/min (14 inches or 356 mm/s) was only slightly less than that of a standard 10-inch 78 rpm commercial disc.\nIn 1925, the company publicly introduced a greatly improved system of electronic audio, including sensitive condenser microphones and rubber-line recorders (named after the use of a rubber damping band for recording with better frequency response onto a wax master disk ). That May, the company licensed entrepreneur Walter J. Rich to exploit the system for commercial motion pictures; he founded Vitagraph, in which Warner Bros. acquired a half interest, just one month later. In April 1926, Warners signed a contract with AT&T for exclusive use of its film sound technology for the redubbed Vitaphone operation, leading to the production of Don Juan and its accompanying shorts over the following months. During the period when Vitaphone had exclusive access to the patents, the fidelity of recordings made for Warners films was markedly superior to those made for the company's sound-on-film competitors. Meanwhile, Bell Labs—the new name for the AT&T research operation—was working at a furious pace on sophisticated sound amplification technology that would allow recordings to be played back over loudspeakers at theater-filling volume. The new moving-coil speaker system was installed in New York's Warners Theatre at the end of July and its patent submission, for what Western Electric called the No. 555 Receiver, was filed on August 4, just two days before the premiere of Don Juan. \n\nLate in the year, AT&T/Western Electric created a licensing division, Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI), to handle rights to the company's film-related audio technology. Vitaphone still had legal exclusivity, but having lapsed in its royalty payments, effective control of the rights was in ERPI's hands. On December 31, 1926, Warners granted Fox-Case a sublicense for the use of the Western Electric system; in exchange for the sublicense, both Warners and ERPI received a share of Fox's related revenues. The patents of all three concerns were cross-licensed. Superior recording and amplification technology was now available to two Hollywood studios, pursuing two very different methods of sound reproduction. The new year would finally see the emergence of sound cinema as a significant commercial medium.\n\nTriumph of the \"talkies\" \n\nIn February 1927, an agreement was signed by five leading Hollywood movie companies: Famous Players Lasky (soon to be part of Paramount), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal, First National, and Cecil B. DeMille's small but prestigious Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). The five studios agreed to collectively select just one provider for sound conversion. The alliance then sat back and waited to see what sort of results the forerunners came up with. In May, Warner Bros. sold back its exclusivity rights to ERPI (along with the Fox-Case sublicense) and signed a new royalty contract similar to Fox's for use of Western Electric technology. As Fox and Warners pressed forward with sound cinema in different directions, both technologically and commercially—Fox with newsreels and then scored dramas, Warners with talking features—so did ERPI, which sought to corner the market by signing up the five allied studios. \n\nThe big sound film sensations of the year all took advantage of preexisting celebrity. On May 20, 1927, at New York's Roxy Theater, Fox Movietone presented a sound film of the takeoff of Charles Lindbergh's celebrated flight to Paris, recorded earlier that day. In June, a Fox sound newsreel depicting his return welcomes in New York and Washington, D.C., was shown. These were the two most acclaimed sound motion pictures to date. In May, as well, Fox had released the first Hollywood fiction film with synchronized dialogue: the short They're Coming to Get Me, starring comedian Chic Sale. After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as Seventh Heaven, with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: Sunrise, by acclaimed German director F. W. Murnau. As with Don Juan, the film's soundtrack consisted of a musical score and sound effects (including, in a couple of crowd scenes, \"wild\", nonspecific vocals). \n\nThen, on October 6, 1927, Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer premiered. It was a smash box office success for the mid-level studio, earning a total of $2.625 million in the United States and abroad, almost a million dollars more than the previous record for a Warners film. Produced with the Vitaphone system, most of the film does not contain live-recorded audio, relying, like Sunrise and Don Juan, on a score and effects. When the movie's star, Al Jolson, sings, however, the film shifts to sound recorded on the set, including both his musical performances and two scenes with ad-libbed speech—one of Jolson's character, Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin), addressing a cabaret audience; the other an exchange between him and his mother. The \"natural\" sounds of the settings were also audible. Though the success of The Jazz Singer was due largely to Jolson, already established as one of America's biggest music stars, and its limited use of synchronized sound hardly qualified it as an innovative sound film (let alone the \"first\"), the movie's profits were proof enough to the industry that the technology was worth investing in. \n\nThe development of commercial sound cinema had proceeded in fits and starts before The Jazz Singer, and the film's success did not change things overnight. Not until May 1928 did the group of four big studios (PDC had dropped out of the alliance), along with United Artists and others, sign with ERPI for conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. Initially, all ERPI-wired theaters were made Vitaphone-compatible; most were equipped to project Movietone reels as well. However, even with access to both technologies, most of the Hollywood companies remained slow to produce talking features of their own. No studio besides Warner Bros. released even a part-talking feature until the low-budget-oriented Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) premiered The Perfect Crime on June 17, 1928, eight months after The Jazz Singer. FBO had come under the effective control of a Western Electric competitor, General Electric's RCA division, which was looking to market its new sound-on-film system, Photophone. Unlike Fox-Case's Movietone and De Forest's Phonofilm, which were variable-density systems, Photophone was a variable-area system—a refinement in the way the audio signal was inscribed on film that would ultimately become the standard. (In both sorts of systems, a specially-designed lamp, whose exposure to the film is determined by the audio input, is used to record sound photographically as a series of minuscule lines. In a variable-density process, the lines are of varying darkness; in a variable-area process, the lines are of varying width.) By October, the FBO-RCA alliance would lead to the creation of Hollywood's newest major studio, RKO Pictures.\n\nMeanwhile, Warner Bros. had released three more talkies, all profitable, if not at the level of The Jazz Singer: In March, Tenderloin appeared; it was billed by Warners as the first feature in which characters spoke their parts, though only 15 of its 88 minutes had dialogue. Glorious Betsy followed in April, and The Lion and the Mouse (31 minutes of dialogue) in May. On July 6, 1928, the first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, premiered. The film cost Warner Bros. only $23,000 to produce, but grossed $1.252 million, a record rate of return surpassing 5,000%. In September, the studio released another Al Jolson part-talking picture, The Singing Fool, which more than doubled The Jazz Singers earnings record for a Warners movie. This second Jolson screen smash demonstrated the movie musical's ability to turn a song into a national hit: inside of nine months, the Jolson number \"Sonny Boy\" had racked up 2 million record and 1.25 million sheet music sales. September 1928 also saw the release of Paul Terry's Dinner Time, among the first animated cartoons produced with synchronized sound. Soon after he saw it, Walt Disney released his first sound picture, the Mickey Mouse short Steamboat Willie. \n\nOver the course of 1928, as Warner Bros. began to rake in huge profits due to the popularity of its sound films, the other studios quickened the pace of their conversion to the new technology. Paramount, the industry leader, put out its first talkie in late September, Beggars of Life; though it had just a few lines of dialogue, it demonstrated the studio's recognition of the new medium's power. Interference, Paramount's first all-talker, debuted in November. The process known as \"goat glanding\" briefly became widespread: soundtracks, sometimes including a smatter of post-dubbed dialogue or song, were added to movies that had been shot, and in some cases released, as silents. A few minutes of singing could qualify such a newly endowed film as a \"musical.\" (Griffith's Dream Street had essentially been a \"goat gland.\") Expectations swiftly changed, and the sound \"fad\" of 1927 became standard procedure by 1929. In February 1929, sixteen months after The Jazz Singers debut, Columbia Pictures became the last of the eight studios that would be known as \"majors\" during Hollywood's Golden Age to release its first part-talking feature, Lone Wolf's Daughter. In late May, the first all-color, all-talking feature, Warner Bros.' On with the Show!, premiered. \n\nYet most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly outnumbered by silent theaters, which had actually grown in number as well, from 22,204 to 22,544. The studios, in parallel, were still not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—through mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking. Though few in the industry predicted it, silent film as a viable commercial medium in the United States would soon be little more than a memory. Points West, a Hoot Gibson Western released by Universal Pictures in August 1929, was the last purely silent mainstream feature put out by a major Hollywood studio. \n\nTransition: Europe \n\nThe Jazz Singer had its European sound premiere at the Piccadilly Theatre in London on September 27, 1928. According to film historian Rachael Low, \"Many in the industry realized at once that a change to sound production was inevitable.\" On January 16, 1929, the first European feature film with a synchronized vocal performance and recorded score premiered: the German production Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (I Kiss Your Hand, Madame). Dialogueless, it contains only a few songs performed by Richard Tauber. The movie was made with the sound-on-film system controlled by the German-Dutch firm Tobis, corporate heirs to the Tri-Ergon concern. With an eye toward commanding the emerging European market for sound film, Tobis entered into a compact with its chief competitor, Klangfilm, a joint subsidiary of Germany's two leading electrical manufacturers. Early in 1929, Tobis and Klangfilm began comarketing their recording and playback technologies. As ERPI began to wire theaters around Europe, Tobis-Klangfilm claimed that the Western Electric system infringed on the Tri-Ergon patents, stalling the introduction of American technology in many places. Just as RCA had entered the movie business to maximize its recording system's value, Tobis also established its own production operations. \n\nDuring 1929, most of the major European filmmaking countries began joining Hollywood in the changeover to sound. Many of the trend-setting European talkies were shot abroad as production companies leased studios while their own were being converted or as they deliberately targeted markets speaking different languages. One of Europe's first two feature-length dramatic talkies was created in still a different sort of twist on multinational moviemaking: The Crimson Circle was a coproduction between director Friedrich Zelnik's Efzet-Film company and British Sound Film Productions (BSFP). In 1928, the film had been released as the silent Der Rote Kreis in Germany, where it was shot; English dialogue was apparently dubbed in much later using the De Forest Phonofilm process controlled by BSFP's corporate parent. It was given a British trade screening in March 1929, as was a part-talking film made entirely in the UK: The Clue of the New Pin, a British Lion production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, Black Waters, a British and Dominions Film Corporation promoted as the first UK all-talker, received its initial trade screening; it had been shot completely in Hollywood with a Western Electric sound-on-film system. None of these pictures made much impact. \n\nThe first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British Blackmail. Directed by twenty-nine-year-old Alfred Hitchcock, the movie had its London debut June 21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, Blackmail was restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and sound effects, before its premiere. A British International Pictures (BIP) production, it was recorded on RCA Photophone, General Electric having bought a share of AEG so they could access the Tobis-Klangfilm markets. Blackmail was a substantial hit; critical response was also positive—notorious curmudgeon Hugh Castle, for example, called it \"perhaps the most intelligent mixture of sound and silence we have yet seen.\" \n\nOn August 23, the modest-sized Austrian film industry came out with a talkie: G’schichten aus der Steiermark (Stories from Styria), an Eagle Film–Ottoton Film production. On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women), premiered. A Tobis Filmkunst production, about one-quarter of the movie contained dialogue, which was strictly segregated from the special effects and music. The response was underwhelming. Sweden's first talkie, Konstgjorda Svensson (Artificial Svensson), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with Le Collier de la reine (The Queen's Necklace), shot at the Épinay studio near Paris. Conceived as a silent film, it was given a Tobis-recorded score and a single talking sequence—the first dialogue scene in a French feature. On October 31, Les Trois masques debuted; a Pathé-Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like Blackmail, at the Elstree studio, just outside London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie La Route est belle, also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later. \n\nBefore the Paris studios were fully sound-equipped—a process that stretched well into 1930—a number of other early French talkies were shot in Germany. The first all-talking German feature, Atlantik, had premiered in Berlin on October 28. Yet another Elstree-made movie, it was rather less German at heart than Les Trois masques and La Route est belle were French; a BIP production with a British scenarist and German director, it was also shot in English as Atlantic. The entirely German Aafa-Film production It's You I Have Loved (Dich hab ich geliebt) opened three-and-a-half weeks later. It was not \"Germany's First Talking Film\", as the marketing had it, but it was the first to be released in the United States. \n\nIn 1930, the first Polish talkies premiered, using sound-on-disc systems: Moralność pani Dulskiej (The Morality of Mrs. Dulska) in March and the all-talking Niebezpieczny romans (Dangerous Love Affair) in October. In Italy, whose once vibrant film industry had become moribund by the late 1920s, the first talkie, La Canzone dell'amore (The Song of Love), also came out in October; within two years, Italian cinema would be enjoying a revival. The first movie spoken in Czech debuted in 1930 as well, Tonka Šibenice (Tonka of the Gallows). Several European nations with minor positions in the field also produced their first talking pictures—Belgium (in French), Denmark, Greece, and Romania. The Soviet Union's robust film industry came out with its first sound features in December 1930: Dziga Vertov's nonfiction Entuziazm had an experimental, dialogueless soundtrack; Abram Room's documentary Plan velikikh rabot (The Plan of the Great Works) had music and spoken voiceovers. Both were made with locally developed sound-on-film systems, two of the two hundred or so movie sound systems then available somewhere in the world. In June 1931, the Nikolai Ekk drama Putevka v zhizn (The Road to Life or A Start in Life), premiered as the Soviet Union's first true talking picture. \n\nThroughout much of Europe, conversion of exhibition venues lagged well behind production capacity, requiring talkies to be produced in parallel silent versions or simply shown without sound in many places. While the pace of conversion was relatively swift in Britain—with over 60 percent of theaters equipped for sound by the end of 1930, similar to the U.S. figure—in France, by contrast, more than half of theaters nationwide were still projecting in silence by late 1932. According to scholar Colin G. Crisp, \"Anxiety about resuscitating the flow of silent films was frequently expressed in the [French] industrial press, and a large section of the industry still saw the silent as a viable artistic and commercial prospect till about 1935.\" The situation was particularly acute in the Soviet Union; as of May 1933, fewer than one out of every hundred film projectors in the country was as yet equipped for sound. \n\nTransition: Asia \n\nDuring the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was one of the world's two largest producers of motion pictures, along with the United States. Though the country's film industry was among the first to produce both sound and talking features, the full changeover to sound proceeded much more slowly than in the West. It appears that the first Japanese sound film, Reimai (Dawn), was made in 1926 with the De Forest Phonofilm system. Using the sound-on-disc Minatoki system, the leading Nikkatsu studio produced a pair of talkies in 1929: Taii no musume (The Captain's Daughter) and Furusato (Hometown), the latter directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. The rival Shochiku studio began the successful production of sound-on-film talkies in 1931 using a variable-density process called Tsuchibashi. Two years later, however, more than 80 percent of movies made in the country were still silents.Freiberg (1987), p. 76. Two of the country's leading directors, Mikio Naruse and Yasujiro Ozu, did not make their first sound films until 1935 and 1936, respectively. As late as 1938, over a third of all movies produced in Japan were shot without dialogue.\n\nThe enduring popularity of the silent medium in Japanese cinema owed in great part to the tradition of the benshi, a live narrator who performed as accompaniment to a film screening. As director Akira Kurosawa later described, the benshi \"not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing the voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of events and images on the screen.... The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theatre.\" Film historian Mariann Lewinsky argues,\n\nThe end of silent film in the West and in Japan was imposed by the industry and the market, not by any inner need or natural evolution.... Silent cinema was a highly pleasurable and fully mature form. It didn't lack anything, least in Japan, where there was always the human voice doing the dialogues and the commentary. Sound films were not better, just more economical. As a cinema owner you didn't have to pay the wages of musicians and benshi any more. And a good benshi was a star demanding star payment. \n\nBy the same token, the viability of the benshi system facilitated a gradual transition to sound—allowing the studios to spread out the capital costs of conversion and their directors and technical crews time to become familiar with the new technology. \n\nThe Mandarin-language Gēnǚ hóng mǔdān (, Singsong Girl Red Peony), starring Butterfly Wu, premiered as China's first feature talkie in 1930. By February of that year, production was apparently completed on a sound version of The Devil's Playground, arguably qualifying it as the first Australian talking motion picture; however, the May press screening of Commonwealth Film Contest prizewinner Fellers is the first verifiable public exhibition of an Australian talkie. In September 1930, a song performed by Indian star Sulochana, excerpted from the silent feature Madhuri (1928), was released as a synchronized-sound short, the country's first. The following year, Ardeshir Irani directed the first Indian talking feature, the Hindi-Urdu Alam Ara, and produced Kalidas, primarily in Tamil with some Telugu. Nineteen-thirty-one also saw the first Bengali-language film, Jamai Sasthi, and the first movie fully spoken in Telugu, Bhakta Prahlada. In 1932, Ayodhyecha Raja became the first movie in which Marathi was spoken to be released (though Sant Tukaram was the first to go through the official censorship process); the first Gujarati-language film, Narsimha Mehta, and all-Tamil talkie, Kalava, debuted as well. The next year, Ardeshir Irani produced the first Persian-language talkie, Dukhtar-e-loor. Also in 1933, the first Cantonese-language films were produced in Hong Kong—Sha zai dongfang (The Idiot's Wedding Night) and Liang xing (Conscience); within two years, the local film industry had fully converted to sound. Korea, where pyonsa (or byun-sa) held a role and status similar to that of the Japanese benshi, in 1935 became the last country with a significant film industry to produce its first talking picture: Chunhyangjeon (/) is based on the seventeenth-century pansori folktale \"Chunhyangga\", of which as many as fifteen film versions have been made through 2009. \n\nConsequences \n\nTechnology \n\nIn the short term, the introduction of live sound recording caused major difficulties in production. Cameras were noisy, so a soundproofed cabinet was used in many of the earliest talkies to isolate the loud equipment from the actors, at the expense of a drastic reduction in the ability to move the camera. For a time, multiple-camera shooting was used to compensate for the loss of mobility and innovative studio technicians could often find ways to liberate the camera for particular shots. The necessity of staying within range of still microphones meant that actors also often had to limit their movements unnaturally. Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), from First National Pictures (which Warner Bros. had taken control of thanks to its profitable adventure into sound), gives a behind-the-scenes look at some of the techniques involved in shooting early talkies. Several of the fundamental problems caused by the transition to sound were soon solved with new camera casings, known as \"blimps\", designed to suppress noise and boom microphones that could be held just out of frame and moved with the actors. In 1931, a major improvement in playback fidelity was introduced: three-way speaker systems in which sound was separated into low, medium, and high frequencies and sent respectively to a large bass \"woofer\", a midrange driver, and a treble \"tweeter.\" \n\nThere were consequences, as well, for other technological aspects of the cinema. Proper recording and playback of sound required exact standardization of camera and projector speed. Before sound, 16 frames per second (fps) was the supposed norm, but practice varied widely. Cameras were often undercranked or overcranked to improve exposures or for dramatic effect. Projectors were commonly run too fast to shorten running time and squeeze in extra shows. Variable frame rate, however, made sound unlistenable, and a new, strict standard of 24 fps was soon established. Sound also forced the abandonment of the noisy arc lights used for filming in studio interiors. The switch to quiet incandescent illumination in turn required a switch to more expensive film stock. The sensitivity of the new panchromatic film delivered superior image tonal quality and gave directors the freedom to shoot scenes at lower light levels than was previously practical.\n\nAs David Bordwell describes, technological improvements continued at a swift pace: \"Between 1932 and 1935, [Western Electric and RCA] created directional microphones, increased the frequency range of film recording, reduced ground noise ... and extended the volume range.\" These technical advances often meant new aesthetic opportunities: \"Increasing the fidelity of recording ... heightened the dramatic possibilities of vocal timbre, pitch, and loudness.\" Another basic problem—famously spoofed in the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain—was that some silent-era actors simply did not have attractive voices; though this issue was frequently overstated, there were related concerns about general vocal quality and the casting of performers for their dramatic skills in roles also requiring singing talent beyond their own. By 1935, rerecording of vocals by the original or different actors in postproduction, a process known as \"looping\", had become practical. The ultraviolet recording system introduced by RCA in 1936 improved the reproduction of sibilants and high notes. \n\nWith Hollywood's wholesale adoption of the talkies, the competition between the two fundamental approaches to sound-film production was soon resolved. Over the course of 1930–31, the only major players using sound-on-disc, Warner Bros. and First National, changed over to sound-on-film recording. Vitaphone's dominating presence in sound-equipped theaters, however, meant that for years to come all of the Hollywood studios pressed and distributed sound-on-disc versions of their films alongside the sound-on-film prints. Fox Movietone soon followed Vitaphone into disuse as a recording and reproduction method, leaving two major American systems: the variable-area RCA Photophone and Western Electric's own variable-density process, a substantial improvement on the cross-licensed Movietone. Under RCA's instigation, the two parent companies made their projection equipment compatible, meaning films shot with one system could be screened in theaters equipped for the other. This left one big issue—the Tobis-Klangfilm challenge. In May 1930, Western Electric won an Austrian lawsuit that voided protection for certain Tri-Ergon patents, helping bring Tobis-Klangfilm to the negotiating table. The following month an accord was reached on patent cross-licensing, full playback compatibility, and the division of the world into three parts for the provision of equipment. As a contemporary report describes:\n\nTobis-Klangfilm has the exclusive rights to provide equipment for: Germany, Danzig, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, the Dutch Indies, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Finland. The Americans have the exclusive rights for the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Russia. All other countries, among them Italy, France, and England, are open to both parties. \n\nThe agreement did not resolve all the patent disputes, and further negotiations were undertaken and concords signed over the course of the 1930s. During these years, as well, the American studios began abandoning the Western Electric system for RCA Photophone's variable-area approach—by the end of 1936, only Paramount, MGM, and United Artists still had contracts with ERPI. \n\nLabor \n\nWhile the introduction of sound led to a boom in the motion picture industry, it had an adverse effect on the employability of a host of Hollywood actors of the time. Suddenly those without stage experience were regarded as suspect by the studios; as suggested above, those whose heavy accents or otherwise discordant voices had previously been concealed were particularly at risk. The career of major silent star Norma Talmadge effectively came to an end in this way. The celebrated German actor Emil Jannings returned to Europe. Moviegoers found John Gilbert's voice an awkward match with his swashbuckling persona, and his star also faded. Audiences now seemed to perceive certain silent-era stars as old-fashioned, even those who had the talent to succeed in the sound era. The career of Harold Lloyd, one of the top screen comedians of the 1920s, declined precipitously. Lillian Gish departed, back to the stage, and other leading figures soon left acting entirely: Colleen Moore, Gloria Swanson, and Hollywood's most famous performing couple, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. As actress Louise Brooks suggested, there were other issues as well:\n\nStudio heads, now forced into unprecedented decisions, decided to begin with the actors, the least palatable, the most vulnerable part of movie production. It was such a splendid opportunity, anyhow, for breaking contracts, cutting salaries, and taming the stars.... Me, they gave the salary treatment. I could stay on without the raise my contract called for, or quit, [Paramount studio chief B. P.] Schulberg said, using the questionable dodge of whether I'd be good for the talkies. Questionable, I say, because I spoke decent English in a decent voice and came from the theater. So without hesitation I quit. \n\nSimilarly, Clara Bow's speaking voice was sometimes blamed for the demise of her Hollywood career, though the real issues involved her clashes with studio executives and what film historian David Thomson describes as the \"backlash of bourgeois hypocrisy\" against a lifestyle that would have been unremarkable for a male star. Buster Keaton was eager to explore the new medium, but when his studio, MGM, made the changeover to sound, he was quickly stripped of creative control. Though a number of Keaton's early talkies made impressive profits, they were artistically dismal. \n\nSeveral of the new medium's biggest attractions came from vaudeville and the musical theater, where performers such as Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Jeanette MacDonald, and the Marx Brothers were accustomed to the demands of both dialogue and song. James Cagney and Joan Blondell, who had teamed on Broadway, were brought west together by Warner Bros. in 1930. A few actors were major stars during both the silent and the sound eras: Richard Barthelmess, Clive Brook, Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer, the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and the incomparable Charlie Chaplin, whose City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) employed sound almost exclusively for music and effects. Janet Gaynor became a top star with the synch-sound but dialogueless Seventh Heaven and Sunrise, as did Joan Crawford with the technologically similar Our Dancing Daughters (1928). Greta Garbo was the one non–native English speaker to retain Hollywood stardom on both sides of the great sound divide. The new emphasis on speech also caused producers to hire many novelists, journalists, and playwrights with experience writing good dialogue. Among those who became Hollywood scriptwriters during the 1930s were Nathanael West, William Faulkner, Robert Sherwood, Aldous Huxley, and Dorothy Parker. \n\nAs talking pictures emerged, with their prerecorded musical tracks, an increasing number of moviehouse orchestra musicians found themselves out of work. More than just their position as film accompanists was usurped; according to historian Preston J. Hubbard, \"During the 1920s live musical performances at first-run theaters became an exceedingly important aspect of the American cinema.\" With the coming of the talkies, those featured performances—usually staged as preludes—were largely eliminated as well. The American Federation of Musicians took out newspaper advertisements protesting the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices. One 1929 ad that appeared in the Pittsburgh Press features an image of a can labeled \"Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever\" and reads in part:\n\nCanned Music on Trial\nThis is the case of Art vs. Mechanical Music in theatres. The defendant stands accused in front of the American people of attempted corruption of musical appreciation and discouragement of musical education. Theatres in many cities are offering synchronised mechanical music as a substitute for Real Music. If the theatre-going public accepts this vitiation of its entertainment program a deplorable decline in the Art of Music is inevitable. Musical authorities know that the soul of the Art is lost in mechanisation. It cannot be otherwise because the quality of music is dependent on the mood of the artist, upon the human contact, without which the essence of intellectual stimulation and emotional rapture is lost. The text of the ad continues:\n\nIs Music Worth Saving? No great volume of evidence is required to answer this question. Music is a well-nigh universally beloved art. From the beginning of history, men have turned to musical expression to lighten the burdens of life, to make them happier. Aborigines, lowest in the scale of savagery, chant their song to tribal gods and play upon pipes and shark-skin drums. Musical development has kept pace with good taste and ethics throughout the ages, and has influenced the gentler nature of man more powerfully perhaps than any other factor. Has it remained for the Great Age of Science to snub the Art by setting up in its place a pale and feeble shadow of itself?\n\nBy the following year, a reported 22,000 U.S. moviehouse musicians had lost their jobs. \n\nCommerce \n\nIn September 1926, Jack L. Warner, head of Warner Bros., was quoted to the effect that talking pictures would never be viable: \"They fail to take into account the international language of the silent pictures, and the unconscious share of each onlooker in creating the play, the action, the plot, and the imagined dialogue for himself.\" Much to his company's benefit, he would be proven very wrong—between the 1927–28 and 1928–29 fiscal years, Warners' profits surged from $2 million to $14 million. Sound film, in fact, was a clear boon to all the major players in the industry. During that same twelve-month span, Paramount's profits rose by $7 million, Fox's by $3.5 million, and Loew's/MGM's by $3 million. RKO, which hadn't even existed in September 1928 and whose parent production company, FBO, was in the Hollywood minor leagues, by the end of 1929 was established as one of America's leading entertainment businesses. Fueling the boom was the emergence of an important new cinematic genre made possible by sound: the musical. Over sixty Hollywood musicals were released in 1929, and more than eighty the following year. \n\nEven as the Wall Street crash of October 1929 helped plunge the United States and ultimately the global economy into depression, the popularity of the talkies at first seemed to keep Hollywood immune. The 1929–30 exhibition season was even better for the motion picture industry than the previous, with ticket sales and overall profits hitting new highs. Reality finally struck later in 1930, but sound had clearly secured Hollywood's position as one of the most important industrial fields, both commercially and culturally, in the United States. In 1929, film box-office receipts comprised 16.6 percent of total spending by Americans on recreation; by 1931, the figure had reached 21.8 percent. The motion picture business would command similar figures for the next decade and a half. Hollywood ruled on the larger stage, as well. The American movie industry—already the world's most powerful—set an export record in 1929 that, by the applied measure of total feet of exposed film, was 27 percent higher than the year before. Concerns that language differences would hamper U.S. film exports turned out to be largely unfounded. In fact, the expense of sound conversion was a major obstacle to many overseas producers, relatively undercapitalized by Hollywood standards. The production of multiple versions of export-bound talkies in different languages (known as \"Foreign Language Version\"), as well as the production of the cheaper \"International Sound Version\", a common approach at first, largely ceased by mid-1931, replaced by post-dubbing and subtitling. Despite trade restrictions imposed in most foreign markets, by 1937, American films commanded about 70 percent of screen time around the globe. \n\nJust as the leading Hollywood studios gained from sound in relation to their foreign competitors, they did the same at home. As historian Richard B. Jewell describes, \"The sound revolution crushed many small film companies and producers who were unable to meet the financial demands of sound conversion.\" The combination of sound and the Great Depression led to a wholesale shakeout in the business, resulting in the hierarchy of the Big Five integrated companies (MGM, Paramount, Fox, Warners, RKO) and the three smaller studios also called \"majors\" (Columbia, Universal, United Artists) that would predominate through the 1950s. Historian Thomas Schatz describes the ancillary effects:\n\nBecause the studios were forced to streamline operations and rely on their own resources, their individual house styles and corporate personalities came into much sharper focus. Thus the watershed period from the coming of sound into the early Depression saw the studio system finally coalesce, with the individual studios coming to terms with their own identities and their respective positions within the industry. \n\nThe other country in which sound cinema had an immediate major commercial impact was India. As one distributor of the period said, \"With the coming of the talkies, the Indian motion picture came into its own as a definite and distinctive piece of creation. This was achieved by music.\" From its earliest days, Indian sound cinema has been defined by the musical—Alam Ara featured seven songs; a year later, Indrasabha would feature seventy. While the European film industries fought an endless battle against the popularity and economic muscle of Hollywood, ten years after the debut of Alam Ara, over 90 percent of the films showing on Indian screens were made within the country. \n\nMost of India's early talkies were shot in Bombay, which remains the leading production center, but sound filmmaking soon spread across the multilingual nation. Within just a few weeks of Alam Aras March 1931 premiere, the Calcutta-based Madan Pictures had released both the Hindi Shirin Farhad and the Bengali Jamai Sasthi. The Hindustani Heer Ranjha was produced in Lahore, Punjab, the following year. In 1934, Sati Sulochana, the first Kannada talking picture to be released, was shot in Kolhapur, Maharashtra; Srinivasa Kalyanam became the first Tamil talkie actually shot in Tamil Nadu. Once the first talkie features appeared, the conversion to full sound production happened as rapidly in India as it did in the United States. Already by 1932, the majority of feature productions were in sound; two years later, 164 of the 172 Indian feature films were talking pictures. Since 1934, with the sole exception of 1952, India has been among the top three movie-producing countries in the world every single year. \n\nAesthetic quality \n\nIn the first, 1930 edition of his global survey The Film Till Now, British cinema pundit Paul Rotha declared, \"A film in which the speech and sound effects are perfectly synchronised and coincide with their visual image on the screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true boundaries of the cinema.\" Such opinions were not rare among those who cared about cinema as an art form; Alfred Hitchcock, though he directed the first commercially successful talkie produced in Europe, held that \"the silent pictures were the purest form of cinema\" and scoffed at many early sound films as delivering little beside \"photographs of people talking\". In Germany, Max Reinhardt, stage producer and movie director, expressed the belief that the talkies, \"bringing to the screen stage plays ... tend to make this independent art a subsidiary of the theater and really make it only a substitute for the theater instead of an art in itself ... like reproductions of paintings.\" \n\nIn the opinion of many film historians and aficionados, both at the time and subsequently, silent film had reached an aesthetic peak by the late 1920s and the early years of sound cinema delivered little that was comparable to the best of the silents. For instance, despite fading into relative obscurity once its era had passed, silent cinema is represented by eleven films in Time Outs Centenary of Cinema Top One Hundred poll, held in 1995. The first year in which sound film production predominated over silent film—not only in the United States, but also in the West as a whole—was 1929; yet the years 1929 through 1933 are represented by three dialogueless pictures (Pandora's Box [1929], Zemlya [1930], City Lights [1931]) and zero talkies in the Time Out poll. (City Lights, like Sunrise, was released with a recorded score and sound effects, but is now customarily referred to by historians and industry professionals as a \"silent\"—spoken dialogue regarded as the crucial distinguishing factor between silent and sound dramatic cinema.) The earliest sound film to place is the French L'Atalante (1934), directed by Jean Vigo; the earliest Hollywood sound film to qualify is Bringing Up Baby (1938), directed by Howard Hawks. \n\nThe first sound feature film to receive near-universal critical approbation was Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel); premiering on April 1, 1930, it was directed by Josef von Sternberg in both German and English versions for Berlin's UFA studio. The first American talkie to be widely honored was All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Lewis Milestone, which premiered April 21. The other internationally acclaimed sound drama of the year was Westfront 1918, directed by G. W. Pabst for Nero-Film of Berlin. Historian Anton Kaes points to it as an example of \"the new verisimilitude [that] rendered silent cinema's former emphasis on the hypnotic gaze and the symbolism of light and shadow, as well as its preference for allegorical characters, anachronistic.\"Kaes (2009), p. 212. Cultural historians consider the French L'Âge d'Or, directed by Luis Buñuel, which appeared late in 1930, to be of great aesthetic import; at the time, its erotic, blasphemous, anti-bourgeois content caused a scandal. Swiftly banned by Paris police chief Jean Chiappe, it was unavailable for fifty years. The earliest sound movie now acknowledged by most film historians as a masterpiece is Nero-Film's M, directed by Fritz Lang, which premiered May 11, 1931. As described by Roger Ebert, \"Many early talkies felt they had to talk all the time, but Lang allows his camera to prowl through the streets and dives, providing a rat's-eye view.\" \n\nCinematic form \n\n\"Talking film is as little needed as a singing book.\" Such was the blunt proclamation of critic Viktor Shklovsky, one of the leaders of the Russian formalist movement, in 1927. While some regarded sound as irreconcilable with film art, others saw it as opening a new field of creative opportunity. The following year, a group of Soviet filmmakers, including Sergei Eisenstein, proclaimed that the use of image and sound in juxtaposition, the so-called contrapuntal method, would raise the cinema to \"...unprecedented power and cultural height. Such a method for constructing the sound-film will not confine it to a national market, as must happen with the photographing of plays, but will give a greater possibility than ever before for the circulation throughout the world of a filmically expressed idea.\" So far as one segment of the audience was concerned, however, the introduction of sound brought a virtual end to such circulation: Elizabeth C. Hamilton writes, \"Silent films offered people who were deaf a rare opportunity to participate in a public discourse, cinema, on equal terms with hearing people. The emergence of sound film effectively separated deaf from hearing audience members once again.\" \n\nOn March 12, 1929, the first feature-length talking picture made in Germany had its premiere. The inaugural Tobis Filmkunst production, it was not a drama, but a documentary sponsored by a shipping line: Melodie der Welt (Melody of the World), directed by Walter Ruttmann. This was also perhaps the first feature film anywhere to significantly explore the artistic possibilities of joining the motion picture with recorded sound. As described by scholar William Moritz, the movie is \"intricate, dynamic, fast-paced ... juxtapos[ing] similar cultural habits from countries around the world, with a superb orchestral score ... and many synchronized sound effects.\" Composer Lou Lichtveld was among a number of contemporary artists struck by the film: \"Melodie der Welt became the first important sound documentary, the first in which musical and unmusical sounds were composed into a single unit and in which image and sound are controlled by one and the same impulse.\" Melodie der Welt was a direct influence on the industrial film Philips Radio (1931), directed by Dutch avant-garde filmmaker Joris Ivens and scored by Lichtveld, who described its audiovisual aims:\n\nTo render the half-musical impressions of factory sounds in a complex audio world that moved from absolute music to the purely documentary noises of nature. In this film every intermediate stage can be found: such as the movement of the machine interpreted by the music, the noises of the machine dominating the musical background, the music itself is the documentary, and those scenes where the pure sound of the machine goes solo. \n\nMany similar experiments were pursued by Dziga Vertov in his 1931 Entuziazm and by Chaplin in Modern Times, a half-decade later.\n\nA few innovative commercial directors immediately saw the ways in which sound could be employed as an integral part of cinematic storytelling, beyond the obvious function of recording speech. In Blackmail, Hitchcock manipulated the reproduction of a character's monologue so the word \"knife\" would leap out from a blurry stream of sound, reflecting the subjective impression of the protagonist, who is desperate to conceal her involvement in a fatal stabbing. In his first film, the Paramount Applause (1929), Rouben Mamoulian created the illusion of acoustic depth by varying the volume of ambient sound in proportion to the distance of shots. At a certain point, Mamoulian wanted the audience to hear one character singing at the same time as another prays; according to the director, \"They said we couldn't record the two things—the song and the prayer—on one mike and one channel. So I said to the sound man, 'Why not use two mikes and two channels and combine the two tracks in printing?'\" Such methods would eventually become standard procedure in popular filmmaking.\n\nOne of the first commercial films to take full advantage of the new opportunities provided by recorded sound was Le Million, directed by René Clair and produced by Tobis's French division. Premiering in Paris in April 1931 and New York a month later, the picture was both a critical and popular success. A musical comedy with a barebones plot, it is memorable for its formal accomplishments, in particular, its emphatically artificial treatment of sound. As described by scholar Donald Crafton,\n\nLe Million never lets us forget that the acoustic component is as much a construction as the whitewashed sets. [It] replaced dialogue with actors singing and talking in rhyming couplets. Clair created teasing confusions between on- and off-screen sound. He also experimented with asynchronous audio tricks, as in the famous scene in which a chase after a coat is synched to the cheers of an invisible football (or rugby) crowd. \n\nThese and similar techniques became part of the vocabulary of the sound comedy film, though as special effects and \"color\", not as the basis for the kind of comprehensive, non-naturalistic design achieved by Clair. Outside of the comedic field, the sort of bold play with sound exemplified by Melodie der Welt and Le Million would be pursued very rarely in commercial production. Hollywood, in particular, incorporated sound into a reliable system of genre-based moviemaking, in which the formal possibilities of the new medium were subordinated to the traditional goals of star affirmation and straightforward storytelling. As accurately predicted in 1928 by Frank Woods, secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, \"The talking pictures of the future will follow the general line of treatment heretofore developed by the silent drama.... The talking scenes will require different handling, but the general construction of the story will be much the same.\""
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Which newspaper did Jackie Kennedy work for just before her marriage?
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tc_135
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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{
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"TagMe"
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"filename": [
"Jacqueline_Kennedy_Onassis.txt"
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"title": [
"Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis"
],
"wiki_context": [
"Jacqueline Lee \"Jackie\" Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier, pronounced; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.\n\nBouvier was the elder daughter of Wall Street stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Lee Bouvier. In 1951, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature from George Washington University and went on to work for the Washington Times-Herald as an inquiring photographer.\n\nIn 1952, Bouvier met Congressman John F. Kennedy at a dinner party. Shortly after, he was elected to the United States Senate and the couple married the following year. They had four children, two of whom died in infancy. As First Lady, she aided her husband's administration with her presence in social events and with her highly publicized restoration of the White House. On November 22, 1963, she was riding with him in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, when he was assassinated. She and her children withdrew from public view after his funeral, and she married Aristotle Onassis in 1968.\n\nFollowing her second husband's death in 1975, she had a career as a book editor for the final two decades of her life. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and preservation of historic architecture, as well as for her style, elegance, and grace. She was a fashion icon; her famous ensemble of pink Chanel suit and matching pillbox hat has become symbolic of her husband's assassination and one of the most iconic images of the 1960s. She ranks as one of the most popular First Ladies and in 1999 was named on Gallup's list of Most Admired Men and Women in 20th century America. \n\nEarly life (1929–1951) \n\nFamily and childhood\n\nJacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929 at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, to Wall Street stockbroker John Vernou \"Black Jack\" Bouvier III (1891–1957) and socialite Janet Norton Lee (1907–1989). Bouvier's mother was of Irish ancestry, and her father's ancestry included French, Scottish, and English. \nNamed after her father, Bouvier was baptized at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan; she was raised in the Catholic faith. Her younger sister Lee was born in 1933.\n\nBouvier spent her early childhood years in Manhattan and at Lasata, the Bouviers' country estate in East Hampton on Long Island. She idolized her father, who likewise favored her over her sister, calling his eldest child \"the most beautiful daughter a man ever had\".Leaming (2014), pp. 6-8. Biographer Tina Flaherty attributes her father's praise to fueling Bouvier's confidence in herself, and her sister Lee has stated that she would not have gained her \"independence and individuality\" had it not been for the relationship she had with their father and paternal grandfather.Tracy, pp. 9-10. From an early age, Bouvier was an enthusiastic equestrienne and successfully competed in the sport; horse-riding would remain a lifelong passion. She also took ballet lessons, was an avid reader, and excelled at learning languages, with French being particularly emphasized in her upbringing. \n\nBouvier was enrolled in the Chapin School in Manhattan in 1935, which she attended for grades 1–6. While a bright student, she often misbehaved; one of her teachers described her as \"a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil\". Bouvier's mother attributed her behavior to her finishing assignments before classmates and then acting out in boredom.Harris, pp. 540–541 Her behavior improved after the headmistress warned her that none of her positive qualities would matter if she did not behave.\n\nBouvier's parents' marriage was strained by her father's alcoholism and extramarital affairs; the family had also been in constant financial problems since the Wall Street Crash of 1929. They separated in 1936 and divorced four years later, with the press publishing intimate details of the split. According to her cousin John H. Davis, Bouvier was deeply affected by the divorce, and subsequently had a \"tendency to withdraw frequently into a private world of her own\". When her mother married Standard Oil heir Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr., Bouvier and her sister did not attend the ceremony as it was arranged quickly and travel was restricted due to World War II. Bouvier gained three step-siblings from Auchincloss' two previous marriages, Hugh \"Yusha\" Auchincloss III, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss; she formed the closest bond with Yusha, who became one of her most trusted confidants.Tracy, p. 17. The marriage later produced two more children, Janet Jennings Auchincloss (1945–1985) and James Lee Auchincloss (born 1947).\n\nAfter the remarriage, the Bouvier sisters' primary residence was Auchincloss' Merrywood estate in McLean, Virginia, but they also spent time at his other estate, Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island, and in their father's homes in New York City and Long Island. Although she retained a relationship with her father, Bouvier also regarded her stepfather as a close paternal figure. He gave her a stable environment and the pampered childhood she never would have experienced otherwise. While Bouvier adjusted to her mother's remarriage, she sometimes felt like an outsider in the WASP social circle of the Auchinclosses, attributing the feeling to her being Catholic as well as being a child of divorce, which was not common in that social group at that time. \n\nAfter six years at Chapin, Bouvier attended the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland from 1942 to 1944, and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, from 1944 to 1947.Pottker, p. 7 She chose Miss Porter's because it was a boarding school, which allowed her to distance herself from the Auchinclosses, and because the school placed an emphasis on college preparatory classes. In her senior year yearbook, Bouvier was acknowledged for \"her wit, her accomplishment as a horsewoman, and her unwillingness to become a housewife\". She graduated among the top students of her class and received the Maria McKinney Memorial Award for Excellence in Literature.Spoto, p. 63.\n\nCollege and early career \n\nBouvier enrolled as a student in Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York in the fall of 1947. She had wanted to attend Sarah Lawrence College, closer to New York City, but her parents insisted that she choose the more geographically isolated Vassar. Bouvier was an accomplished student, participated in the school's art and drama clubs and wrote for its newspaper.Spoto, pp. 67-68. Due to her dislike of the college, she did not take an active part in its social life, and instead traveled back to New York City on the weekends. She had made her society debut in the summer before entering college, and became a frequent presence in New York social functions; Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her the \"debutante of the year\". Bouvier spent her junior year (1949–1950) in France – at the University of Grenoble in Grenoble, and at the Sorbonne in Paris – in a study-abroad program through Smith College. Upon returning home, she transferred to The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature in 1951. During the early years of her marriage to John F. Kennedy, she took continuing education classes in American History at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.\n\nWhile attending George Washington, Bouvier won a twelve-month junior editorship at Vogue magazine, selected over several hundred of girls from across the country.Leaming (2014), pp. 19-21 The position entailed six months working in the magazine's New York City office and spending the remaining six in Paris. Before beginning the editorship, Bouvier celebrated her college graduation and the high school graduation of her sister Lee by traveling with her to Europe for the summer. The trip was the subject of her only autobiographical book, One Special Summer, co-authored with her sister; it is also the only one of her published works to feature her drawings. When she returned to the U.S. in the fall of 1951, Bouvier changed her mind about the Vogue editorship and quit after only one day of work. According to biographer Barbara Leaming, she made the decision because she was concerned about her marriage prospects, as at the age of 22 she was already considered almost too old to be single in her social circles.\n\nBouvier moved back to Merrywood, and was hired as a part-time receptionist at the Washington Times-Herald. After a week, she approached editor Frank Waldrop requesting more challenging work, and was given the position of an \"Inquiring Camera Girl\", despite Waldrop's initial concerns about her competence. The position required her to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures to be published in the newspaper alongside selected quotations from their responses. In addition to the random \"man on the street\" vignettes, she sometimes sought interviews with people of interest such as six-year-old Tricia Nixon after her father Richard Nixon was elected to the vice presidency several days after the 1952 presidential election. During this time, Bouvier was also briefly engaged to a young stockbroker, John G. W. Husted, Jr.; the announcement was published in The New York Times in January 1952, after only a month of dating. She broke off the engagement after three months, as she began to find him \"immature and boring\" once she got to know him better.Spoto, pp. 89-91. \n\nWedding and early years of marriage to John F. Kennedy (1952–1959) \n\nBouvier and then-U.S. Representative John Fitzgerald \"Jack\" Kennedy belonged to the same social circle, and were formally introduced by a mutual friend, journalist Charles L. Bartlett, at a dinner party in May 1952. Bouvier was attracted to Kennedy's physical appearance, charm, wit and wealth. The two also shared similarities in both being Catholic and writers, enjoying reading and previously having lived abroad.O'Brien, pp. 265–266 Kennedy was then busy running for the US Senate but after his election in November, the relationship grew more serious and he proposed marriage to her. Bouvier took some time to accept, due to having been assigned to cover the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London for The Washington Times-Herald. After a month in Europe, she accepted the proposal upon her return to the United States, and resigned from her position at the newspaper. Their engagement was officially announced on June 25, 1953. \n\nBouvier and Kennedy were married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in a Mass celebrated by Boston's Archbishop Richard Cushing. The wedding was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 700 guests at the ceremony and 1,200 at the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm. The wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City. \n\nThe newlyweds honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico before settling in their new home, Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Kennedy developed a warm relationship with her husband's parents, Joe and Rose Kennedy.O'Brien, pp. 295-296.Leaming (2001), pp. 31-32. In the early years of their marriage, the couple faced several personal setbacks. John Kennedy suffered from Addison's Disease and from chronic and at times debilitating back pain due to a war injury; in late 1954, he underwent two spinal operations that almost proved fatal. Additionally, Kennedy suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and in August 1956 gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Arabella. They subsequently sold their Hickory Hill estate to John's brother Robert, who occupied it with his wife Ethel and their growing family, and bought a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. \n\nKennedy gave birth to a daughter, Caroline, on November 27, 1957, via Caesarean section. She and John Kennedy were at the time campaigning for his re-election to the Senate, and posed with their infant daughter for the cover of the April 21, 1958 issue of Life. They traveled together during the campaign, trying to narrow the geographical gap between them that had persisted for the first five years of the marriage. Soon enough, John Kennedy started to notice the value she had for his campaign, Kenneth O'Donnell remembering \"the size of the crowd was twice as big\" when she accompanied her husband, also recalling her as \"always cheerful and obliging\". But her husband's mother observed Kennedy as not being \"a natural-born campaigner\" due to her shyness and being uncomfortable with too much attention. In November 1958, John Kennedy was reelected to a second term. He credited Kennedy's help with securing his victory due to her visibility in both ads and stumping, calling her \"simply invaluable\". \n\nIn July 1959, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger visited the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, having his first conversation with Kennedy and finding her to have \"tremendous awareness, an all-seeing eye and a ruthless judgement\". That year, her husband traveled to fourteen states, with Kennedy taking long breaks from the trips so she could spend time with their daughter. She also counseled her husband on improving his wardrobe in preparation for his intended presidential campaign the following year. In particular, she traveled to Louisiana to visit Edmund Reggie and to help her husband garner support in the state for his presidential bid. \n\nFirst Lady of the United States (1960–1963) \n\nCampaign for presidency \n\nJohn F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency and launched his nationwide campaign on January 3, 1960. In the early months of the election year, Jacqueline Kennedy accompanied her husband to campaign events such as whistle-stops and dinners. But shortly after the campaign began, she became pregnant again and due to her previous high-risk pregnancies was forced to stay at home in Georgetown. Kennedy subsequently participated in the campaign by writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, Campaign Wife, answering correspondence, and giving interviews to the media.\n\nDespite not participating on the campaign trail, Kennedy's fashion choices became subject to intense media attention. On the one hand, she was admired for her personal style: frequently featured in women's magazines alongside film stars and named as one of the twelve best-dressed women of the world.Beasley, pp. 72–76 On the other, her preference for French designers and her spending on her wardrobe brought her negative press. In order to downplay her wealthy background, Kennedy stressed the amount of work she was doing for the campaign and declined to publicly discuss her clothing choices.\n\nOn July 13, 1960, John Kennedy was nominated by the Democratic Party for President of the United States in Los Angeles at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Kennedy did not attend the nomination due to her pregnancy, which had been publicly announced ten days earlier.Spoto, pp. 155-157. She watched the September 26, 1960 debate between her husband and Vice President Richard Nixon at Hyannis Port with Marian Cannon, wife of Arthur Schlesinger. Days after the debates, Kennedy contacted Schlesinger, informing him that her husband wanted his aid along with that of John Kenneth Galbraith in preparing for the third debate on October 13 and wished for them to give him new ideas and speeches. On September 29, 1960, the Kennedys appeared together for a joint interview on Person to Person, interviewed by Charles Collingwood.\n\nAs First Lady \n\nJohn F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican opponent Richard Nixon in the U.S. presidential election on November 8, 1960, A little over two weeks later, on November 25, Kennedy gave birth to the couple's first son, John F. Kennedy, Jr., via Caesarean section. She spent two weeks recovering in the hospital, during which the most minute details of both her and her son's conditions were reported by the media in what has been considered the first instance of national interest in the Kennedy family. \n\nWhen her husband was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961, 31-year-old Kennedy became the third youngest First Lady in American history. As a presidential couple, the Kennedys differed from their immediate predecessors by their relative youth, and their relationship with the media. Historian Gil Troy has noted that in particular, they \"emphasized vague appearances rather than specific accomplishments or passionate commitments\" and therefore fit in well in the early 1960s' \"cool, TV-oriented culture\". The discussion on Kennedy's fashion choices continued during her years in the White House, and she became a trendsetter, hiring American designer Oleg Cassini to design her wardrobe. She was the first First Lady to have her own press secretary, Helen Thomas, and carefully managed her contact with the media, usually shying away from making public statements, and strictly controlling the extent to which her children were photographed.Beasley, pp. 78–83 Portrayed by the media as the ideal woman, academic Maurine Beasley has stated that Kennedy \"created an unrealistic media expectation for first ladies that would challenge her successors\". Nevertheless, by attracting worldwide positive public attention, the First Lady gained allies for the White House and international support for the Kennedy administration and its Cold War policies. \n\nAlthough Kennedy stated that her priority as a First Lady was to take care of the President and their children, she also dedicated her time to the promotion of American arts and preservation of its history. Her main contribution was the restoration of the White House, but she also furthered the cause by hosting social events which brought together elite figures from politics and the arts. One of her unrealised goals was to found a Department of the Arts, but she did contribute to the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment of the Humanities, established during Johnson's tenure.\n\nWhite House restoration \n\nKennedy had visited the White House twice prior to becoming First Lady, once as a tourist in 1941 and as the guest of Mamie Eisenhower in 1960. Already as a child, she had been dismayed to find that the mansion's rooms were furnished with undistinguished pieces with little historical significance. She made it her first major project as a First Lady was to restore the house's historical character. Her first efforts, begun on her first day in residence with the help of society decorator Sister Parish, were to make the family quarters attractive and suitable for family life, by for example adding a kitchen on the family floor and rooms for her children. Upon almost immediately exhausting the $50,000 appropriated for this effort, she established a fine arts committee to oversee and fund the restoration process and asked early American furniture expert Henry du Pont to consult. To solve the funding problem, a White House guidebook was published, sales of which were used for the restoration. Working with Rachel Lambert Mellon, Kennedy also oversaw redesign and replanting of the White House Rose Garden and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden after her husband's assassination. In addition, Kennedy helped to stop the destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., because she felt these buildings were an important part of the nation's capital and played an essential role in its history. \nPrior to Kennedy's years as First Lady, furnishings and other items from the White House had been taken by presidents and their families after their tenures, leading to the lack of original historical pieces in the mansion. To track down these missing furnishings and other historical pieces of interest, she personally wrote to possible donors. She also initiated a Congressional bill establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of the Smithsonian Institution, rather than available to departing ex-presidents to claim as their own, and founded the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, the position of a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.\n\nOn February 14, 1962, Kennedy took American television viewers on a tour of the White House with Charles Collingwood of CBS News. In the tour she stated that \"I feel so strongly that the White House should have as fine a collection of American pictures as possible. It's so important... the setting in which the presidency is presented to the world, to foreign visitors. The American people should be proud of it. We have such a great civilization. So many foreigners don't realize it. I think this house should be the place we see them best.\" The film was watched by 56 million television viewers in the United States, and was later distributed to 106 countries. Kennedy won a special Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Trustees Award for it at the Emmy Awards in 1962, which was accepted on her behalf by Lady Bird Johnson. \n\nForeign trips \n\nThroughout her husband's presidency, Kennedy made many official visits to other countries, on her own or with the President — more than any of the preceding First Ladies. Despite the initial worry that she might not have \"political appeal\", she proved popular among international dignitaries. Before the Kennedys' first official visit to France in 1961, a television special was shot in French with the First Lady on the White House lawn. After arriving in the country, she impressed the public with her ability to speak French, as well as her extensive knowledge of French history. At the conclusion of the visit, Time magazine seemed delighted with the First Lady and noted, \"There was also that fellow who came with her.\" Even President Kennedy joked, \"I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris – and I have enjoyed it!\" \n\nFrom France, the Kennedys traveled to Vienna, Austria, where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, when asked to shake the President's hand for a photo, stated, \"I'd like to shake her hand first.\" Khrushchev later sent her a puppy, significant for being the offspring of Strelka, the dog that had gone to space during a Soviet space mission. \n\nAt the urging of John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. Ambassador to India, Kennedy undertook a tour of India and Pakistan with her sister Lee Radziwill in 1962, which was amply documented in photojournalism of the time as well as in Galbraith's journals and memoirs. She was gifted with a horse called Sardar by the President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan, as he had found out on his visit to the White House that he and the First Lady had a common interest in horses. Life magazine correspondent Anne Chamberlin wrote that Kennedy \"conducted herself magnificently” although noting that her crowds were smaller than those that President Dwight Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II attracted when they had previously visited these countries. In addition to these well-publicized trips during the three years of the Kennedy administration, she traveled to countries including Afghanistan, Austria, Canada, Colombia, England, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, and Venezuela.\n\nDeath of infant son \n\nIn early 1963, Kennedy was again pregnant, leading her to curtail her official duties. She spent most of the summer at a home she and her husband had rented on Squaw Island, near the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On August 7, five weeks ahead of her scheduled Caesarean section, she went into labor and gave birth to a boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency Caesarean section at nearby Otis Air Force Base. His lungs were not fully developed, and he was transferred from Cape Cod to Boston Children's Hospital where he died of hyaline membrane disease two days after birth. Kennedy had remained at Otis Air Force Base to recuperate after the Caesarean delivery; her husband went to Boston to be with their infant son, and was present at his death. He returned to Otis on August 14 to take her home, giving an impromptu speech to thank nurses and airmen that had gathered in her suite, and she presented hospital staff with framed and signed lithographs of the White House.\n\nThe First Lady was deeply affected by the death, entering a state of depression afterward.Leaming (2014), pp. 120-122. But losing their child had a positive impact on the marriage, bringing the couple closer together in their shared grief. Arthur Schlesinger wrote that while President Kennedy always \"regarded Jacqueline with genuine affection and pride\", their marriage \"never seemed more solid than in the later months of 1963\". Aware of her depression, Kennedy's friend Aristotle Onassis invited her to his yacht. Despite President Kennedy initially having reservations, he reportedly believed that it would be \"good for her\". The trip was widely disapproved of within the Kennedy administration and by much of the general public, as well as in Congress. The First Lady returned to the United States on October 17, 1963. She would later say she regretted being away as long as she was, but had \"melancholy after the death of my baby\".\n\nAssassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy \n\nOn November 21, 1963, The First Lady and the President left the White House for a political trip to Texas, the first time she had joined her husband on such a trip in the US. After a breakfast on November 22, they flew from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas' Love Field on Air Force One, accompanied by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie. The First Lady was wearing a bright pink Chanel suit and a pillbox hat, which had been personally selected by President Kennedy. A motorcade was to take them to the Trade Mart, where the President was scheduled to speak at a lunch. The First Lady was seated next to her husband in the presidential limousine, with the Governor and his wife seated in front of them. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade.\n\nAfter the motorcade turned the corner onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, the First Lady heard what she thought to be a motorcycle backfiring and did not realize that it was a gunshot until she heard Governor Connally scream. Within 8.4 seconds, two more shots had rung out; yet another shot struck the President in the head. Almost immediately, she reached out across the trunk of the car for something. Her Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, later told the Warren Commission that he thought she had been reaching across the trunk for a piece of the President's skull that had been blown off. Hill ran to the car and leapt onto it, directing her back to her seat. As Hill stood on the back bumper, Associated Press photographer Ike Altgens snapped a photograph that was featured on the front pages of newspapers around the world.Trask, p. 318 She would later testify that she saw pictures \"of me climbing out the back. But I don't remember that at all\". \n\nThe President was taken to Dallas' Parkland Hospital. The First Lady was allowed, at her request, to be present in the operating room. After her husband was pronounced dead, Kennedy refused to remove her blood-stained clothing and reportedly regretted having washed the blood off her face and hands, explaining to Lady Bird Johnson that she wanted \"them to see what they have done to Jack\". She continued to wear the blood-stained pink suit as she went on board Air Force One and stood next to Johnson when he took the oath of office as President. The unlaundered suit was donated to the National Archives and Records Administration in 1964, and under the terms of an agreement with Caroline Kennedy will not be placed on public display until 2103. Johnson's biographer Robert Caro wrote that Johnson wanted Kennedy to be present at his swearing-in in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of his presidency to JFK loyalists and to the world at large. \n\nKennedy took an active role in planning her husband's state funeral, modeling it after Abraham Lincoln's. She requested a closed casket, overruling the wishes of her brother-in-law, Robert. The funeral service was held at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington D.C., and the burial at Arlington National Cemetery; Kennedy led the procession there on foot and lit the eternal flame at the gravesite, a flame that had been created at her request. Lady Jeanne Campbell reported back to The London Evening Standard: \"Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people... one thing they have always lacked: Majesty.\"\n\nA week after the assassination, on November 29, the Warren Commission was established by President Johnson to investigate the assassination, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone perpetrator. Privately, Kennedy cared little about the investigation, stating that even if they had the right suspect, it would not bring her husband back. Nevertheless, she gave a deposition to the Warren Commission. Following the assassination and the media coverage that had focused intensely on her during and after the burial, Kennedy stepped back from official public view, apart from a brief appearance in Washington to honor the Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who had climbed aboard the limousine in Dallas to try to shield her and the President.\n\nLife following the assassination (1963–1975) \n\nMourning period and later public appearances \n\nOn November 29, 1963, a week after her husband's assassination, Kennedy was interviewed in Hyannis Port by Theodore H. White of Life. In that session, she famously compared the Kennedy years in the White House to King Arthur's mythical Camelot, commenting that the President often played the title song of Lerner and Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also quoted Queen Guinevere from the musical, trying to express how the loss felt. The era of the Kennedy administration would subsequently often be referred to as the \"Camelot Era\", although historians have later argued that the comparison is not appropriate, with Robert Dallek stating that Kennedy's \"effort to lionize [her husband] must have provided a therapeutic shield against immobilizing grief\". \n\nKennedy and her children remained in the White House for two weeks following the assassination. Wanting to \"do something nice for Jackie\", President Johnson offered an ambassadorship to France to her, aware of her heritage and fondness for the country's culture, but she turned the offer down, as well as follow-up offers of ambassadorships to Mexico and Great Britain. At her request, he renamed the Florida space center the John F. Kennedy Space Center a week after the assassination. Kennedy later publicly praised Johnson for his kindness to her. \n\nKennedy spent 1964 in mourning and made few public appearances during that time. In the winter following the assassination, she and the children stayed at Averell Harriman's home in Georgetown. On January 14, 1964, Kennedy made a televised appearance from the office of the Attorney General, thanking the public for the \"hundreds of thousands of messages\" she had received since the assassination and said she had been sustained by America's affection for her late husband. She purchased a house for herself and the children in Georgetown, but sold it later in 1964 and bought a 15th floor apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue on Manhattan in the hopes of having more privacy. \n\nIn the following years, Kennedy attended selected memorial dedications to her late husband. She also oversaw the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which is the repository for official papers of the Kennedy Administration. Designed by architect I.M. Pei, it is situated next to the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston.\n\nKennedy was subject to significant media attention in 1966–1967, when she and Robert Kennedy tried to block the publication of William Manchester's authorized account of President Kennedy's death, despite its having been commissioned by her. They sued its publishers, Harper & Row, in December 1966; the suit was settled the following year with Manchester removing passages detailing President Kennedy's family life. White viewed the ordeal as validation of the measures the Kennedy family, Kennedy in particular, were prepared to take to preserve President Kennedy's public image.\n\nDuring the Vietnam War in November 1967, Life magazine dubbed Kennedy \"America's unofficial roving ambassador\" when she and David Ormsby-Gore, former British ambassador to the United States during the Kennedy administration, traveled to Cambodia, where they visited the religious complex of Angkor Wat with Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk. Alam, p. 32 According to historian Milton Osbourne, her visit was \"the start of the repair to Cambodian-US relations, which had been at a very low ebb\". She also attended the funeral services of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia in April 1968, despite her initial reluctancy due to the crowds and reminders of President Kennedy's death. \n\nRelationship with Robert F. Kennedy \n\nAfter the assassination, Kennedy relied heavily on her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, observing him to be the \"least like his father\" of the Kennedy brothers. He had been a source of support early in her marriage when she had her miscarriage; it was he, not her husband, who stayed with her in the hospital. In the aftermath of the assassination, Robert Kennedy became like a surrogate father for her children, until eventually demands by his own large family and his responsibilities as Attorney General required a reduction in attention.Spoto, pp. 239-240. He credited Kennedy for convincing him to stay in politics, and she supported his 1964 run from New York for the United States Senate. \n\nFollowing the January 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam, which resulted in a drop in President Johnson's poll numbers, Robert Kennedy's advisors urged him to enter the presidential race. When asked by Art Buchwald if he intended to run, Robert replied, \"That depends on what Jackie wants me to do.\" Kennedy met with him around this time, encouraging him to run after previously advising him to not copy his brother, but to \"be yourself\". Privately, she worried about his safety, believing he was more disliked than her husband had been and that there was \"so much hatred\" in the United States. She confided in him about these feelings, but by her own account, he was \"fatalistic\" like her.Flynt and Eisenbach, p. 216 Despite her concerns, Kennedy campaigned for her brother-in-law and supported him, at one point even showing outright optimism that through his victory, members of the Kennedy family would once again occupy the White House.\n\nJust after midnight PDT on June 5, 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded, minutes after celebrating his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary with a crowd of his supporters. Jacqueline Kennedy rushed to Los Angeles from Manhattan to join his wife, her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy, and the other Kennedy family members at his hospital bedside. He died 26 hours after the shooting without regaining consciousness. \n\nMarriage to Aristotle Onassis \n\nAfter Robert Kennedy's death, Kennedy reportedly suffered a relapse of the depression she had experienced in the days following her husband's assassination nearly five years prior. She came to fear for her life and those of her children, saying: \"If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country\". \n\nOn October 20, 1968, Kennedy married her long-time friend Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy Greek shipping magnate who was able to provide the privacy and security she sought for herself and her children. The wedding took place on Skorpios, Onassis's private Greek island in the Ionian Sea. Following her marriage and now going by the name Jacqueline Onassis, she lost her right to Secret Service protection, an entitlement to a widow of a U.S. president. The marriage brought her considerable adverse publicity, including talk of excommunication by the Roman Catholic church. She was condemned as a \"public sinner\", and became the target of paparazzi who followed her everywhere and nicknamed her \"Jackie O\". \n\nDuring their marriage the couple inhabited six different residences: her 15-room Fifth Avenue apartment in New York City, her horse farm in New Jersey, his Avenue Foch apartment in Paris, his private island Skorpios, his house in Athens, and his 325 ft yacht The Christina. Kennedy ensured that her children had a connection to the Kennedy family by having Ted Kennedy visit them often. She developed a close relationship with him, and he was involved in her public appearances from then on. \n\nAristotle Onassis' health began deteriorating rapidly following the death of his son Alexander in a plane crash in 1973, and he died of respiratory failure at age 69 in Paris on March 15, 1975. His financial legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which dictated how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After two years of legal battle, Kennedy eventually accepted a settlement of $26 million from Christina Onassis, Onassis' daughter and sole heir, waiving all other claims to the Onassis estate. \n\nLater years (1975–1990s) \n\nAfter the death of her husband, Onassis returned permanently to the United States, splitting her time between New York City, Martha's Vineyard, and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts. In 1975, she became a consulting editor at Viking Press, a position which she held for two years. After almost a decade of avoiding participation in political events, she attended the 1976 Democratic National Convention, stunning the assembled delegates when she appeared in the visitors' gallery. She resigned from Viking Press in 1977 following the false accusation by The New York Times that she held some responsibility for the company's publication of Jeffrey Archer novel Shall We Tell the President?, which was set in a fictional future presidency of Ted Kennedy and described an assassination plot against him. Two years later, she appeared alongside her mother-in-law Rose Kennedy at Faneuil Hall in Boston when Ted Kennedy announced that he was going to challenge incumbent President Carter for the Democratic nomination for president. She participated in the subsequent presidential campaign, which was unsuccessful. \n\nFollowing her resignation from Viking Press, Onassis moved to Doubleday, where she worked as an associate editor under an old friend, John Turner Sargent, Sr. Among the books she edited for the company are Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe, the English translation of the three volumes of Naghib Mahfuz's Cairo Trilogy (with Martha Levin), and autobiographies of ballerina Gelsey Kirkland, singer-songwriter Carly Simon, and fashion icon Diana Vreeland. She also encouraged Dorothy West, her neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, to complete the novel The Wedding (1995), a multi-generational story about race, class, wealth, and power in the U.S..\n\nIn addition to her work as an editor, Onassis participated in cultural and architectural preservation. In the 1970s, she led a historic preservation campaign to save from demolition and renovate Grand Central Terminal in New York. A plaque inside the terminal acknowledges her prominent role in its preservation. In the 1980s, she was a major figure in protests against a planned skyscraper at Columbus Circle which would have cast large shadows on Central Park; the project was cancelled, but a large twin-towered skyscraper, the Time Warner Center, would later fill in that spot in 2003.\n\nOnassis remained the subject of considerable press attention, most notoriously involving the paparazzi photographer Ron Galella who followed her around and photographed her as she went about her day-to-day activities, taking candid photos of her without her permission. She ultimately obtained a restraining order against him, and the situation brought attention to the problem of paparazzi photography. From 1980 until her death, her companion and personal financial adviser was Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-born industrialist and diamond merchant who was estranged from his wife. \n\nIn the early 1990s, Onassis became a supporter of Bill Clinton and contributed money to his presidential campaign. Following the election, she met with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and advised her on raising a child in the White House. Clinton wrote in her memoir Living History, that Onassis was \"a source of inspiration and advice for me\", while Democratic consultant Ann Lewis viewed Onassis as having reached out to the Clintons \"in a way she has not always acted toward leading Democrats in the past\". \n\nIllness, death and funeral \n\nIn November 1993, while participating in a fox hunt in Middleburg, Virginia, Onassis fell from her horse and was taken to the hospital to be examined.Leaming, pp. 308–309 A swollen lymph node was discovered in her groin, which was initially believed by the doctor to be caused by an infection. In December, Onassis developed new symptoms, including a stomach ache and swollen lymph nodes on her neck, and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She began chemotherapy in January 1994, and publicly announced the diagnosis, initially stating that the prognosis was good. While she continued to work at Doubleday, by March, the cancer had spread to her spinal cord and brain, and by May to her liver. Onassis made her last trip home from New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center on May 18, 1994. The following night at 10:15 p.m., she died in her sleep, two months before her 65th birthday.\n\nFollowing the death, John F. Kennedy Jr. stated to the press, \"My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that.\" The funeral was held a few blocks away from her apartment on May 23, 1994, at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, the Catholic parish where she was baptized in 1929 and confirmed as a teenager. She was buried alongside President Kennedy, their son Patrick, and their stillborn daughter Arabella at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. President Bill Clinton delivered a eulogy at her graveside service. \n\nOnassis was survived by her children Caroline and John Jr., three grandchildren, sister Lee Radziwill, son-in-law Edwin Schlossberg, and half-brother James Lee Auchincloss. She left an estate valued at $43.7 million by its executors. \n\nLegacy \n\nPopularity \n\nAmong the First Ladies of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy remains one of the most popular. She was featured on the annual Gallop list of the top 10 most admired people of the second half of the 20th century 27 times, a number superseded by only Billy Graham and Queen Elizabeth II and higher than that of any U.S. President. In 2011, she was ranked in fifth place in a list of the five most influential First Ladies of the twentieth century for her \"profound effect on American society.\" In 2014, she ranked third place in a Siena College Institute survey, behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Adams. In 2015, she was included in a list of the top ten influential U.S. First Ladies due to the admiration for her based around \"her fashion sense and later after her husband's assassination, for her poise and dignity.\" \n\nOnassis is seen as being customary in her role as First Lady, though Magill argues her life was validation that \"fame and celebrity\" changed the way First Ladies are evaluated historically. Hamish Bowles, curator of the “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attributed her popularity to a sense of unknown that was felt in her withdrawal from the public which he dubbed \"immensely appealing.\" Writing after her death, Kelly Barber referred to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as \"the most intriguing woman in the world\", furthering that her stature was also due to her affiliation with valuable causes. Historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony summarized that the former First Lady \"became an aspirational figure of that era, one whose privilege might not be easily reached by a majority of Americans but which others could strive to emulate.” Since the late 2000s, Kennedy's traditional persona has been invoked by commentators when referring to fashionable political spouses. \n\nKennedy has been credited with restoring the White House by a wide variety of commentators including Hugh Sidey, Leticia Baldridge, Laura Bush, Kathleen P. Galop, and Carl Anthony. \n\nStyle icon \n\nDuring her husband's presidency, Jacqueline Kennedy became a global fashion icon. She retained French-born American fashion designer and Kennedy family friend Oleg Cassini in the fall of 1960 to create an original wardrobe for her as First Lady. From 1961 to late 1963, Cassini dressed her in many of her most iconic ensembles, including her Inauguration Day fawn coat and Inaugural gala gown, as well as many outfits for her visits to Europe, India, and Pakistan. In 1961, Kennedy spent $45,446 more on fashion than the $100,000 annual salary her husband earned as president. Although Cassini was her primary designer, she also wore ensembles by French fashion legends such as Chanel, Givenchy, and Dior.\n\nAs a First Lady, Kennedy preferred to wear clean-cut suits with a skirt hem down to middle of the knee, three-quarter sleeves on notch-collar jackets, sleeveless A-line dresses, above-the-elbow gloves, low-heel pumps, and pillbox hats. Dubbed the \"Jackie\" look, these clothing items rapidly became fashion trends in the Western world. More than any other First Lady, her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and a large segment of young women. Her influential bouffant hairstyle, described as a \"grown-up exaggeration of little girls' hair,\" was created by Kenneth Battelle, who worked for her from 1954 until 1986. \n\nIn the years after the White House, Kennedy's style underwent a change, with her new looks consisting of wide-leg pantsuits, large lapel jackets, gypsy skirts, silk Hermès head scarves, and large, round, dark sunglasses. She often chose to wear brighter colors and patterns and even began wearing jeans in public. Beltless, white jeans with a black turtleneck, never tucked in, but pulled down over the hips, was another fashion trend that she set.\n\nThroughout her lifetime, Kennedy acquired a large collection of jewelry. Her triple-strand pearl necklace designed by American jeweler Kenneth Jay Lane became her signature piece of jewelry during her time as First Lady in the White House. Often referred to as the \"berry brooch,\" the two-fruit cluster brooch of strawberries made of rubies with stems and leaves of diamonds, designed by French jeweler Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co., was personally selected and given to her by her husband several days prior to his inauguration in January 1961. She wore Schlumberger's gold and enamel bracelets so frequently in the early and mid-1960s that the press called them \"Jackie bracelets\"; she also favored his white enamel and gold \"banana\" earrings. Kennedy wore jewelry designed by Van Cleef & Arpels throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; her sentimental favorite was the Van Cleef & Arpels wedding ring given to her by President Kennedy.\n\nKennedy was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965. Many of her signature clothes are preserved at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum; pieces from the collection were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2001. Titled \"Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years,\" the exhibition focused on her time as a First Lady. \n\nHonors and memorials \n\n* A high school named Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers, was dedicated by New York City in 1995, the first high school named in her honor. It is located at 120 West 46th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and was formerly the High School for the Performing Arts. \n* The main reservoir in Central Park, located in New York City, was renamed in her honor as the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. \n* The Municipal Art Society of New York presents the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal to an individual whose work and deeds have made an outstanding contribution to the city of New York. The medal was named in honor of the former MAS board member in 1994, for her tireless efforts to preserve and protect New York City's great architecture. She made her last public appearance at the Municipal Art Society two months before her death.\n* At George Washington University, a residence hall located on the southeast corner of I and 23rd streets NW in Washington, D.C., was renamed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall in honor of the alumna. \n* The White House's East Garden was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in her honor. \n* In 2007, her name and her first husband's were included on the list of people aboard the Japanese Kaguya mission to the moon launched on September 14, as part of The Planetary Society's \"Wish Upon The Moon\" campaign. In addition, they are included on the list aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.\n* A school and an award at the American Ballet Theatre have been named after her in honor of her childhood study of ballet. \n* The companion book for a series of interviews between mythologist Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, was created under her direction prior to her death. The book's editor, Betty Sue Flowers, writes in the Editor's Note to The Power of Myth: \"I am grateful... to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the books of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of this book.\" A year after her death in 1994, Moyers dedicated the companion book for his PBS series, The Language of Life as follows: \"To Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. As you sail on to Ithaka.\" Ithaka was a reference to the C.P. Cavafy poem that Maurice Tempelsman read at her funeral. \n* A white gazebo is dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on North Madison Street in Middleburg, Virginia. The First Lady and President Kennedy frequented the small town of Middleburg and intended to retire in the nearby town of Atoka. She also hunted with the Middleburg Hunt numerous times."
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What are the international registration letters of a vehicle from Turkey?
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"Turkey (; ), officially the Republic of Turkey (Turkish: ;), is a parliamentary republic in Eurasia, mainly on the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. \n \nTurkey is bordered by eight countries: Syria and Iraq to the south; Iran, Armenia, and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the east; Georgia to the northeast; Bulgaria to the northwest; and Greece to the west. The Black Sea is to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, which together form the Turkish Straits, divide Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. Turkey's location between Europe and Asia makes it strategically important. \n\nTurkey has been inhabited since the paleolithic age by various ancient Anatolian civilizations: Aeolian, Dorian and Ionian Greeks, Thracians, Armenians, and Assyrians. After Alexander the Great's conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process which continued under the Roman Empire and its transition into the Byzantine Empire. The Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, starting the process of Turkification, which was accelerated by the Seljuk victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish beyliks.\n\nIn the mid 14th century the Ottomans started uniting Anatolia and created an empire encompassing much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, becoming a major power in Eurasia and Africa during the early modern period. The empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign (1520–1566) of Suleiman the Magnificent. After the second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 and the end of the Great Turkish War in 1699, the Ottoman Empire entered a long period of decline. The Tanzimat reforms of the 19th century, which aimed to modernize the Ottoman state, proved to be inadequate in most fields, and failed to stop the dissolution of the empire.\n\nEffectively controlled by the Three Pashas after the 1913 coup d'état, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I (1914–1918) on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, the Ottoman government committed ethnic cleansing or genocide against its Armenian, Assyrian and Pontic Greek citizens.Schaller, Dominik J; Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008). \"Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies – introduction\". Journal of Genocide Research 10 (1): 7–14. doi:10.1080/14623520801950820 Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. \n\nThe Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922), initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues in Anatolia, resulted in the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president. \n\nTurkey's official language is Turkish, a Turkic language, spoken by 85% of the population. 72.5% of the population are ethnic Turks; and 27.5% are legally recognized (Armenians, Greeks, Jews) and unrecognized (Kurds, Circassians, Arabs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Georgians, etc.) ethnic minorities. Kurds are the largest minority group. The vast majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, with Alevis making up the largest religious minority.\n\nTurkey is a charter member of the UN, early member of NATO, and a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, applied for full EEC membership in 1987, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. Turkey's growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye) is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term \"Türk\" or \"Türük\" as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks (Celestial Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century). The English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. \n\nThe Greek cognate of this name, Tourkia () was used by the Byzantine emperor and scholar Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his book De Administrando Imperio, though in his use, \"Turks\" always referred to Magyars. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was referred to as Tourkia (Land of the Turks) in Byzantine sources. The Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its contemporaries.\n\nHistory\n\nPrehistory of Anatolia and Eastern Thrace\n\nThe Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, and is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC.\n\nGöbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date and in July 2012 was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age.\n\nThe earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians, non-Indo-European peoples who inhabited central and eastern Anatolia, respectively, as early as ca. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed the Hattians and Hurrians ca. 2000–1700 BC. The first major empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BC. The Assyrians conquered and settled parts of southeastern Turkey as early as 1950 BC until the year 612 BC. Urartu re-emerged in Assyrian inscriptions in the 9th century BC as a powerful northern rival of Assyria. \n\nFollowing the collapse of the Hittite empire c. 1180 BC, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy in Anatolia until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BC. Starting from 714 BC, Urartu shared the same fate and dissolved in 590 BC, when it was conquered by the Medes. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia.\n\nAntiquity and Byzantine Period\n\nStarting around 1200 BC, the coast of Anatolia was heavily settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. Numerous important cities were founded by these colonists, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna (now İzmir) and Byzantium (now Istanbul), the latter founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC. The first state that was called Armenia by neighbouring peoples was the state of the Armenian Orontid dynasty, which included parts of eastern Turkey beginning in the 6th century BC. In Northwest Turkey, the most significant tribal group in Thrace was the Odyrisians, founded by Teres I. \n\nAll of modern-day Turkey was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC. The Greco-Persian Wars started when the Greek city states on the coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule in 499 BC. The territory of Turkey later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC, which led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization in the area.\n\nFollowing Alexander's death in 323 BC, Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms, all of which became part of the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC. The process of Hellenization that began with Alexander's conquest accelerated under Roman rule, and by the early centuries AD the local Anatolian languages and cultures had become extinct, being largely replaced by ancient Greek language and culture. From the 1st century BC up to the 3rd century AD, large parts of modern-day Turkey were contested between the Romans and neighboring Parthians through the frequent Roman-Parthian Wars.\n\nIn 324, Constantine I chose Byzantium to be the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it New Rome. Following the death of Theodosius I in 395 and the permanent division of the Roman Empire between his two sons, the city, which would popularly come to be known as Constantinople, became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. This, which would later be branded by historians as the Byzantine Empire, ruled most of the territory of present-day Turkey until the Late Middle Ages; although the eastern regions remained in firm Sasanian hands up to the first half of the 7th century AD. The frequent Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, as part of the centuries long-lasting Roman-Persian Wars, fought between the neighboring rivaling Byzantines and Sasanians, took place in various parts of present-day Turkey and decided much of the latters history from the 4th century AD up to the first half of the 7th century AD.\n\nSeljuks and the Ottoman Empire\n\nThe House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kınık Oğuz Turks who resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy, to the north of the Caspian and Aral Seas, in the 9th century. In the 10th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homeland into Persia, which became the administrative core of the Great Seljuk Empire.\n\nIn the latter half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began penetrating into medieval Armenia and the eastern regions of Anatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, starting the Turkification process in the area; the Turkish language and Islam were introduced to Armenia and Anatolia, gradually spreading throughout the region. The slow transition from a predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking Anatolia to a predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking one was underway. Alongside the Turkification of the territory, the culturally Persianized Seljuks set the basis for a Turko-Persian principal culture in Anatolia, which their eventual successors, the Ottomans would take over. \n\nIn 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols, causing the Seljuk Empire's power to slowly disintegrate. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I would, over the next 200 years, evolve into the Ottoman Empire. In 1453, the Ottomans completed their conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople. \n\nIn 1514, Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) successfully expanded the empire's southern and eastern borders by defeating Shah Ismail I of the Safavid dynasty in the Battle of Chaldiran. In 1517, Selim I expanded Ottoman rule into Algeria and Egypt, and created a naval presence in the Red Sea. Subsequently, a competition started between the Ottoman and Portuguese empires to become the dominant sea power in the Indian Ocean, with a number of naval battles in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean was perceived as a threat for the Ottoman monopoly over the ancient trading routes between East Asia and Western Europe (later collectively named the Silk Road). This important monopoly was increasingly compromised following the discovery of a sea route around Africa by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, which had a considerable impact on the Ottoman economy. \n\nThe Ottoman Empire's power and prestige peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The empire was often at odds with the Holy Roman Empire in its steady advance towards Central Europe through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At sea, the Ottoman Navy contended with several Holy Leagues, such as those in 1538, 1571, 1684 and 1717 (composed primarily of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, the Knights of St. John, the Papal States, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Savoy), for the control of the Mediterranean Sea. In the east, the Ottomans were often at war with Safavid Persia over conflicts stemming from territorial disputes or religious differences between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Ottoman wars with Persia continued as the Zand, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties succeeded the Safavids in Iran, until the first half of the 19th century. From the 16th to the early 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire also fought many wars with the Russian Tsardom and Empire. These were initially about the Ottoman territorial expansion and consolidation in southeastern and eastern Europe; but starting from the latter half of the 18th century, they became more about the survival of the Ottoman state, which began to lose its strategic territories on the northern Black Sea coast to the advancing Russians. Between the 18th and the early 20th centuries, the Ottoman, Persian and Russian empires were neighbouring rivals of each other.\n\nFrom the beginning of the 19th century onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. As it gradually shrank in size, military power and wealth, many Balkan Muslims migrated to the Empire's heartland in Anatolia, along with the Circassians fleeing the Russian conquest. The decline of the Ottoman Empire led to a rise in nationalist sentiment among the various subject peoples, leading to increased ethnic tensions which occasionally burst into violence, such as the Hamidian massacres of Armenians.\n\nThe Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, the empire's Armenians were deported to Syria as part of the Armenian Genocide. As a result, an estimated 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenians were killed. The Turkish government has refused to acknowledge the events as genocide and claims that Armenians were only relocated from the eastern war zone. Large-scale massacres were also committed against the empire's other minority groups such as the Assyrians and Greeks. Following the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought to partition the Ottoman state through the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.\n\nRepublic of Turkey\n\nThe occupation of Constantinople and Smyrna by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish National Movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. \n\nBy 18 September 1922 the occupying armies were expelled, and the Ankara-based Turkish regime, which had declared itself the legitimate government of the country on 23 April 1920, started to formalize the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. On 1 November 1922, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of monarchical Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923 led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed \"Republic of Turkey\" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on 29 October 1923 in Ankara, the country's new capital. The Lausanne treaty stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, whereby 1.1 million Greeks left Turkey for Greece in exchange for 380,000 Muslims transferred from Greece to Turkey. \n\nMustafa Kemal became the republic's first President and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of transforming the old religion-based and multi-communal Ottoman state system (constitutional monarchy) into an essentially Turkish nation state (parliamentary republic) with a secular constitution. With the Surname Law of 1934, the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Mustafa Kemal the honorific surname \"Atatürk\" (Father of the Turks).\n\nTurkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the closing stages of the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945. On 26 June 1945, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations. Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large-scale U.S. military and economic support. Both countries were included in the Marshall Plan and OEEC for rebuilding European economies in 1948, and subsequently became founding members of the OECD in 1961.\n\nAfter participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Following a decade of Cypriot intercommunal violence and the coup in Cyprus on 15 July 1974 staged by the EOKA B paramilitary organization, which overthrew President Makarios and installed the pro-Enosis (union with Greece) Nikos Sampson as dictator, Turkey invaded Cyprus on 20 July 1974. Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey, was established. \n\nThe single-party period ended in 1945. It was followed by a tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy over the next few decades, which was interrupted by military coups d'état in 1960, 1971, and 1980, as well as a military memorandum in 1997. In 1984, the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, began an insurgency campaign against the Turkish government. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict to date has claimed over 40,000 lives. Over 3,000 Kurdish villages were burned by Turkish security forces and hundreds of thousands of Kurds displaced, and Kurdish political parties were banned. Peace talks were launched in 2012, but hostilities restarted in 2015 following the Suruc bombing. Since the liberalization of the Turkish economy during the 1980s, the country has enjoyed stronger economic growth and greater political stability. In 2013, widespread protests erupted in many Turkish provinces, sparked by a plan to demolish Gezi Park but growing into general anti-government dissent. \n\nOn 15–16 July 2016, an unsuccessful coup attempt tried to oust the government. \n\nAdministrative divisions\n\nTurkey has a unitary structure in terms of administration and this aspect is one of the most important factors shaping the Turkish public administration. When three powers (executive, legislative and judiciary) are taken into account as the main functions of the state, local administrations have little power. Turkey is a unitary not a federal system, and the provinces are subordinated to the centre. Local administrations were established to provide services in place and the government is represented by the governors and city governors. Besides the governors and the city governors, other senior public officials are also appointed by the central government rather than appointed by mayors or elected by constituents.\n\nTurkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts. \n\nTurkey is also subdivided into 7 regions and 21 subregions for geographic, demographic and economic purposes; this does not refer to an administrative division.\n\nPolitics\n\nTurkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state. The President of the Republic is the head of state and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections and Tayyip Erdoğan is the first president elected by direct voting.\n\nExecutive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and decrees with the constitution. The Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals for all others. \n\nThe prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in the government and is most often the head of the party having the most seats in parliament. The prime minister is Binali Yıldırım, who replaced Ahmet Davutoğlu on 24 May 2016.\n\nUniversal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933, and every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a four-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts.\nThe Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether. The electoral threshold is 10 percent of the votes. \n\nSupporters of Atatürk's reforms are called Kemalists, as distinguished from Islamists, representing two extremes on a continuum of beliefs about the proper role of religion in public life. The Kemalist position generally combines a kind of democracy with a laicist constitution and westernised secular lifestyle, while supporting state intervention in the economy, education, and other public services. Since the 1980s, a rise in income inequality and class distinction has given rise to Islamic populism, a movement that in theory supports obligation to authority, communal solidarity and social justice, though what that entails in practice is often contested.\n\nHuman rights\n\nHuman rights in Turkey have been the subject of some controversy and international condemnation. Between 1998 and 2008 the European Court of Human Rights made more than 1,600 judgements against Turkey for human rights violations, particularly regarding the right to life, and freedom from torture. Other issues, such as Kurdish rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, and press freedom, have also attracted controversy. Turkey's human rights record continues to be a significant obstacle to future membership of the EU. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the AKP government has waged one of the world's biggest crackdowns on press freedoms. A large number of journalists have been arrested using charges of \"terrorism\" and \"anti-state activities\" such as the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, while thousands have been investigated on charges such as \"denigrating Turkishness\" or \"insulting Islam\" in an effort to sow self-censorship. In 2012, the CPJ identified 76 jailed journalists in Turkey, including 61 directly held for their published work, ranking 1st in the world, more than in Iran, Eritrea or China while Freemuse identified 9 musicians imprisoned for their work, ranking 3rd after Russia and China. A former U.S. State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said that the United States had \"broad concerns about trends involving intimidation of journalists in Turkey.\" Turkey has a 'Not Free' rating by Freedom House.\n\nIn its resolution \"The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey\" on 22 June 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned that \"recent developments in Turkey pertaining to freedom of the media and of expression, erosion of the rule of law and the human rights violations in relation to anti-terrorism security operations in south-east Turkey have (...) raised serious questions about the functioning of its democratic institutions.\" \n\nLaw\n\nTurkey has a legal system which has been wholly integrated with the system of continental Europe. For instance, the Turkish Civil Law has been modified by incorporating elements mainly of the Swiss Civil Code, the Code of Obligations and the German Commercial Code. The Administrative Law bears similarities with its French counterpart, and the Penal Code with its Italian counterpart.\n\nTurkey has adopted the principle of the separation of powers. In line with this principle, judicial power is exercised by independent courts on behalf of the Turkish nation. The independence and organization of the courts, the security of the tenure of judges and public prosecutors, the profession of judges and prosecutors, the supervision of judges and public prosecutors, the military courts and their organization, and the powers and duties of the high courts are regulated by the Turkish Constitution.\n\nAccording to Article 142 of the Turkish Constitution, the organization, duties and jurisdiction of the courts, their functions and the trial procedures are regulated by law. In line with the aforementioned article of the Turkish Constitution and related laws, the court system in Turkey can be classified under three main categories; which are the Judicial Courts, Administrative Courts and Military Courts. Each category includes first instance courts and high courts. In addition, the Court of Jurisdictional Disputes rules on cases that cannot be classified readily as falling within the purview of one court system.\n\nLaw enforcement in Turkey is carried out by several departments (such as the General Directorate of Security and Gendarmerie General Command) and agencies, all acting under the command of the Prime Minister of Turkey or mostly the Minister of Internal Affairs. According to figures released by the Justice Ministry, there are 100,000 people in Turkish prisons as of November 2008, a doubling since 2000. \n\nIn the years of government by the AKP and Tayyip Erdoğan, particularly since 2013, the independence and integrity of the Turkish judiciary has increasingly been considered in doubt by institutions, parliamentarians and journalists both within and outside of Turkey; due to political interference in the promotion of judges and prosecutors, and in their pursuit of public duty. The Turkey 2015 report of the European Commission stated that \"the independence of the judiciary and respect of the principle of separation of powers have been undermined and judges and prosecutors have been under strong political pressure.\"\n\nForeign relations\n\nTurkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992), the D-8 (1997) and the G-20 major economies (1999). Turkey was a member of the United Nations Security Council in 1951–1952, 1954–1955, 1961 and 2009–2010. In September 2013, Turkey became a member of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD).\n\nIn line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the European Union) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and has been in formal accession negotiations with the EU since 2005. Today, EU membership is considered as a state policy and a strategic target by Turkey. Turkey's support for Northern Cyprus in the Cyprus dispute complicates Turkey's relations with the EU and remains a major stumbling block to the country's EU accession bid. \n\nThe other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign policy was the country's long-standing strategic alliance with the United States. The common threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War led to Turkey's membership of NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington. Subsequently Turkey benefited from the United States' political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the country's bid to join the European Union. In the post–Cold War environment, Turkey's geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans.\n\nThe independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia, thus enabling the completion of a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline forms part of Turkey's foreign policy strategy to become an energy conduit to the West. However Turkey's border with Armenia, a state in the Caucasus, was closed by Turkey in support of Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh War and remains closed. \n\nUnder the AKP government, Turkey's influence has grown in the formerly Ottoman territories of the Middle East and the Balkans, based on the \"strategic depth\" doctrine (a terminology that was coined by Ahmet Davutoğlu for defining Turkey's increased engagement in regional foreign policy issues), also called Neo-Ottomanism. Following the Arab Spring in December 2010, the choices made by the AKP government for supporting certain political opposition groups in the affected countries have led to tensions with some Arab states, such as Turkey's neighbour Syria since the start of the Syrian civil war, and Egypt after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi. , Turkey doesn't have an ambassador in Syria and Egypt. Diplomatic relations with Israel were also severed after the Gaza flotilla raid in 2010, but were normalized following a deal in June 2016. These political rifts have left Turkey with few allies in the East Mediterranean, where rich natural gas fields have recently been discovered; in sharp contrast with the original goals that were set by the former Foreign Minister (later Prime Minister) Ahmet Davutoğlu in his \"zero problems with neighbours\" foreign policy doctrine. In 2015, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar formed a \"strategic alliance\" against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. \n\nTurkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in Northern Cyprus, though their presence is controversial, and assists Iraqi Kurdistan with security. Turkey has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United States stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001. Since 2003, Turkey contributes military personnel to Eurocorps and takes part in the EU Battlegroups. \n\nMilitary\n\nThe Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions. \n\nThe Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the President and is responsible to the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to the Parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the Parliament.\n\nTurkey has the second largest standing military force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with an estimated strength of 495,000 deployable forces, according to a 2011 NATO estimate. Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO. \n\nEvery fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a period ranging from three weeks to a year, dependent on education and job location. Turkey does not recognise conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service. \n\nGeography\n\nTurkey is a transcontinental Eurasian country. Asian Turkey, which includes 97 percent of the country, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles. European Turkey comprises 3 percent of the country.\nThe territory of Turkey is more than long and 800 km wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. It lies between latitudes 35° and 43° N, and longitudes 25° and 45° E. Turkey's land area, including lakes, occupies , of which are in Southwest Asia and in Europe. Turkey is the world's 37th-largest country in terms of area. The country is encircled by seas on three sides: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest.\n\nThe European section of Turkey, East Thrace (the easternmost region of the Balkan peninsula), forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country is comprised mostly by the peninsula of Anatolia, which consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, between the Köroğlu and Pontic mountain ranges to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey, located within the western plateau of the Armenian Highlands, has a more mountainous landscape and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras, and contains Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at , and Lake Van, the largest lake in the country. Southeastern Turkey is located within the northern plains of Upper Mesopotamia.\n\nTurkey is divided into seven geographical regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and the Mediterranean. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately one-sixth of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward. \n\nTurkey's varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the fault lines running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. The North Anatolian Fault Line runs across the north of the country from west to east, along which major earthquakes took place in history. The latest of those big earthquakes was the 1999 İzmit earthquake.\n\nBiodiversity\n\nTurkey's extraordinary ecosystem and habitat diversity has produced considerable species diversity. Anatolia is the homeland of many plants that have been cultivated for food since the advent of agriculture, and the wild ancestors of many plants that now provide staples for humankind still grow in Turkey. The diversity of Turkey's fauna is even greater than that of its flora. The number of animal species in the whole of Europe is around 60,000, while in Turkey there are over 80,000 (over 100,000 counting the subspecies).\n\nThe Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests is an ecoregion which covers most of the Pontic Mountains in northern Turkey, while the Caucasus mixed forests extend across the eastern end of the range. The region is home to Eurasian wildlife such as the Eurasian sparrowhawk, golden eagle, eastern imperial eagle, lesser spotted eagle, Caucasian black grouse, red-fronted serin, and wallcreeper. The narrow coastal strip between the Pontic Mountains and the Black Sea is home to the Euxine-Colchic deciduous forests, which contain some of the world's few temperate rainforests. The Turkish pine is mostly found in Turkey and other east Mediterranean countries. Several wild species of tulip are native to Anatolia, and the flower was first introduced to Western Europe with species taken from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. \n\nThere are 40 national parks, 189 nature parks, 31 nature preserve areas, 80 wildlife protection areas and 109 nature monuments in Turkey such as Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, Mount Nemrut National Park, Ancient Troya National Park, Ölüdeniz Nature Park and Polonezköy Nature Park.\n\nAnkara, the capital of Turkey, is renowned for the Angora cat, Angora rabbit and Angora goat. Another national cat breed of Turkey is the Van cat. The national dog breeds are the Anatolian Shepherd, Kangal, Malaklı and Akbaş.\n\nThe last confirmed death of an Anatolian leopard, closely related to the Persian (Caucasian) leopard and native to the western regions of Anatolia, took place in the Bağözü village of the Beypazarı district in Ankara Province on 17 January 1974. The Persian (Caucasian) leopard is still found in very small numbers in the northeastern and southeastern regions of Turkey.Can, O. E. (2004). Status, conservation and management of large carnivores in Turkey. Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. Standing Committee, 24th meeting, 29 November-3 December 2004, Strasbourg. The Caspian tiger is an extinct tiger subspecies (closely related to the Siberian tiger) which lived in the easternmost regions of Turkey until the latter half of the 20th century, with the last confirmed death in Uludere, February 1970. The Eurasian lynx and the European wildcat are other felid species which are currently found in the forests of Turkey.\n\nClimate\n\nThe coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters. The coastal areas bordering the Black Sea have a temperate oceanic climate with warm, wet summers and cool to cold, wet winters. The Turkish Black Sea coast receives the greatest amount of precipitation and is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year. The eastern part of that coast averages 2200 mm annually which is the highest precipitation in the country.\n\nThe coastal areas bordering the Sea of Marmara, which connects the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea, have a transitional climate between a temperate Mediterranean climate and a temperate oceanic climate with warm to hot, moderately dry summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Snow falls on the coastal areas of the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea almost every winter, but usually melts in no more than a few days. However snow is rare in the coastal areas of the Aegean Sea and very rare in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nMountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the central Anatolian plateau of the interior of Turkey a continental climate with sharply contrasting seasons.\n\nWinters on the eastern part of the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of can occur in eastern Anatolia. Snow may remain at least 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures often above 30 °C (86 °F) in the day. Annual precipitation averages about 400 millimetres (15 in), with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall is often less than 300 millimetres (12 in). May is generally the wettest month, whereas July and August are the driest.\n\nEconomy\n\nTurkey has the world's 17th largest GDP by PPP and 18th largest nominal GDP. The country is among the founding members of the OECD and the G-20 major economies.\n\nThe EU – Turkey Customs Union in 1995 led to an extensive liberalization of tariff rates, and forms one of the most important pillars of Turkey's foreign trade policy. Turkey's exports were $143.5 billion in 2011 and reached $163 billion in 2012 (main export partners in 2012: Germany 8.6%, Iraq 7.1%, Iran 6.5%, UK 5.7%, UAE 5.4%). However, larger imports which amounted to $229 billion in 2012 threatened the balance of trade (main import partners in 2012: Russia 11.3%, Germany 9%, China 9%, US 6%, Italy 5.6%).\n\nTurkey has a sizeable automotive industry, which produced over a million motor vehicles in 2012, ranking as the 17th largest producer in the world. Turkish shipbuilding exports were worth US$1.2 billion in 2011. The major export markets are Malta, Marshall Islands, Panama and the United Kingdom. Turkish shipyards have 15 floating docks of different sizes and one dry dock. Tuzla, Yalova, and İzmit have developed into dynamic shipbuilding centres. In 2011, there were 70 active shipyards in Turkey, with another 56 being built. Turkish shipyards are highly regarded both for the production of chemical and oil tankers up to 10,000 dwt and also for their mega yachts. \n\nTurkish brands like Beko and Vestel are among the largest producers of consumer electronics and home appliances in Europe, and invest a substantial amount of funds for research and development in new technologies related to these fields. \n\nOther key sectors of the Turkish economy are banking, construction, home appliances, electronics, textiles, oil refining, petrochemical products, food, mining, iron and steel, and machine industry. In 2010, the agricultural sector accounted for 9 percent of GDP, while the industrial sector accounted for 26 percent and the services sector for 65 percent. However, agriculture still accounted for a quarter of employment. In 2004, it was estimated that 46 percent of total disposable income was received by the top 20 percent of income earners, while the lowest 20 percent received only 6 percent. The rate of female employment in Turkey was 30 percent in 2012, the lowest among all OECD countries. \n\nForeign direct investment (FDI) was $8.3 billion in 2012, a figure expected to rise to $15 billion in 2013. In 2012, Fitch Group upgraded Turkey's credit rating to investment grade after an 18-year gap; this was followed by a ratings upgrade by Moody's in May 2013, as the service lifted Turkey's government bond ratings to the lowest investment grade Baa3. \n\nHistory\n\nIn the early decades of the Turkish Republic, the government (or banks established and owned by the government, such as Türkiye İş Bankası (1924), Sanayi ve Maadin Bankası (1925), Emlak ve Eytam Bankası (1926), Central Bank of Turkey (1930), Sümerbank (1933), İller Bankası (1933), Etibank (1935), Denizbank (1937), Halk Bankası (1938), etc.) had to subsidize most of the industrial projects, due to the lack of a strong private sector. However, in the period between the 1920s and 1950s, a new generation of Turkish entrepreneurs such as Nuri Demirağ, Vehbi Koç, Hacı Ömer Sabancı and Nejat Eczacıbaşı began to establish privately owned factories, some of which evolved into the largest industrial conglomerates that dominate the Turkish economy today, such as Koç Holding, Sabancı Holding and Eczacıbaşı Holding.\n\nDuring the first six decades of the republic, between 1923 and 1983, Turkey generally adhered to a quasi-statist approach with strict government planning of the budget and government-imposed limitations over foreign trade, flow of foreign currency, foreign direct investment and private sector participation in certain fields (such as broadcasting, telecommunications, energy, mining, etc.). However, in 1983, Prime Minister Turgut Özal initiated a series of reforms designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market-based model. \n\nThe reforms, combined with unprecedented amounts of funding from foreign loans, spurred rapid economic growth; but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year), and 2001; resulting in an average of 4 percent GDP growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. Lack of additional fiscal reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak banking sector and increased macroeconomic volatility. Since the economic crisis of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Derviş, inflation has dropped to single-digit figures for the first time in decades (8% in 2005), investor confidence and foreign investment have soared, and unemployment has fallen (10% in 2005). \n\nTurkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatization of publicly owned industries, and the liberalization of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate. The public debt-to-GDP ratio peaked at 75.9 percent during the recession of 2001, falling to an estimated 26.9 percent by 2013.\n\nThe real GDP growth rate from 2002 to 2007 averaged 6.8 percent annually, which made Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world during that period. However, growth slowed to 1 percent in 2008, and in 2009 the Turkish economy was affected by the global financial crisis, with a recession of 5 percent. The economy was estimated to have returned to 8 percent growth in 2010. According to Eurostat data, Turkish GDP per capita adjusted by purchasing power standard stood at 52 percent of the EU average in 2011. \n\nIn the early years of the 21st century, the chronically high inflation was brought under control; this led to the launch of a new currency, the Turkish new lira (Yeni Türk Lirası) in 2005, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. In 2009, after only four years in circulation, the Turkish new lira was renamed back to the Turkish lira with the introduction of new banknotes and coins (and the withdrawal of the Turkish new lira banknotes and coins that were introduced in 2005), but the ISO 4217 code of the Turkish new lira (TRY) remains in use for the current Turkish lira in the foreign exchange market.\n\nTourism\n\nTourism in Turkey has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2013, 37.8 million foreign visitors arrived in Turkey, which ranked as the 6th most popular tourism destination in the world; they contributed $27.9 billion to Turkey's revenues. In 2012, 15 percent of the tourists were from Germany, 11 percent from Russia, 8 percent from the United Kingdom, 5 percent from Bulgaria, 4 percent each from Georgia, the Netherlands and Iran, 3 percent from France, 2 percent each from the United States and Syria, and 40 percent from other countries.\n\nTurkey has 13 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as the \"Historic Areas of Istanbul\", the \"Rock Sites of Cappadocia\", the \"Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük\", \"Hattusa: the Hittite Capital\", the \"Archaeological Site of Troy\", \"Pergamon and its Multi-Layered Cultural Landscape\", \"Hierapolis – Pamukkale\", and \"Mount Nemrut\"; and 51 World Heritage Sites in tentative list, such as the archaeological sites or historic urban centers of Göbekli Tepe, Gordion, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Perga, Lycia, Sagalassos, Aizanoi, Zeugma, Ani, Harran, Mardin, Konya and Alanya.\n\nTurkey hosts two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus and the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.\n\nInfrastructure\n\nIn 2013 there were 98 airports in Turkey, including 22 international airports. , Istanbul Atatürk Airport is the 11th busiest airport in the world, serving 31,833,324 passengers between January and July 2014, according to Airports Council International. The new (third) international airport of Istanbul is planned to be the largest airport in the world, with a capacity to serve 150 million passengers per annum. Turkish Airlines, flag carrier of Turkey since 1933, was selected by Skytrax as Europe's best airline for five consecutive years in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. With 435 destinations (51 domestic and 384 international) in 126 countries worldwide, Turkish Airlines is the largest carrier in the world by number of countries served . \n\n, the country has a roadway network of . The total length of the rail network was 10,991 km in 2008, including of electrified and 457 km of high-speed track. The Turkish State Railways started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The Ankara-Konya line became operational in 2011 while the Ankara-Istanbul line entered service in 2014.\n\nIn 2008, 7555 km of natural gas pipelines and 3636 km of petroleum pipelines spanned the country's territory. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the second longest oil pipeline in the world, was inaugurated on 10 May 2005. The Blue Stream, a major trans-Black Sea gas pipeline, delivers natural gas from Russia to Turkey. New undersea pipeline, with an annual capacity around 63 billion cubic metres (bcm), will allow Turkey to resell Russian gas to Europe. \n\nIn 2013, the energy consumption was 240 billion kilowatt hours. As Turkey imported 72 percent of its energy in 2013, the government decided to invest in nuclear power to reduce imports. Three nuclear power stations are to be built by 2023. Turkey has the fifth highest direct utilization and capacity of geothermal power in the world. Turkey is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme. \n\nTurkey's first nuclear power plants are planned to be built in Mersin's Akkuyu district on the Mediterranean coast; in Sinop's İnceburun district on the Black Sea coast; and in Kırklareli's İğneada district on the Black Sea coast. Turkey has the fifth highest direct utilization and capacity of geothermal power in the world. Turkey is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which has four key topics: enhancing energy security, convergence of member state energy markets on the basis of EU internal energy market principles, supporting sustainable energy development, and attracting investment for energy projects of common and regional interest.\n\nTurkey's internet, which has 35 million active users, holds a 'Partly Free' ranking in Freedom House's index.\n\nWater supply and sanitation in Turkey is characterized by achievements and challenges. Over the \npast decades access to drinking water has become almost universal and \naccess to adequate sanitation has also increased substantially. \nAutonomous utilities have been created in the 16 metropolitan cities\nof Turkey and cost recovery has been increased, thus providing the \nbasis for the sustainability of service provision. Intermittent supply, \nwhich was common in many cities, has become less frequent. In 2004, 61% \nof the wastewater collected through sewers was being treated.\n\nRemaining challenges include the need to further increase wastewater treatment, to reduce the high level of non-revenue water\nhovering around 50% and to expand access to adequate sanitation in \nrural areas. The investment required to comply with EU standards in the \nsector, especially in wastewater treatment, is estimated to be in the \norder of Euro 2 billion per year, more than double the current level of \ninvestment. \n\nScience and technology\n\nTÜBİTAK is the leading agency for developing science, technology and innovation policies in Turkey. TÜBA is an autonomous scholarly society acting to promote scientific activities in Turkey. TAEK is the official nuclear energy institution of Turkey. Its objectives include academic research in nuclear energy, and the development and implementation of peaceful nuclear tools. \n\nTurkish government companies for research and development in military technologies include Turkish Aerospace Industries, Aselsan, Havelsan, Roketsan, MKE, among others. Turkish Satellite Assembly, Integration and Test Center (UMET) is a spacecraft production and testing facility owned by the Ministry of National Defence and operated by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI). The Turkish Space Launch System (UFS) is a project to develop the satellite launch capability of Turkey. It consists of the construction of a spaceport, the development of satellite launch vehicles as well as the establishment of remote earth stations. \n\nIn 2015, Aziz Sancar, a Turkish professor at the University of North Carolina, won the Nobel Chemistry Prize along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich, for their work on how cells repair damaged DNA. \n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to the Address-Based Population Recording System of Turkey, the country's population was 74.7 million people in 2011, nearly three-quarters of whom lived in towns and cities. According to the 2011 estimate, the population is increasing by 1.35 percent each year. Turkey has an average population density of 97 people per km². People within the 15–64 age group constitute 67.4 percent of the total population; the 0–14 age group corresponds to 25.3 percent; while senior citizens aged 65 years or older make up 7.3 percent. In 1927, when the first official census was recorded in the Republic of Turkey, the population was 13.6 million. The largest city in Turkey, Istanbul, is also the largest city in Europe in population, and the third-largest city in Europe in terms of size. \n\nArticle 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a \"Turk\" as \"anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship\"; therefore, the legal use of the term \"Turkish\" as a citizen of Turkey is different from the ethnic definition. However, the majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity. They are estimated at 70–75 percent. Reliable data on the ethnic mix of the population is not available, because Turkish census figures do not include statistics on ethnicity. The three \"Non-Muslim\" minority groups claimed to be officially recognized in the Treaty of Lausanne are Armenians, Greeks and Jews. Officially unrecognized (mostly Muslim) ethnic groups include Albanians, Arabs, Assyrians, Azeris, Bosniaks, Circassians, Georgians, Lazs, Persians, Pomaks (Bulgarians), Yazidis and Roma. The Kurds, a distinct ethnic group, are the largest non-Turkic ethnicity, around 18–25 percent of the population. Kurds are concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, in what is also known as Turkish Kurdistan. Kurds make up a majority in the provinces of Tunceli, Bingöl, Muş, Ağrı, Iğdır, Elâzığ, Diyarbakır, Batman, Şırnak, Bitlis, Van, Mardin, Siirt and Hakkari, a near majority in Şanlıurfa province (47%), and a large minority in Kars province (20%). In addition, due to internal migration, Kurdish communities exist in all major cities in central and western Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, where there are an estimated 3 million Kurds, making Istanbul the city with the largest Kurdish population in the world. Minorities besides the Kurds are thought to make up an estimated 7–12 percent of the population. Minorities other than the three officially recognized ones do not have any minority rights. The term \"minority\" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, while the Turkish government is frequently criticized for its treatment of minorities. Although minorities are not recognised, state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) broadcasts television and radio programs in minority languages. Also, some minority language classes can be chosen in elementary schools.\n\nAn estimated 2.5 percent of the population are international migrants. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, including 2.2 million Syrian refugees, as of September 2015. \n\nThe country's official language is Turkish, which is spoken by 85.54 percent of the population as mother tongue. 11.97 percent of the population speaks the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish as mother tongue. Arabic and Zaza are the mother tongues of 2.39 percent of the population, and several other languages are the mother tongues of smaller parts of the population. Endangered languages in Turkey include Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyge, Cappadocian Greek, Gagauz, Hértevin, Homshetsma, Kabard-Cherkes, Ladino (Judesmo), Laz, Mlahso, Pontic Greek, Romani, Suret, Turoyo, Ubykh, and Western Armenian. \n\nReligion\n\nTurkey is a secular state with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience. The role of religion has been a controversial debate over the years since the formation of Islamist parties. For many decades, the wearing of the hijab was banned in schools and government buildings because it was viewed as a symbol of political Islam. However, the ban was lifted from universities in 2011, from government buildings in 2013, and from schools in 2014.\n\nIslam\n\nIslam is the dominant religion of Turkey with 99.8 percent of the population being registered as Muslim (although some sources give a slightly lower estimate of 96.4 percent) with the most popular sect being the Hanafite school of Sunni Islam. The highest Islamic religious authority is the Presidency of Religious Affairs (); it interprets the Hanafi school of law, and is responsible for regulating the operation of the country's 80,000 registered mosques and employing local and provincial imams. Academics suggest the Alevi population may be from 15 to 20 million while the Alevi-Bektaşi Federation claims that there are around 25 million and according to Aksiyon magazine, the number of Shiite Twelvers (excluding Alevis) is 3 million (4.2 percent). There are also some Sufi Muslims. Roughly 2 percent are non-denominational Muslims.\n\nThe percentage of non-Muslims in Turkey fell from 19 percent in 1914 to 2.5 percent in 1927, due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the Armenian Genocide, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the emigration of non-Muslims (such as Levantines, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, etc.) to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) that actually began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially during World War I and after the Turkish War of Independence. The Wealth Tax on non-Muslims in 1942, the emigration of a portion of Turkish Jews to Israel after 1948, and the ongoing Cyprus dispute which damaged the relations between Turks and Greeks (culminating in the Istanbul pogrom of 6–7 September 1955) were other important events that contributed to the decline of Turkey's non-Muslim population.\n\nChristianity\n\nToday there are more than 120,000 people of different Christian denominations, representing less than 0.2 percent of Turkey's population, including an estimated 80,000 Oriental Orthodox, 35,000 Roman Catholics, 18,000 Antiochian Greeks, 5,000 Greek Orthodox and smaller numbers of Protestants. Currently there are 236 churches open for worship in Turkey. The Eastern Orthodox Church has been headquartered in Istanbul since the 4th century. \n\nJudaism\n\nThere are about 26,000 people who are Jewish, the vast majority of whom are Sephardi. There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BC and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century, twenty centuries later. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern-day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population.\n\nAgnosticism and atheism\n\nAccording to a 2010 Eurobarometer poll 94% of Turks believed in God while only 1% did not. This indicates that 5% of the population are agnostic with another 1% being explicitly atheist. However, according to another poll by KONDA the percentage of atheism is 2.9%. \n\nEducation\n\nThe Ministry of National Education is responsible for pre-tertiary education. This is compulsory and lasts twelve years: four years each of primary school, middle school and high school. Less than half of 25- to 34-year-old Turks have completed at least high school, compared with an OECD average of over 80 percent. Basic education in Turkey is considered to lag behind other OECD countries, with significant differences between high and low performers. Turkey is ranked 32nd out of 34 in the OECD's PISA study. Access to high-quality school heavily depends on the performance in the secondary school entrance exams, to the point that some students begin taking private tutoring classes when they are 10 years old. The overall adult literacy rate in 2011 was 94.1 percent; 97.9 percent for males and 90.3 percent for females.\n\nBy 2011, there were 166 universities in Turkey. Entry to higher education depends on the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS). In 2008, the quota of admitted students was 600,000, compared to 1,700,000 who took the ÖSS exam in 2007. Except for the Open Education Faculty (Turkish: Açıköğretim Fakültesi) at Anadolu University, entrance is regulated by the national ÖSS examination, after which high school graduates are assigned to universities according to their performance. According to the 2012–2013 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the top university in Turkey is Middle East Technical University (in the 201–225 rank range), followed by Bilkent University and Koç University (both in the 226–250 range), Istanbul Technical University and Boğaziçi University (in the 276–300 bracket).\n\nHealthcare\n\nHealth care in Turkey used to be dominated by a centralized state system run by the Ministry of Health. In 2003, the government introduced a sweeping health reform programme aimed at increasing the ratio of private to state health provision and making healthcare available to a larger share of the population. Turkish Statistical Institute announced that 76.3 billion TL was spent for healthcare in 2012; 79.6 percent of which was covered by the Social Security Institution and 15.4 percent of which was paid directly by the patients. In 2012, there were 29,960 medical institutions in Turkey, and on average one doctor per 583 people and 2.65 beds per 1000 people.\n\nLife expectancy () was 71.1 years for men and 75.3 for women, with an overall average of 73.2. \n\nCulture\n\nTurkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic, Anatolian, Ottoman (which was itself a continuation of both Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures) and Western culture and traditions, which started with the Westernisation of the Ottoman Empire and still continues today. This mix originally began as a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West. Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be a \"modern\" Western state, while maintaining traditional religious and historical values. \n\nArts\n\nTurkish painting, in the Western sense, developed actively starting from the mid 19th century. The very first painting lessons were scheduled at what is now the Istanbul Technical University (then the Imperial Military Engineering School) in 1793, mostly for technical purposes. In the late 19th century, human figure in the western sense was being established in Turkish painting, especially with Osman Hamdi Bey. Impressionism, among the contemporary trends, appeared later on with Halil Paşa. The young Turkish artists sent to Europe in 1926 came back inspired by contemporary trends such as Fauvism, Cubism and even Expressionism, still very influential in Europe. The later \"Group D\" of artists led by Abidin Dino, Cemal Tollu, Fikret Mualla, Fahrünnisa Zeid, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Adnan Çoker and Burhan Doğançay introduced some trends that had lasted in the West for more than three decades. Other important movements in Turkish painting were the \"Yeniler Grubu\" (The Newcomers Group) of the late 1930s; the \"On'lar Grubu\" (Group of Ten) of the 1940s; the \"Yeni Dal Grubu\" (New Branch Group) of the 1950s; and the \"Siyah Kalem Grubu\" (Black Pen Group) of the 1960s.\n\nTurkish music and literature are examples of a mix of cultural influences. Interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe contributed to a blend of Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music and literary arts. Turkish literature was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic literature during most of the Ottoman era. The Tanzimat reforms introduced previously unknown Western genres, primarily the novel and the short story. Many of the writers in the Tanzimat period wrote in several genres simultaneously: for instance, the poet Nâmık Kemal also wrote the important 1876 novel İntibâh (Awakening), while the journalist Şinasi is noted for writing, in 1860, the first modern Turkish play, the one-act comedy \"Şair Evlenmesi\" (The Poet's Marriage). Most of the roots of modern Turkish literature were formed between the years 1896 and 1923. Broadly, there were three primary literary movements during this period: the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde (New Literature) movement; the Fecr-i Âtî (Dawn of the Future) movement; and the Millî Edebiyyât (National Literature) movement. The first radical step of innovation in 20th century Turkish poetry was taken by Nâzım Hikmet, who introduced the free verse style. Another revolution in Turkish poetry came about in 1941 with the Garip Movement. The mix of cultural influences in Turkey is dramatized, for example, in the form of the \"new symbols of the clash and interlacing of cultures\" enacted in the novels of Orhan Pamuk, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. \n\nTurkey has a diverse folkloric dance culture. Hora is performed in East Thrace; Zeybek in the Aegean Region, Southern Marmara and East-Central Anatolia Region; Teke in the Western Mediterranean Region; Kaşık Oyunları and Karşılama in West-Central Anatolia, Western Black Sea Region, Southern Marmara Region and Eastern Mediterranean Region; Horon in the Central and Eastern Black Sea Region; Halay in Eastern Anatolia and the Central Anatolia Region; and Bar and Lezginka in the Northeastern Anatolia Region.\n\nArchitecture\n\nThe architecture of the Seljuk Turks combined the elements and characteristics of the Turkic architecture of Central Asia with those of Persian, Arab, Armenian and Byzantine architecture. The transition from Seljuk architecture to Ottoman architecture is most visible in Bursa, which was the capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1413. Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, Ottoman architecture was significantly influenced by Byzantine architecture. Topkapı Palace in Istanbul is one of the most famous examples of classical Ottoman architecture and was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years. Mimar Sinan (c.1489–1588) was the most important architect of the classical period in Ottoman architecture. He was the chief architect of at least 374 buildings which were constructed in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. \n\nSince the 18th century, Turkish architecture has been increasingly influenced by European styles, and this can be particularly seen in the Tanzimat era buildings of Istanbul like the Dolmabahçe, Çırağan, Feriye, Beylerbeyi, Küçüksu, Ihlamur and Yıldız palaces, which were all designed by members of the Balyan family of Ottoman court architects. The Ottoman era waterfront houses (yalı) on the Bosphorus also reflect the fusion between classical Ottoman and European architectural styles during the aforementioned period. The First National Architectural Movement (Birinci Ulusal Mimarlık Akımı) in the early 20th century sought to create a new architecture, which was based on motifs from Seljuk and Ottoman architecture. The movement was also labelled Turkish Neoclassical or the National Architectural Renaissance. The leading architects of this movement were Vedat Tek (1873–1942), Mimar Kemaleddin Bey (1870–1927), Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu (1888–1982) and Giulio Mongeri (1873–1953). Notable buildings from this era are the Grand Post Office in Istanbul (1905–1909), Tayyare Apartments (1919–1922), Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han (1911–1926), State Art and Sculpture Museum (1927–1930), Ethnography Museum of Ankara (1925–1928), the first Ziraat Bank headquarters in Ankara (1925–1929), the first Türkiye İş Bankası headquarters in Ankara (1926–1929), Bebek Mosque, and Kamer Hatun Mosque. \n\nSports\n\nThe most popular sport in Turkey is association football (soccer). Galatasaray won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup in 2000. The Turkish national football team finished 3rd and won the bronze medal at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and at the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup; while also reaching the semi-finals (finishing 3rd by goals difference) at the UEFA Euro 2008.\n\nOther mainstream sports such as basketball and volleyball are also popular. The Turkish men's national basketball team finished 2nd and won the silver medal at the 2010 FIBA World Championship and at EuroBasket 2001, which were both hosted by Turkey. They also won two gold medals (1987 and 2013), one silver medal (1971) and three bronze medals (1967, 1983 and 2009) at the Mediterranean Games. Turkish basketball club Anadolu Efes S.K. won the 1995–96 FIBA Korać Cup, finished 2nd at the 1992–93 FIBA Saporta Cup, and made it to the Final Four of Euroleague and Suproleague in 2000 and 2001, finishing 3rd on both occasions. Another Turkish basketball club, Beşiktaş, won the 2011–12 FIBA EuroChallenge. Galatasaray won the 2015–16 Eurocup, while in the same season, Fenerbahçe finished second in the 2015–16 Euroleague. The Final of the 2013–14 EuroLeague Women basketball championship was played between two Turkish teams, Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe, and won by Galatasaray.\n\nThe Turkish women's national volleyball team won the silver medal at the 2003 European Championship, the bronze medal at the 2011 European Championship, and the bronze medal at the 2012 FIVB World Grand Prix. They also won a gold medal (2005), six silver medals (1987, 1991, 1997, 2001, 2009, 2013) and a bronze medal (1993) at the Mediterranean Games. Women's volleyball clubs in Turkey, namely Fenerbahçe, Eczacıbaşı and Vakıfbank, have won numerous European championship titles and medals. Fenerbahçe won the 2010 FIVB Women's Club World Championship and the 2012 CEV Women's Champions League. Representing Europe as the winner of the 2012–13 CEV Women's Champions League, Vakıfbank also became the world champion by winning the 2013 FIVB Women's Club World Championship.\n\nThe traditional Turkish national sport has been yağlı güreş (oiled wrestling) since Ottoman times. Edirne has hosted the annual Kırkpınar oiled wrestling tournament since 1361. International wrestling styles governed by FILA such as Freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling are also popular, with many European, World and Olympic championship titles won by Turkish wrestlers both individually and as a national team. \n\nCuisine\n\nTurkish cuisine is regarded as one of the most prominent in the world, its popularity is largely owed to the cultural influences of the Ottoman Empire and partly because of its major tourism industry. It is largely the heritage of Ottoman cuisine, which can be described as a fusion and refinement of Central Asian, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Balkan cuisines. \n\nThe country's position between the East and the Mediterranean Sea helped the Turks gain complete control of major trade routes, and an ideal environment allowed plants and animals to flourish. Turkish cuisine was well established by the mid-1400s, the beginning of the Ottoman Empire's six hundred-year reign. Yogurt salads, fish in olive oil, and stuffed and wrapped vegetables became Turkish staples. The empire, eventually spanning from Austria to northern Africa, used its land and water routes to import exotic ingredients from all over the world. By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman court housed over 1,400 live-in cooks and passed laws regulating the freshness of food. Since the fall of the empire in World War I (1914–1918) and the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, foreign food such as French hollandaise sauce and western fast food have made their way into the modern Turkish diet.\n\nMedia\n\nHundreds of television channels, thousands of local and national radio stations, several dozen newspapers, a productive and profitable national cinema and a rapid growth of broadband internet use all make up a very vibrant media industry in Turkey. In 2003 a total of 257 television stations and 1,100 radio stations were licensed to operate, and others operated without licenses. Of those licensed, 16 television and 36 radio stations reached national audiences.[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Turkey.pdf Turkey country profile]. Library of Congress Federal Research Division (January 2006). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. The majority of the audiences are shared among public broadcaster TRT and the network-style channels such as Kanal D, Show TV, ATV and Star TV. The broadcast media have a very high penetration as satellite dishes and cable systems are widely available. The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) is the government body overseeing the broadcast media. By circulation, the most popular daily newspapers are Zaman, Posta, Hürriyet, Sözcü, Sabah and Habertürk. Turkish television dramas are increasingly becoming popular beyond Turkey's borders and are among the country's most vital exports, both in terms of profit and public relations. Freedom House lists Turkey's media as \"partly free\".",
"The country in which a motor vehicle's vehicle registration plate was issued is indicated by an international licence plate country code, formerly known as an International Registration Letter or International Circulation Mark, displayed in bold block uppercase on a small white oval plate or sticker near the number plate on the rear of a vehicle.\nThis is different from the way vehicles belonging to the diplomats of foreign countries with license plate from the host country are marked. That standard is host country specific and varies largely from country to country. For example TR on a diplomatic car in US indicates Italian, not Turkish. Such markings in Norway are indicated with numbers only, again different from international standards (90 means Slovakian -not Turkish as international telephone codes would mean-).\n\nThe allocation of codes is maintained by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe as the Distinguishing Signs Used on Vehicles in International Traffic (sometimes abbreviated to DSIT), authorised by the UN's Geneva Convention on Road Traffic of 1949 and the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic of 1968. Many vehicle codes created since the adoption of ISO 3166 coincide with ISO two- or three-letter codes.\n\nThe 2004 South-East Asian Agreement ... for the Facilitation of Cross-Border Transport of Goods and People uses a mixture of ISO and DSIT codes: Myanmar uses MYA, China CHN, and Cambodia KH (ISO codes), Thailand uses T (DSIT code), Laos LAO, and Vietnam VN (coincident ISO and DSIT codes). \n\nIn the European Economic Area, vehicles from one member state do not need to display the oval while within another state, provided the number plate is in the common EU standard format introduced in the 1990s, which includes the international vehicle registration code on the plate. \n\nCurrent codes\n\nNote: an asterisk (*) indicates that this code is unofficial (does not appear in the UN list of distinguishing codes).\n\nCodes no longer in use",
"Turkish car number plates are license plates found on Turkish vehicles. The plates use an indirect numbering system associated with the geographical info. In Turkey, license plates are made by authorized private workshops.\n\nAppearance \n\nThe license plate is rectangular in shape and made of aluminum. On the left, there is the country code \"TR\" in a 4×10 cm blue stripe like in EU countries (without the 12 golden stars). The text is in black characters on white background, and for official vehicles white on black. On all vehicles two plates have to be present, being one in front and the other in rear except motorcycles and tractors. The serial letters use the Turkish letters except Ç, Ş, İ, Ö, Ü and Ğ.\n\nThe blue stripe\n\nThe blue stripe was introduced after the entry of Turkey to the European Customs Union in 1995, in accordance to compliance to EU laws. Since then, the blue stripe area is often modified by car owners (even by some parliament members like Devlet Bahçeli). The predominant modification of this sorts is to replace the blue color with red and put up the crescent and the star of the Turkish flag. This type of modification is in the grey area of the law, for it does not clearly specify which color is to be used in the stripe.\n\nAdditionally, vehicle inspection stickers are often stuck on this area.\n\nSize\n\n*15×24 cm in rear only for motorbikes, motorcycles and tractors with rubber wheels,\n*11×52 cm in front and rear for cars, 21×32 cm rear available for off-roadss, vans, trucks and busses. The size is 15×30 cm for imported vehicles if the regular plate does not fit.\n\nNumbering system \n\nThe text format on the plates is one of the following:\n*\"99 X 9999\", \"99 X 99999\"\n*\"99 XX 999\", \"99 XX 9999\" or\n*\"99 XXX 99\",\n\nIn some provinces, numbering is categorized in groups for tax collecting offices of different districts, for example Dolmuş in Ankara have plates of the form \"06 J 9999\" and a(ny) vehicle from Polatlı, Ankara has plates of the form '06 Pxx 99', \"06 ET XXXX\" from Etimesgut district. On the other hand, a Dolmuş in Eskişehir has a plate of the form \"26 M 9999\".\n\n99 - two digits prefix denoting the location, shows the province code number of the main residence of car holder. There are 81 provinces as listed below:\n\nX/XX/XXX – one, two or three letters.\n\n9999/999/99 – four, three or two digits, depending on the number of letters before, not exceeding six letters and digits altogether.\n\nTypes\n\nLocation codes \n\nFirst two digits indicating the province code:\n\nAs it can also be inferred from the table, province names until code 67 go alphabetically —with the exception of Mersin, Kahramanmaraş and Şanlıurfa provinces for their previous names taken in account were İçel, Maraş and Urfa, respectively. The ones after the original 67 provinces are newer additions. Therefore, these province names go chronologically."
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Who wrote The Turn Of The Screw in the 19th century and The Ambassadors in the 20th?
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tc_138
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Turn of the Screw, originally published in 1898, is a gothic ghost story novella written by Henry James.\n\nDue to its original content, the novella became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, others have argued that the true brilliance of the novella comes with its ability to create an intimate confusion and suspense for the reader.\n\nPlot\n\nAn unnamed narrator listens to Douglas, a friend, read a manuscript written by a former governess whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is uninterested in raising the children himself.\n\nThe boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living at a summer country house in Essex. She is currently being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The governess' new employer, Miles and Flora's uncle, gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer's country house, Bly, and begins her duties.\n\nMiles soon returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears there is some horrible secret behind the expulsion but is too charmed by the adorable young boy to want to press the issue. Soon thereafter, the governess begins to see around the grounds of the estate the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had had a sexual relationship. Prior to their deaths, Jessel and Quint spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact has grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the ghosts' presence.\n\nLater, without permission, Flora leaves the house while Miles is playing music for the governess. The governess notices Flora's absence and goes with Mrs. Grose in search of her. They find her in a clearing in the wood, and the governess is convinced that Flora has been talking to the ghost of Miss Jessel. When the governess finally confronts Flora, the girl denies seeing Miss Jessel and demands never to see the governess again. At the governess' suggestion Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles, who that night at last talks to her about his expulsion; the ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells Miles he is no longer controlled by the ghost and then finds that Miles has died in her arms, and the ghost has gone.\n\nMajor themes\n\nThroughout his career James was attracted to the ghost story genre. However, he was not fond of literature's stereotypical ghosts, the old-fashioned \"screamers\" and \"slashers\". Rather, he preferred to create ghosts that were eerie extensions of everyday reality—\"the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy\", as he put it in the New York Edition preface to his final ghost story, \"The Jolly Corner\".\n\nThe Turn of the Screw is no exception to this formula. In fact, some have wondered if he didn't intend the \"strange and sinister\" to be embroidered only on the governess's mind and not on objective reality. The result has been a longstanding critical dispute about the reality of the ghosts and the sanity of the governess. Beyond the dispute, critics have closely examined James's narrative technique for the story. The framing introduction and subsequent first-person narrative by the governess have been studied by theorists of fiction interested in the power of fictional narratives to convince or even manipulate readers.\n\nThe imagery of The Turn of the Screw is reminiscent of the Gothic fiction genre. The emphasis on old and mysterious buildings throughout the novella reinforces this motif. James also relates the amount of light present in various scenes to the strength of the supernatural or ghostly forces apparently at work. The governess refers directly to The Mysteries of Udolpho and indirectly to Jane Eyre, evoking a comparison of the governess not only to Jane Eyres protagonist, but to Bertha, the madwoman confined in Thornfield. \n\nLiterary significance and criticism\n\nThe dispute over the ghosts' reality has had a real effect on some critics, most notably Edmund Wilson, one of the first major proponents of the insane governess theory. Wilson eventually recanted his opinion after considering the governess's point-by-point description of Quint. Then John Silver pointed out hints in the story that the governess might have gained previous knowledge of Quint's appearance in non-supernatural ways. This induced Wilson to recant his recantation and return to his original opinion that the governess was delusional and that the ghosts existed only in her imagination.\n\nWilliam Veeder sees Miles's eventual death as induced by the governess. In a complex psychoanalytic reading, Veeder concludes that the governess expressed her repressed rage toward her father and toward the master of Bly on Miles.\n\nOther critics, however, have strongly defended the governess. They note that James's letters, his New York Edition preface, and his Notebooks contain no definite evidence that The Turn of the Screw was intended as anything other than a straightforward ghost story, and James certainly wrote ghost stories that did not depend on the narrator's imagination. For example, “Owen Wingrave″ includes a ghost that causes its title character's sudden death, although no one actually sees it. James's Notebooks entry indicates that he was inspired originally by a tale he heard from Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are indications that the story James was told was about an incident in Hinton Ampner, wherein in 1771 a woman named Mary Ricketts moved from her home after seeing the apparitions of a man and a woman, day and night, staring through the windows, bending over the beds, and making her feel her children were in danger. \n\nPerhaps the critical perspective that best captures James's own thinking and methods, given the work's notably rococo style, which incessantly qualifies statements and counters any attempt at straightforward exposition, is that of Brad Leithauser: All such attempts to 'solve' the book, however admiringly tendered, unwittingly work toward its diminution[; its] profoundest pleasure lies in the beautifully fussed over way in which James refuses to come down on either side... the book becomes a modest monument to the bold pursuit of ambiguity. According to Leithauser, we are meant to entertain both the proposition that the governess is mad and the proposition that the ghosts really do exist, and consider the dreadful implications of each.\n\nJames revised the novella substantially over the years. In The Collier's Weekly Version of The Turn of the Screw, Peter G. Beidler presents the tale in its original serial form and presents a detailed analysis of the changes James made over the years. Among many other changes, James changed the children's ages. \n\nPoet and literary critic Craig Raine, in his essay \"Sex in nineteenth-century literature\", states quite categorically his belief that Victorian readers would have identified the two ghosts as child molesters. \n\nAdaptations and reworkings\n\nThe Turn of the Screw has been the subject of numerous adaptations and reworkings in a variety of media, and these reworkings and adaptations have, themselves, been analysed in the academic literature on Henry James and neo-Victorian culture. It was adapted to an opera by Benjamin Britten, which premiered in 1954, and the opera has been filmed on numerous occasions. The novella was adapted as a ballet score (1980) by Luigi Zaninelli, and separately as a ballet (1999) by Will Tucket for the Royal Ballet. Harold Pinter directed The Innocents (1950), a Broadway play which was an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, and a subsequent eponymous stage play, adapted by Rebecca Lenkiewicz was presented in a co-production with Hammer at the Almeida Theatre, London, in January 2013. A new musical theater adaptation of the story had its world premiere in the Washington DC area in February 2015. \n\nThere have been numerous film adaptations of the novel. The critically acclaimed The Innocents (1961), directed by Jack Clayton, and Michael Winner's prequel The Nightcomers (1972) are two particularly notable examples. Other feature film adaptations include Rusty Lemorande's 1992 eponymous adaptation (set in the 1960s); Eloy de la Iglesia's Spanish-language Otra vuelta de tuerca (The Turn of the Screw, 1985); Presence of Mind (1999), directed by Atoni Aloy; and In a Dark Place (2006), directed by Donato Rotunno. The Others (2001) is not an adaptation but has some themes in common with James's novella. \n\nTelevision films have included a 1959 American adaptation as part of Ford Startime directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Ingrid Bergman; the West German Die sündigen Engel (The Sinful Angel, 1962), a 1974 adaptation directed by Dan Curtis, adapted by William F. Nolan; a French adaptation entitled Le Tour d'écrou (The Turn of the Screw, 1974); a Mexican miniseries entitled Otra vuelta de tuerca (The Turn of the Screw, 1981); a 1982 adaptation directed by Petr Weigl primarily starring Czech actors lip-synching; a 1990 adaptation directed by Graeme Clifford; The Haunting of Helen Walker (1995), directed by Tom McLoughlin; a 1999 adaptation directed by Ben Bolt; a low-budget 2003 version written and directed by Nick Millard; the Italian-language Il mistero del lago (The Mystery of the Lake, 2009); and a 2009 BBC film adapted by Sandy Welch.\n\nLiterary reworkings of The Turn of the Screw identified by James scholar Adeline R. Tintner include The Secret Garden (1911), by Frances Hodgson Burnett; \"Poor Girl\" (1951), by Elizabeth Taylor; The Peacock Spring (1975), by Rumer Godden; Ghost Story (1975) by Peter Straub; \"The Accursed Inhabitants of House Bly\" (1994) by Joyce Carol Oates; and Miles and Flora (1997)—a sequel—by Hilary Bailey. Further literary adaptations identified by other authors include Affinity (1999), by Sarah Waters; A Jealous Ghost (2005), by A. N. Wilson; and Florence & Giles (2010), by John Harding.\nIn December 1968, the ABC daytime drama Dark Shadows featured a storyline based on The Turn of the Screw. In the story, the ghosts of Quentin Collins and Beth Chavez haunted the west wing of Collinwood, possessing the two children living in the mansion. The story led to a year-long story in the year 1897, as Barnabas Collins traveled back in time to prevent Quentin's death and stop the possession. Despite his beginnings as a malevolent spirit, Quentin became a very popular character on the show.\n\nRecent young adult novels inspired by The Turn of the Screw include The Turning (2012) by Francine Prose and Tighter (2011) by Adele Griffin.\n\nThe Turn of the Screw is occasionally alluded to in the Star Trek universe. Star Trek: The Next Generations 7th-season episodes \"Sub Rosa\" is a loose science fiction adaptation of the story, centered around Doctor Beverly Crusher's encounter with a supposed ghost, and featuring minor characters named Quint and Jessel. In two early episodes of Star Trek: Voyager (\"Learning Curve\" and \"Persistence of Vision\"), Captain Kathryn Janeway is briefly seen on the holodeck acting out scenes from an untitled gothic novel which seems to be an amalgam of The Turn of the Screw and Jane Eyre."
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Which American nuclear submarine was the first to sail across the North Pole under the ice cap?
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tc_139
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term most commonly refers to a large, crewed, autonomous vessel. It is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub. Used as an adjective in phrases such as submarine cable, submarine means \"under the sea\". The noun submarine evolved as a shortened form of submarine boat (and is often further shortened to sub). For reasons of naval tradition, submarines are usually referred to as \"boats\" rather than as \"ships\", regardless of their size.\n\nAlthough experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. Submarines were first widely used during World War I (1914–1918), and now figure in many navies large and small. Military usage includes attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military), submarines, aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile submarines as part of a nuclear strike force, reconnaissance, conventional land attack (for example using a cruise missile), and covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage, exploration and facility inspection and maintenance. Submarines can also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are also used in tourism, and for undersea archaeology.\n\nMost large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical (or conical) ends and a vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the \"sail\" in American usage, and \"fin\" in European usage. A \"conning tower\" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller (or pump jet) at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins. Smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines change the amount of water and air in their ballast tanks to decrease buoyancy for submerging or increase it for surfacing.\n\nSubmarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. They range from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person vessels that operate for a few hours, to vessels that can remain submerged for six months—such as the Russian , the biggest submarines ever built. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or practical for human divers. Modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly Modern era\n\nEarly submersibles\n\nAccording to a report in Opusculum Taisnieri published in 1562:\n\nThe first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was built in 1620 by Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England. It was created to the standards of the design outlined by English mathematician William Bourne. It was propelled by means of oars. The precise nature of the submarine type is a matter of some controversy; some claims suggest it was merely a bell towed by a boat.\n\nLate modern era\n\n18th century submarines\n\nBy the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft. A mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. By this point of development, further improvement in design necessarily stagnated for over a century, until new industrial technologies for propulsion and stability could be applied. \n\nThe first military submarine was the Turtle (1775), a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person. It was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion. \n\n19th century submarines\n\nIn 1800, France built a human-powered submarine designed by American Robert Fulton, the . The French eventually gave up on the experiment in 1804, as did the British when they later considered Fulton's submarine design.\n\nIn 1864, late in the American Civil War, the Confederate navy's became the first military submarine to sink an enemy vessel, the Union sloop-of-war . In the aftermath of its successful attack against the ship, the Hunley also sank, possibly because it was too close to its own exploding torpedo.\n\nIn 1866, the first submarine that successfully dived, made a controlled underwater cruise and emerged to the surface again all by its own was the Sub Marine Explorer of the German American Julius H. Kroehl (in German, Kröhl), which incorporated many technologies that are still essential to modern submarines. \n\nMechanical power\n\nThe first submarine not relying on human power for propulsion was the French (Diver), launched in 1863, which used compressed air at 180 psi (1241 kPa). There are also claims that Cosme García Sáez produced a viable submersible design in the same epoch.\n\nThe first air–independent and combustion–powered submarine was Ictineo II, designed by the Catalan intellectual, artist and engineer Narcís Monturiol. Launched in Barcelona in 1864, it was originally human-powered, but in 1867 Monturiol invented an air–independent engine to power it underwater. The 14 m long craft was designed for a crew of two, performed dives of 30 m and remained underwater for two hours. Both Ictineo I and Ictineo II were double-hulled vessels that solved pressure and buoyancy control problems that had troubled and limited the functionality of earlier submarines.\n\nThe submarine became a potentially viable weapon with the development of the Whitehead torpedo, the first practical self-propelled or 'locomotive' torpedo. The spar torpedo that had been developed earlier by the Confederate navy was considered to be impracticable, as it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably , the submarine that deployed it. The Whitehead torpedo was designed in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead. His 'mine ship' was an 11 ft long, 14 in diameter torpedo propelled by compressed air, carrying an explosive warhead. The device had a speed of 7 kn and it could hit a target 700 yd away. \n\nDiscussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was Nordenfelt I, a 56-tonne, vessel similar to Garret's ill-fated Resurgam (1879), with a range of 240 km, armed with a single torpedo, in 1885.\n\nLike Resurgam, Nordenfelt I operated on the surface by steam, then shut down its engine to dive. While submerged the submarine released pressure generated when the engine was running on the surface to provide propulsion for some distance underwater. Greece, fearful of the return of the Ottomans, purchased it. Nordenfelt then built Nordenfelt II () in 1886 and Nordenfelt III (Abdül Mecid) in 1887, a pair of 30 m submarines with twin torpedo tubes, for the Ottoman navy. Abdül Hamid became the first submarine in history to fire a torpedo submerged. Nordenfelt's efforts culminated in 1887 with Nordenfelt IV, which had twin motors and twin torpedoes. It was sold to the Russians, but proved unstable, ran aground, and was scrapped.\n\nA reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery technology. The first electrically powered boats were built by James Franklin Waddington in England, Dupuy de Lôme and Gustave Zédé in France, and Isaac Peral in Spain. \n\nWaddington's Porpoise was similar in size to Resurgam and its propulsion system consisted of 45 accumulator cells with a capacity of 660 ampere hours each. These were coupled in series to a motor driving a propeller at about 750 rpm, giving the ship a sustained speed of 8 mph for at least 8 hours. The boat was armed with two externally mounted torpedoes as well as a mine torpedo that could be detonated electrically. Although the boat performed well at trials, Waddington was unable to attract further contracts and went bankrupt. \n\nThe Spanish Peral was launched in 1888, and had three 14 in Schwarzkopf torpedoes and one torpedo tube in the bow, new air systems, hull shape, propeller, and cruciform external controls anticipating later designs. Peral was an all-electrical powered submarine. After two years of trials the project was scrapped by naval officials who cited, among other reasons, concerns over its limited range.\n\nThe submarine Gymnote was launched by the French Navy in the same year. Gymnote was also an electrically powered and fully functional military submarine. It completed over 2,000 successful dives using a 204-cell battery. Although the Gymnote project was terminated due to the vessel's limited range, its side hydroplanes became the standard for future submarine designs.\n\n20th century submarines\n\nSubmarines were not put into service for any widespread or routine use by navies until the early 1900s. This era marked a pivotal time in submarine development, and several important technologies appeared. A number of nations built and used submarines. Diesel electric propulsion became the dominant power system and equipment such as the periscope became standardized. Countries conducted many experiments on effective tactics and weapons for submarines, which led to their large impact in World War I.\n\nThe Irish inventor John Philip Holland built a model submarine in 1876 and a full-scale version in 1878, followed by a number of unsuccessful ones. In 1896 he designed the Holland Type VI submarine, which used internal combustion engine power on the surface and electric battery power underwater. Launched on 17 May 1897 at Navy Lt. Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the Holland VI was purchased by the United States Navy on 11 April 1900, becoming the Navy's first commissioned submarine, christened . \n\nCommissioned in June 1900, the French steam and electric Narval employed the now typical double-hull design, with a pressure hull inside the outer shell. These 200-ton ships had a range of over 100 miles (160 km) underwater. The French submarine Aigrette in 1904 further improved the concept by using a diesel rather than a gasoline engine for surface power. Large numbers of these submarines were built, with seventy-six completed before 1914.\n\nThe Royal Navy commissioned five Holland-class submarines from Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, under licence from the Holland Torpedo Boat Company from 1901 to 1903. Construction of the boats took longer than anticipated, with the first only ready for a diving trial at sea on 6 April 1902. Although the design had been purchased entire from the US company, the actual design used was an untested improvement to the original Holland design using a new 180 hp petrol engine. \n\nThese types of submarines were first used during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Due to the blockade at Port Arthur, the Russians sent their submarines to Vladivostok, where by 1 January 1905 there were seven boats, enough to create the world's first \"operational submarine fleet\". The new submarine fleet began patrols on 14 February, usually lasting for about 24 hours each. The first confrontation with Japanese warships occurred on 29 April 1905 when the Russian submarine Som was fired upon by Japanese torpedo boats, but then withdrew. \n\nWorld War I\n\nMilitary submarines first made a significant impact in World War I. Forces such as the U-boats of Germany saw action in the First Battle of the Atlantic, and were responsible for sinking , which was sunk as a result of unrestricted submarine warfare and is often cited among the reasons for the entry of the United States into the war. \n\nAt the outbreak of war Germany had only 20 submarines immediately available for combat, although these included vessels of the diesel-engined U-19 class with the range (5,000 miles) and speed (eight knots) to operate effectively around the entire British coast. By contrast the Royal Navy had a total of 74 submarines, though of mixed effectiveness. In August 1914, a flotilla of ten U-boats sailed from their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea in the first submarine war patrol in history. \n\nThe U-boats' ability to function as practical war machines relied on new tactics, their numbers, and submarine technologies such as combination diesel-electric power system developed in the preceding years. More submersibles than true submarines, U-boats operated primarily on the surface using regular engines, submerging occasionally to attack under battery power. They were roughly triangular in cross-section, with a distinct keel to control rolling while surfaced, and a distinct bow. During World War I more than 5,000 Allied ships were sunk by U-boats. \n\nWorld War II\n\nDuring World War II, Germany used submarines to devastating effect in the Battle of the Atlantic, where it attempted to cut Britain's supply routes by sinking more merchant ships than Britain could replace. (Shipping was vital to supply Britain's population with food, industry with raw material, and armed forces with fuel and armaments.) While U-boats destroyed a significant number of ships, the strategy ultimately failed. Although the U-boats had been updated in the interwar years, the major innovation was improved communications, encrypted using the famous Enigma cipher machine. This allowed for mass-attack naval tactics (Rudeltaktik, commonly known as \"wolfpack\"), but was also ultimately the U-boats' downfall. By the end of the war, almost 3,000 Allied ships (175 warships, 2,825 merchantmen) had been sunk by U-boats. \n\nThe Imperial Japanese Navy operated the most varied fleet of submarines of any navy, including Kaiten crewed torpedoes, midget submarines ( and es), medium-range submarines, purpose-built supply submarines and long-range fleet submarines. They also had submarines with the highest submerged speeds during World War II (s) and submarines that could carry multiple aircraft (s). They were also equipped with one of the most advanced torpedoes of the conflict, the oxygen-propelled Type 95. Nevertheless, despite their technical prowess, Japan chose to utilize its submarines for fleet warfare, and consequently were relatively unsuccessful, as warships were fast, maneuverable and well-defended compared to merchant ships.\n\nThe submarine force was the most effective anti-ship weapon in the American arsenal. Submarines, though only about 2 percent of the U.S. Navy, destroyed over 30 percent of the Japanese Navy, including 8 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship and 11 cruisers. US submarines also destroyed over 60 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet, crippling Japan's ability to supply its military forces and industrial war effort. Allied submarines in the Pacific War destroyed more Japanese shipping than all other weapons combined. This feat was considerably aided by the Imperial Japanese Navy's failure to provide adequate escort forces for the nation's merchant fleet.\n\nDuring World War II, 314 submarines served in the US Navy, of which nearly 260 were deployed to the Pacific. When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in December 1941, 111 boats were in commission; 203 submarines from the , , and es were commissioned during the war. During the war, 52 US submarines were lost to all causes, with 48 directly due to hostilities. US submarines sank 1,560 enemy vessels, a total tonnage of 5.3 million tons (55% of the total sunk). \n\nThe Royal Navy Submarine Service was used primarily in the classic Axis blockade. Its major operating areas were around Norway, in the Mediterranean (against the Axis supply routes to North Africa), and in the Far East. In that war, British submarines sank 2 million tons of enemy shipping and 57 major warships, the latter including 35 submarines. Among these is the only documented instance of a submarine sinking another submarine while both were submerged. This occurred when engaged the ; the Venturer crew manually computed a successful firing solution against a three-dimensionally maneuvering target using techniques which became the basis of modern torpedo computer targeting systems. Seventy-four British submarines were lost, the majority, 42, in the Mediterranean.\n\nCold-War military models\n\nThe first launch of a cruise missile (SSM-N-8 Regulus) from a submarine occurred in July 1953, from the deck of , a World War II fleet boat modified to carry the missile with a nuclear warhead. Tunny and its sister boat, , were the United States' first nuclear deterrent patrol submarines. In the 1950s, nuclear power partially replaced diesel-electric propulsion. Equipment was also developed to extract oxygen from sea water. These two innovations gave submarines the ability to remain submerged for weeks or months. Most of the naval submarines built since that time in the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France have been powered by nuclear reactors.\n\nIn 1959–1960, the first ballistic missile submarines were put into service by both the United States () and the Soviet Union () as part of the Cold War nuclear deterrent strategy.\n\nDuring the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union maintained large submarine fleets that engaged in cat-and-mouse games. The Soviet Union lost at least four submarines during this period: was lost in 1968 (a part of which the CIA retrieved from the ocean floor with the Howard Hughes-designed ship Glomar Explorer), in 1970, in 1986, and in 1989 (which held a depth record among military submarines—1000 m). Many other Soviet subs, such as (the first Soviet nuclear submarine, and the first Soviet sub to reach the North Pole) were badly damaged by fire or radiation leaks. The US lost two nuclear submarines during this time: due to equipment failure during a test dive while at its operational limit, and due to unknown causes.\n\nDuring the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Pakistan Navy's sank the Indian frigate . This was the first sinking by a submarine since World War II. During the same war, the , a on loan to Pakistan from the US, was sunk. It was the first submarine combat loss since World War II. In 1982 during the Falklands War, the Argentine cruiser was sunk by the British submarine , the first sinking by a nuclear-powered submarine in war.\n\n21st century submarines\n\nUsage\n\nMilitary\n\nBefore and during World War II, the primary role of the submarine was anti-surface ship warfare. Submarines would attack either on the surface, using deck guns or submerged, using torpedoes. They were particularly effective in sinking Allied transatlantic shipping in both World Wars, and in disrupting Japanese supply routes and naval operations in the Pacific in World War II.\n\nMine-laying submarines were developed in the early part of the 20th century. The facility was used in both World Wars. Submarines were also used for inserting and removing covert agents and military forces, for intelligence gathering, and to rescue aircrew during air attacks on islands, where the airmen would be told of safe places to crash-land so the submarines could rescue them. Submarines could carry cargo through hostile waters or act as supply vessels for other submarines.\n\nSubmarines could usually locate and attack other submarines only on the surface, although managed to sink with a four torpedo spread while both were submerged. The British developed a specialized anti-submarine submarine in WWI, the R class. After WWII, with the development of the homing torpedo, better sonar systems, and nuclear propulsion, submarines also became able to hunt each other effectively.\n\nThe development of submarine-launched ballistic missile and submarine-launched cruise missiles gave submarines a substantial and long-ranged ability to attack both land and sea targets with a variety of weapons ranging from cluster bombs to nuclear weapons.\n\nThe primary defense of a submarine lies in its ability to remain concealed in the depths of the ocean. Early submarines could be detected by the sound they made. Water is an excellent conductor of sound (much better than air), and submarines can detect and track comparatively noisy surface ships from long distances. Modern submarines are built with an emphasis on stealth. Advanced propeller designs, extensive sound-reducing insulation, and special machinery help a submarine remain as quiet as ambient ocean noise, making them difficult to detect. It takes specialized technology to find and attack modern submarines.\n\nActive sonar uses the reflection of sound emitted from the search equipment to detect submarines. It has been used since WWII by surface ships, submarines and aircraft (via dropped buoys and helicopter \"dipping\" arrays), but it reveals the emitter's position, and is susceptible to counter-measures.\n\nA concealed military submarine is a real threat, and because of its stealth, can force an enemy navy to waste resources searching large areas of ocean and protecting ships against attack. This advantage was vividly demonstrated in the 1982 Falklands War when the British nuclear-powered submarine sank the Argentine cruiser . After the sinking the Argentine Navy recognized that they had no effective defense against submarine attack, and the Argentine surface fleet withdrew to port for the remainder of the war, though an Argentine submarine remained at sea.\n\nCivilian\n\nAlthough the majority of the world's submarines are military, there are some civilian submarines, which are used for tourism, exploration, oil and gas platform inspections, and pipeline surveys. Some are also used in illegal activities.\n\nThe Submarine Voyage ride opened at Disneyland in 1959, but although it ran under water it was not a true submarine, as it ran on tracks and was open to the atmosphere. The first tourist submarine was , which went in to service in 1964 at Expo64. By 1997 there were 45 tourist submarines operating around the world. Submarines with a crush depth in the range of 400 - are operated in several areas worldwide, typically with bottom depths around 100 to, with a carrying capacity of 50 to 100 passengers.\n\nIn a typical operation a surface vessel carries passengers to an offshore operating area and loads them into the submarine. The submarine then visits underwater points of interest such as natural or artificial reef structures. To surface safely without danger of collision the location of the submarine is marked with an air release and movement to the surface is coordinated by an observer in a support craft.\n\nA recent development is the deployment of so-called narco submarines by South American drug smugglers to evade law enforcement detection. Although they occasionally deploy true submarines, most are self-propelled semi-submersibles, where a portion of the craft remains above water at all times. In September 2011, Colombian authorities seized a 16-meter-long submersible that could hold a crew of 5, costing about $2 million. The vessel belonged to FARC rebels and had the capacity to carry at least 7 tonnes of drugs. \n\nPolar operations\n\n* 1903 – Simon Lake submarine Protector surfaced through ice off Newport, Rhode Island. \n* 1930 – operated under ice near Spitsbergen.\n* 1937 – Soviet submarine Krasnogvardeyets operated under ice in the Denmark Strait.\n* 1941–45 – German U-boats operated under ice from the Barents Sea to the Laptev Sea.\n* 1946 – used upward-beamed fathometer in Operation Nanook in the Davis Strait.\n* 1946–47 – used under-ice sonar in Operation High Jump in the Antarctic.\n* 1947 – used upward-beamed echo sounder under pack ice in the Chukchi Sea.\n* 1948 – developed techniques for making vertical ascents and descents through polynyas in the Chukchi Sea.\n* 1952 – used an expanded upward-beamed sounder array in the Beaufort Sea.\n* 1957 – reached 87 degrees north near Spitsbergen.\n* 3 August 1958 – Nautilus used an inertial navigation system to reach the North Pole.\n* 17 March 1959 – surfaced through the ice at the north pole.\n* 1960 – transited 900 mi under ice over the shallow (125 to deep) Bering-Chukchi shelf.\n* 1960 – transited the Northwest Passage under ice.\n* 1962 – Soviet reached the north pole.\n* 1970 – carried out an extensive undersea mapping survey of the Siberian continental shelf. \n* 1971 – reached the North Pole.\n* conducted three Polar Exercises: 1976 (with US actor Charlton Heston aboard); 1984 joint operations with ; and 1990 joint exercises with . \n* 6 May 1986 – , and meet and surface together at the Geographic North Pole. First multi-submarine surfacing at the Pole.\n* 19 May 1987 – joined and at the North Pole. The first British and American meeting at the North Pole.\n* March 2007 – participated in the Joint US Navy/Royal Navy Ice Exercise 2007 (ICEX-2007) in the Arctic Ocean with the .\n* March 2009 – took part in Ice Exercise 2009 to test submarine operability and war-fighting capability in Arctic conditions.\n\nTechnology\n\nSubmersion and trimming\n\nAll surface ships, as well as surfaced submarines, are in a positively buoyant condition, weighing less than the volume of water they would displace if fully submerged. To submerge hydrostatically, a ship must have negative buoyancy, either by increasing its own weight or decreasing its displacement of water. To control their displacement, submarines have ballast tanks, which can hold varying amounts of water and air.\n\nFor general submersion or surfacing, submarines use the forward and aft tanks, called Main Ballast Tanks (MBT), which are filled with water to submerge or with air to surface. Submerged, MBTs generally remain flooded, which simplifies their design, and on many submarines these tanks are a section of interhull space. For more precise and quick control of depth, submarines use smaller Depth Control Tanks (DCT) – also called hard tanks (due to their ability to withstand higher pressure), or trim tanks. The amount of water in depth control tanks can be controlled to change depth or to maintain a constant depth as outside conditions (chiefly water density) change. Depth control tanks may be located either near the submarine's center of gravity, or separated along the submarine body to prevent affecting trim.\n\nWhen submerged, the water pressure on a submarine's hull can reach 4 MPa for steel submarines and up to 10 MPa for titanium submarines like , while interior pressure remains relatively unchanged. This difference results in hull compression, which decreases displacement. Water density also marginally increases with depth, as the salinity and pressure are higher. This change in density incompletely compensates for hull compression, so buoyancy decreases as depth increases. A submerged submarine is in an unstable equilibrium, having a tendency to either sink or float to the surface. Keeping a constant depth requires continual operation of either the depth control tanks or control surfaces. \n\nSubmarines in a neutral buoyancy condition are not intrinsically trim-stable. To maintain desired trim, submarines use forward and aft trim tanks. Pumps can move water between the tanks, changing weight distribution and pointing the sub up or down. A similar system is sometimes used to maintain stability.\n\nThe hydrostatic effect of variable ballast tanks is not the only way to control the submarine underwater. Hydrodynamic maneuvering is done by several surfaces, which can be moved to create hydrodynamic forces when a submarine moves at sufficient speed. The stern planes, located near the propeller and normally horizontal, serve the same purpose as the trim tanks, controlling the trim, and are commonly used, while other control surfaces may not be present on all submarines. The fairwater planes on the sail and/or bow planes on the main body, both also horizontal, are closer to the center of gravity, and are used to control depth with less effect on the trim. \n\nWhen a submarine performs an emergency surfacing, all depth and trim methods are used simultaneously, together with propelling the boat upwards. Such surfacing is very quick, so the sub may even partially jump out of the water, potentially damaging submarine systems.\n\nHull\n\nOverview\n\nModern submarines are cigar-shaped. This design, visible in early submarines is sometimes called a \"teardrop hull\". It reduces the hydrodynamic drag when submerged, but decreases the sea-keeping capabilities and increases drag while surfaced. Since the limitations of the propulsion systems of early submarines forced them to operate surfaced most of the time, their hull designs were a compromise. Because of the slow submerged speeds of those subs, usually well below 10 kt (18 km/h), the increased drag for underwater travel was acceptable. Late in World War II, when technology allowed faster and longer submerged operation and increased aircraft surveillance forced submarines to stay submerged, hull designs became teardrop shaped again to reduce drag and noise. On modern military submarines the outer hull is covered with a layer of sound-absorbing rubber, or anechoic plating, to reduce detection.\n\nThe occupied pressure hulls of deep diving submarines such as are spherical instead of cylindrical. This allows a more even distribution of stress at the great depth. A titanium frame is usually affixed to the pressure hull, providing attachment for ballast and trim systems, scientific instrumentation, battery packs, syntactic flotation foam, and lighting.\n\nA raised tower on top of a submarine accommodates the periscope and electronics masts, which can include radio, radar, electronic warfare, and other systems including the snorkel mast. In many early classes of submarines (see history), the control room, or \"conn\", was located inside this tower, which was known as the \"conning tower\". Since then, the conn has been located within the hull of the submarine, and the tower is now called the \"sail\". The conn is distinct from the \"bridge\", a small open platform in the top of the sail, used for observation during surface operation.\n\n\"Bathtubs\" are related to conning towers but are used on smaller submarines. The bathtub is a metal cylinder surrounding the hatch that prevents waves from breaking directly into the cabin. It is needed because surfaced submarines have limited freeboard, that is, they lie low in the water. Bathtubs help prevent swamping the vessel.\n\nSingle and double hulls \n\nModern submarines and submersibles, as well as the oldest ones, usually have a single hull. Large submarines generally have an additional hull or hull sections outside. This external hull, which actually forms the shape of submarine, is called the outer hull (casing in the Royal Navy) or light hull, as it does not have to withstand a pressure difference. Inside the outer hull there is a strong hull, or pressure hull, which withstands sea pressure and has normal atmospheric pressure inside.\n\nAs early as World War I, it was realized that the optimal shape for withstanding pressure conflicted with the optimal shape for seakeeping and minimal drag, and construction difficulties further complicated the problem. This was solved either by a compromise shape, or by using two hulls; internal for holding pressure, and external for optimal shape. Until the end of World War II, most submarines had an additional partial cover on the top, bow and stern, built of thinner metal, which was flooded when submerged. Germany went further with the Type XXI, a general predecessor of modern submarines, in which the pressure hull was fully enclosed inside the light hull, but optimized for submerged navigation, unlike earlier designs that were optimized for surface operation.\n\nAfter World War II, approaches split. The Soviet Union changed its designs, basing them on German developments. All post–World War II heavy Soviet and Russian submarines are built with a double hull structure. American and most other Western submarines switched to a primarily single-hull approach. They still have light hull sections in the bow and stern, which house main ballast tanks and provide a hydrodynamically optimized shape, but the main cylindrical hull section has only a single plating layer. Double hulls are being considered for future submarines in the United States to improve payload capacity, stealth and range. \n\nPressure hull\n\nThe pressure hull is generally constructed of thick high-strength steel with a complex structure and high strength reserve, and is separated with watertight bulkheads into several compartments. There are also examples of more than two hulls in a submarine, like the , which has two main pressure hulls and three smaller ones for control room, torpedoes and steering gear, with the missile launch system between the main hulls.\n\nThe dive depth cannot be increased easily. Simply making the hull thicker increases the weight and requires reduction of onboard equipment weight, ultimately resulting in a bathyscaphe. This is acceptable for civilian research submersibles, but not military submarines.\n\nWWI submarines had hulls of carbon steel, with a 100 m maximum depth. During WWII, high-strength alloyed steel was introduced, allowing 200 m depths. High-strength alloy steel remains the primary material for submarines today, with 250 - depths, which cannot be exceeded on a military submarine without design compromises. To exceed that limit, a few submarines were built with titanium hulls. Titanium can be stronger than steel, lighter, and is not ferromagnetic, important for stealth. Titanium submarines were built by the Soviet Union, which developed specialized high-strength alloys. It has produced several types of titanium submarines. Titanium alloys allow a major increase in depth, but other systems must be redesigned to cope, so test depth was limited to 1000 m for the , the deepest-diving combat submarine. An may have successfully operated at 1300 m, though continuous operation at such depths would produce excessive stress on many submarine systems. Titanium does not flex as readily as steel, and may become brittle during many dive cycles. Despite its benefits, the high cost of titanium construction led to the abandonment of titanium submarine construction as the Cold War ended. Deep–diving civilian submarines have used thick acrylic pressure hulls.\n\nThe deepest deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) to date is Trieste. On 5 October 1959, Trieste departed San Diego for Guam aboard the freighter Santa Maria to participate in Project Nekton, a series of very deep dives in the Mariana Trench. On 23 January 1960, Trieste reached the ocean floor in the Challenger Deep (the deepest southern part of the Mariana Trench), carrying Jacques Piccard (son of Auguste) and Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN. This was the first time a vessel, manned or unmanned, had reached the deepest point in the Earth's oceans. The onboard systems indicated a depth of 11521 m, although this was later revised to 10916 m and more accurate measurements made in 1995 have found the Challenger Deep slightly shallower, at 10911 m.\n\nBuilding a pressure hull is difficult, as it must withstand pressures at its required diving depth. When the hull is perfectly round in cross-section, the pressure is evenly distributed, and causes only hull compression. If the shape is not perfect, the hull is bent, with several points heavily strained. Inevitable minor deviations are resisted by stiffener rings, but even a one-inch (25 mm) deviation from roundness results in over 30 percent decrease of maximal hydrostatic load and consequently dive depth. The hull must therefore be constructed with high precision. All hull parts must be welded without defects, and all joints are checked multiple times with different methods, contributing to the high cost of modern submarines. (For example, each attack submarine costs US$2.6 billion, over US$200,000 per ton of displacement.)\n\nPropulsion\n\nThe first submarines were propelled by humans. The first mechanically driven submarine was the 1863 French , which used compressed air for propulsion. Anaerobic propulsion was first employed by the Spanish Ictineo II in 1864, which used a solution of zinc, manganese dioxide, and potassium chlorate to generate sufficient heat to power a steam engine, while also providing oxygen for the crew. A similar system was not employed again until 1940 when the German Navy tested a hydrogen peroxide-based system, the Walter turbine, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the naval and type XVII submarines. \n\nUntil the advent of nuclear marine propulsion, most 20th-century submarines used batteries for running underwater and gasoline (petrol) or diesel engines on the surface, and for battery recharging. Early submarines used gasoline, but this quickly gave way to kerosene (paraffin), then diesel, because of reduced flammability. Diesel-electric became the standard means of propulsion. The diesel or gasoline engine and the electric motor, separated by clutches, were initially on the same shaft driving the propeller. This allowed the engine to drive the electric motor as a generator to recharge the batteries and also propel the submarine. The clutch between the motor and the engine would be disengaged when the submarine dived, so that the motor could drive the propeller. The motor could have multiple armatures on the shaft, which could be electrically coupled in series for slow speed and in parallel for high speed (these connections were called \"group down\" and \"group up\", respectively).\n\nElectric \n\nDiesel-electric \n\nEarly submarines used a direct mechanical connection between the engine and propeller, switching between diesel engines for surface running, and battery-driven electric motors for submerged propulsion.\n\nIn 1928, the United States Navy's Bureau of Engineering proposed a diesel-electric transmission. Instead of driving the propeller directly while running on the surface, the submarine's diesel drove a generator that could either charge the submarine's batteries or drive the electric motor. This made electric motor speed independent of diesel engine speed, so the diesel could run at an optimum and non-critical speed. One or more diesel engines could be shut down for maintenance while the submarine continued to run on the remaining engine or battery power. The US pioneered this concept in 1929, in the S-class submarines , , and . The first production submarines with this system were the Porpoise-class of the 1930s, and it was used on most subsequent US diesel submarines through the 1960s. No other navy adopted the system before 1945, apart from the Royal Navy's U-class submarines, though some submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy used separate diesel generators for low speed running. \n\nOther advantages of such an arrangement were that a submarine could travel slowly with the engines at full power to recharge the batteries quickly, reducing time on the surface or on snorkel. It was then possible to isolate the noisy diesel engines from the pressure hull, making the submarine quieter. Additionally, diesel-electric transmissions were more compact.\n\nDuring World War II the Germans experimented with the idea of the schnorchel (snorkel) from captured Dutch submarines, but didn't see the need for them until rather late in the war. The schnorchel was a retractable pipe that supplied air to the diesel engines while submerged at periscope depth, allowing the boats to cruise and recharge their batteries while maintaining a degree of stealth. It was far from a perfect solution, however. There were problems with the device's valve sticking shut or closing as it dunked in rough weather; since the system used the entire pressure hull as a buffer, the diesels would instantaneously suck huge volumes of air from the boat's compartments, and the crew often suffered painful ear injuries. Speed was limited to 8 kn, lest the device snap from stress. The schnorchel also had the effect of making the boat essentially noisy and deaf in sonar terms. Finally, Allied radar eventually became sufficiently advanced that the schnorchel mast could be detected beyond visual range.\n\nWhile the snorkel renders a submarine far less detectable, it is not perfect. In clear weather, diesel exhaust can be seen on the surface to a distance of about three miles, while 'periscope feather' (the wave created by the snorkel or periscope moving through the water), is visible from far off in calm sea conditions. Modern radar is also capable of detecting a snorkel in calm sea conditions. \n\nThe problem of the diesels causing a vacuum in the submarine when the head valve is submerged still exists in later model diesel submarines, but is mitigated by high-vacuum cut-off sensors that shut down the engines when the vacuum in the ship reaches a pre-set point. Modern snorkel induction masts use a fail-safe design using compressed air, controlled by a simple electrical circuit, to hold the \"head valve\" open against the pull of a powerful spring. Seawater washing over the mast shorts out exposed electrodes on top, breaking the control, and shutting the \"head valve\" while it is submerged.\n\nAir-independent propulsion\n\nDuring World War II, German Type XXI submarines (also known as \"Elektroboote\") were the first submarines designed to operate submerged for extended periods. Initially they were to carry hydrogen peroxide for long-term, fast air-independent propulsion, but were ultimately built with very large batteries instead. At the end of the War, the British and Soviets experimented with hydrogen peroxide/kerosene (paraffin) engines that could run surfaced and submerged. The results were not encouraging. Though the Soviet Union deployed a class of submarines with this engine type (codenamed by NATO), they were considered unsuccessful.\n\nThe United States also used hydrogen peroxide in an experimental midget submarine, X-1. It was originally powered by a hydrogen peroxide/diesel engine and battery system until an explosion of her hydrogen peroxide supply on 20 May 1957. X-1 was later converted to use diesel-electric drive. \n\nToday several navies use air-independent propulsion. Notably Sweden uses Stirling technology on the and s. The Stirling engine is heated by burning diesel fuel with liquid oxygen from cryogenic tanks. A newer development in air-independent propulsion is hydrogen fuel cells, first used on the German Type 212 submarine, with nine 34 kW or two 120 kW cells and soon to be used in the new Spanish s. \n\nNuclear power\n\nSteam power was resurrected in the 1950s with a nuclear-powered steam turbine driving a generator. By eliminating the need for atmospheric oxygen, the time that a submarine could remain submerged was limited only by its food stores, as breathing air was recycled and fresh water distilled from seawater. More importantly, a nuclear submarine has unlimited range at top speed. This allows it to travel from its operating base to the combat zone in a much shorter time and makes it a far more difficult target for most anti-submarine weapons. Nuclear-powered submarines have a relatively small battery and diesel engine/generator powerplant for emergency use if the reactors must be shut down.\n\nNuclear power is now used in all large submarines, but due to the high cost and large size of nuclear reactors, smaller submarines still use diesel-electric propulsion. The ratio of larger to smaller submarines depends on strategic needs. The US Navy, French Navy, and the British Royal Navy operate only nuclear submarines, which is explained by the need for distant operations. Other major operators rely on a mix of nuclear submarines for strategic purposes and diesel-electric submarines for defense. Most fleets have no nuclear submarines, due to the limited availability of nuclear power and submarine technology.\n\nDiesel-electric submarines have a stealth advantage over their nuclear counterparts. Nuclear submarines generate noise from coolant pumps and turbo-machinery needed to operate the reactor, even at low power levels. Some nuclear submarines such as the American can operate with their reactor coolant pumps secured, making them quieter than electric subs. A conventional submarine operating on batteries is almost completely silent, the only noise coming from the shaft bearings, propeller, and flow noise around the hull, all of which stops when the sub hovers in mid-water to listen, leaving only the noise from crew activity. Commercial submarines usually rely only on batteries, since they operate in conjunction with a mother ship.\n\nSeveral serious nuclear and radiation accidents have involved nuclear submarine mishaps. The reactor accident in 1961 resulted in 8 deaths and more than 30 other people were over-exposed to radiation.[http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull413/article1.pdf Strengthening the Safety of Radiation Sources] p. 14 The reactor accident in 1968 resulted in 9 fatalities and 83 other injuries. The accident in 1985 resulted in 10 fatalities and 49 other radiation injuries.\n\nAlternative propulsion\n\nOil-fired steam turbines powered the British K-class submarines, built during World War I and later, to give them the surface speed to keep up with the battle fleet. The K-class subs were not very successful, however.\n\nToward the end of the 20th century, some submarines—such as the British Vanguard class—began to be fitted with pump-jet propulsors instead of propellers. Though these are heavier, more expensive, and less efficient than a propeller, they are significantly quieter, providing an important tactical advantage.\n\nMagnetohydrodynamic drive (MHD) was portrayed as the operating principle behind the titular submarine's nearly silent propulsion system in the film adaptation of The Hunt for Red October. However, in the novel the Red October did not use MHD, but rather something more similar to the above-mentioned pump-jet.\n\nArmament\n\nThe success of the submarine is inextricably linked to the development of the torpedo, invented by Robert Whitehead in 1866. His invention is essentially the same now as it was 140 years ago. Only with self-propelled torpedoes could the submarine make the leap from novelty to a weapon of war. Until the perfection of the guided torpedo, multiple \"straight-running\" torpedoes were required to attack a target. With at most 20 to 25 torpedoes stored on board, the number of attacks was limited. To increase combat endurance most World War I submarines functioned as submersible gunboats, using their deck guns against unarmed targets, and diving to escape and engage enemy warships. The importance of guns encouraged the development of the unsuccessful Submarine Cruiser such as the French and the Royal Navy's and M-class submarines. With the arrival of Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, guns became more for defense than attack. A more practical method of increasing combat endurance was the external torpedo tube, loaded only in port.\n\nThe ability of submarines to approach enemy harbours covertly led to their use as minelayers. Minelaying submarines of World War I and World War II were specially built for that purpose. Modern submarine-laid mines, such as the British Mark 5 Stonefish and Mark 6 Sea Urchin, can be deployed from a submarine's torpedo tubes.\n\nAfter World War II, both the US and the USSR experimented with submarine-launched cruise missiles such as the SSM-N-8 Regulus and P-5 Pyatyorka. Such missiles required the submarine to surface to fire its missiles. They were the forerunners of modern submarine-launched cruise missiles, which can be fired from the torpedo tubes of submerged submarines, for example the US BGM-109 Tomahawk and Russian RPK-2 Viyuga and versions of surface–to–surface anti-ship missiles such as the Exocet and Harpoon, encapsulated for submarine launch. Ballistic missiles can also be fired from a submarine's torpedo tubes, for example missiles such as the anti-submarine SUBROC. With internal volume as limited as ever and the desire to carry heavier warloads, the idea of the external launch tube was revived, usually for encapsulated missiles, with such tubes being placed between the internal pressure and outer streamlined hulls.\n\nThe strategic mission of the SSM-N-8 and the P-5 was taken up by submarine-launched ballistic missile beginning with the US Navy's Polaris missile, and subsequently the Poseidon and Trident missiles.\n\nGermany is working on the torpedo tube-launched short-range IDAS missile, which can be used against ASW helicopters, as well as surface ships and coastal targets.\n\nSensors\n\nA submarine can have a variety of sensors, depending on its missions. Modern military submarines rely almost entirely on a suite of passive and active sonars to locate targets. Active sonar relies on an audible \"ping\" to generate echoes to reveal objects around the submarine. Active systems are rarely used, as doing so reveals the sub's presence. Passive sonar is a set of sensitive hydrophones set into the hull or trailed in a towed array, generally several hundred feet long. The towed array is the mainstay of NATO submarine detection systems, as it reduces the flow noise heard by operators. Hull mounted sonar is employed to back up the towed array, and in confined waters where obstacles could foul a towed array.\n\nSubmarines also carry radar equipment to detect surface ships and aircraft. Submarine captains are more likely to use radar detection gear than active radar to detect targets, as radar can be detected far beyond its own return range, revealing the submarine. Periscopes are rarely used, except for position fixes and to verify a contact's identity.\n\nCivilian submarines, such as the or the Russian Mir submersibles, rely on small active sonar sets and viewing ports to navigate. The human eye cannot detect sunlight below about 300 ft underwater, so high intensity lights are used to illuminate the viewing area.\n\nNavigation\n\nEarly submarines had few navigation aids, but modern subs have a variety of navigation systems. Modern military submarines use an inertial guidance system for navigation while submerged, but drift error unavoidably builds over time. To counter this, the crew occasionally uses the Global Positioning System to obtain an accurate position. The periscope—a retractable tube with a prism system that provides a view of the surface—is only used occasionally in modern submarines, since the visibility range is short. The and s use photonics masts rather than hull-penetrating optical periscopes. These masts must still be deployed above the surface, and use electronic sensors for visible light, infrared, laser range-finding, and electromagnetic surveillance. One benefit to hoisting the mast above the surface is that while the mast is above the water the entire sub is still below the water and is much harder to detect visually or by radar.\n\nCommunication\n\nMilitary submarines use several systems to communicate with distant command centers or other ships. One is VLF (Very Low Frequency) radio, which can reach a submarine either on the surface or submerged to a fairly shallow depth, usually less than 250 ft. ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) can reach a submarine at greater depths, but has a very low bandwidth and is generally used to call a submerged sub to a shallower depth where VLF signals can reach. A submarine also has the option of floating a long, buoyant wire antenna to a shallower depth, allowing VLF transmissions by a deeply submerged boat.\n\nBy extending a radio mast, a submarine can also use a \"burst transmission\" technique. A burst transmission takes only a fraction of a second, minimizing a submarine's risk of detection.\n\nTo communicate with other submarines, a system known as Gertrude is used. Gertrude is basically a sonar telephone. Voice communication from one submarine is transmitted by low power speakers into the water, where it is detected by passive sonars on the receiving submarine. The range of this system is probably very short, and using it radiates sound into the water, which can be heard by the enemy.\n\nCivilian submarines can use similar, albeit less powerful systems to communicate with support ships or other submersibles in the area.\n\nLife support systems\n\nWith nuclear power or air-independent propulsion, submarines can remain submerged for months at a time. Conventional diesel submarines must periodically resurface or run on snorkel to recharge their batteries. Most modern military submarines generate breathing oxygen by electrolysis of water (using a device called an \"Elektrolytic Oxygen Generator\"). Atmosphere control equipment includes a CO2 scrubber, which uses an amine absorbent to remove the gas from air and diffuse it into waste pumped overboard. A machine that uses a catalyst to convert carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide (removed by the CO2 scrubber) and bonds hydrogen produced from the ship's storage battery with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce water, is also used. An atmosphere monitoring system samples the air from different areas of the ship for nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, R-12 and R-114 refrigerants, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other gases. Poisonous gases are removed, and oxygen is replenished by use of an oxygen bank located in a main ballast tank. Some heavier submarines have two oxygen bleed stations (forward and aft). The oxygen in the air is sometimes kept a few percent less than atmospheric concentration to reduce fire danger.\n\nFresh water is produced by either an evaporator or a reverse osmosis unit. The primary use for fresh water is to provide feedwater for the reactor and steam propulsion plants. It is also available for showers, sinks, cooking and cleaning once propulsion plant needs have been met. Seawater is used to flush toilets, and the resulting \"black water\" is stored in a sanitary tank until it is blown overboard using pressurized air or pumped overboard by using a special sanitary pump. The blackwater–discharge system is difficult to operate, and the German Type VIIC boat was lost with casualties because of human error while using this system. Water from showers and sinks is stored separately in \"grey water\" tanks and discharged overboard using drain pumps.\n\nTrash on modern large submarines is usually disposed of using a tube called a Trash Disposal Unit (TDU), where it is compacted into a galvanized steel can. At the bottom of the TDU is a large ball valve. An ice plug is set on top of the ball valve to protect it, the cans atop the ice plug. The top breech door is shut, and the TDU is flooded and equalized with sea pressure, the ball valve is opened and the cans fall out assisted by scrap iron weights in the cans. The TDU is also flushed with seawater to ensure it is completely empty and the ball valve is clear before closing the valve.\n\nCrew\n\nA typical nuclear submarine has a crew of over 80; conventional boats typically have fewer than 40. The conditions on a submarine can be difficult because crew members must work in isolation for long periods of time, without family contact. Submarines normally maintain radio silence to avoid detection. Operating a submarine is dangerous, even in peacetime, and many submarines have been lost in accidents.\n\nWomen\n\nMost navies prohibited women from serving on submarines, even after they had been permitted to serve on surface warships. The Royal Norwegian Navy became the first navy to allow females on its submarine crews in 1985. The Royal Danish Navy allowed female submariners in 1988. Others followed suit including the Swedish Navy (1989), the Royal Australian Navy (1998), the German Navy (2001) and the Canadian Navy (2002). In 1995, Solveig Krey of the Royal Norwegian Navy became the first female officer to assume command on a military submarine, . \n\nOn 8 December 2011, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced that the UK's ban on women in submarines was to be lifted from 2013. Previously there were fears that women were more at risk from a build-up of carbon dioxide in the submarine. But a study showed no medical reason to exclude women, though pregnant women would still be excluded. Similar dangers to the pregnant woman and her fetus barred females from submarine service in Sweden in 1983, when all other positions were made available for them in the Swedish Navy. Today, pregnant women are still not allowed to serve on submarines in Sweden. However, the policymakers thought that it was discriminatory with a general ban and demanded that females should be tried on their individual merits and have their suitability evaluated and compared to other candidates. Further, they noted that a female complying with such high demands is unlikely to become pregnant. In May 2014, three women became the RN's first female submariners. \n\nWomen have served on US Navy surface ships since 1993, and , began serving on submarines for the first time. Until presently, the Navy only allowed three exceptions to women being on board military submarines: female civilian technicians for a few days at most, women midshipmen on an overnight during summer training for Navy ROTC and Naval Academy, and family members for one-day dependent cruises. In 2009, senior officials, including then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead, began the process of finding a way to implement females on submarines. In 2011, the first class of female submarine officers graduated from Naval Submarine School's Submarine Officer Basic Course (SOBC) at the Naval Submarine Base New London. Additionally, more senior ranking and experienced female supply officers from the surface warfare specialty attended SOBC as well, proceeding to fleet Ballistic Missile (SSBN) and Guided Missile (SSGN) submarines along with the new female submarine line officers beginning in late 2011. \n\nBoth the US and British navies operate nuclear-powered submarines that deploy for periods of six months or longer. Other navies that permit women to serve on submarines operate conventionally powered submarines, which deploy for much shorter periods—usually only for a few months. Prior to the change by the US, no nation using nuclear submarines permitted women to serve on board. \n\nIn 2012, the US Navy announced that women would begin serving on US attack submarines in 2013. In 2013, US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said that the first women to join Virginia-class attack subs had been chosen. They were newly commissioned female officers scheduled to report to their subs in fiscal year 2015. On 15 October 2013, the US Navy announced that two submarines, and , would have female crew-members by January 2015. By late 2011 several women were assigned to . \n\nAbandoning the vessel\n\nIn an emergency, submarines can transmit a signal to other ships. The crew can use Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment to abandon the submarine. The crew can prevent a lung injury from the pressure change known as pulmonary barotrauma by exhaling during the ascent. Following escape from a pressurized submarine, the crew is at risk of developing decompression sickness. An alternative escape means is via a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle that can dock onto the disabled submarine.",
"The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is (subject to the caveats explained below) defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface.\n\nThe North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west.\n\nWhile the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also annually established a base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.\n\nThe sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4261 m by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km away, though some perhaps non-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada,which is located 817 km from the Pole.\n\nPrecise definition\n\nThe Earth's axis of rotation – and hence the position of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed (relative to the surface of the Earth) until, in the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the axis might \"wobble\" slightly. Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent \"variation of latitude,\" as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across the Earth's surface, by a range of a few metres. The wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the 8 month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer. The exact point of intersection of the Earth's axis and the Earth's surface, at any given moment, is called the \"instantaneous pole\", but because of the \"wobble\" this cannot be used as a definition of a fixed North Pole (or South Pole) when metre-scale precision is required.\n\nIt is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates (latitude, longitude, and elevations or orography) to fixed landforms. Of course, given plate tectonics and isostasy, there is no system in which all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System.\n\nExploration\n\nPre-1900\n\nAs early as the 16th century, many eminent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea, which in the 19th century was called the Polynya or Open Polar Sea. It was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, already commonly used in the cold northern latitudes.\n\nOne of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871 the Polaris expedition, a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, ended in disaster. Another British Royal Navy attempt on the pole, part of the British Arctic Expedition, by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°20'26\" North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. DeLong ended tragically when their ship, the USS Jeanette, was crushed by ice. Over half the crew, including DeLong, were lost.\n\nIn April 1895 the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the Pole on skis after leaving Nansen's icebound ship Fram. The pair reached latitude 86°14′ North before they abandoned the attempt and turned southwards, eventually reaching Franz Josef Land.\n\nIn 1897 Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée and two companions tried to reach the North Pole in the hydrogen balloon Örnen (\"Eagle\"), but came down 300 km north of Kvitøya, the northeasternmost part of the Svalbard archipelago. They trekked to Kvitøya but died there three months later. In 1930 the remains of this expedition were found by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition.\n\nThe Italian explorer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi and Captain Umberto Cagni of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) sailed the converted whaler Stella Polare (\"Pole Star\") from Norway in 1899. On 11 March 1900 Cagni led a party over the ice and reached latitude 86° 34’ on 25 April, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by 35 to. Cagni barely managed to return to the camp, remaining there until 23 June. On 16 August the Stella Polare left Rudolf Island heading south and the expedition returned to Norway.\n\n1900–1940\n\nThe US explorer Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 with two Inuit men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, but he was unable to produce convincing proof and his claim is not widely accepted. \n\nThe conquest of the North Pole was for many years credited to US Navy engineer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the Pole on 6 April 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson and four Inuit men, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah. However, Peary's claim remains highly disputed and controversial. Those who accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey were not trained in navigation, and thus could not independently confirm his navigational work, which some claim to have been particularly sloppy as he approached the Pole.\n\nThe distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point. Peary's account of a journey to the Pole and back while traveling along the direct line – the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints that he was facing – is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid pressure ridges and open leads.\n\nThe British explorer Wally Herbert, initially a supporter of Peary, researched Peary's records in 1989 and found that there were significant discrepancies in the explorer's navigational records. He concluded that Peary had not reached the Pole. Support for Peary came again in 2005, however, when British explorer Tom Avery and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and Canadian Eskimo Dog teams, reaching the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours – nearly five hours faster than Peary. However, Avery's fastest 5-day march was 90 nautical miles, significantly short of the 135 claimed by Peary. Avery writes on his web site that \"The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia. Having now seen for myself how he travelled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole.\" \n\nAnother rejection of Peary's claim arrived in 2009, when E. Myles Standish of the California Institute of Technology, an experienced referee of scientific claims, reported numerous alleged lacunae and inconsistencies. \n\nThe first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by US naval officer Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft. Although verified at the time by a committee of the National Geographic Society, this claim has since been undermined by the 1996 revelation that Byrd's long-hidden diary's solar sextant data (which the NGS never checked) consistently contradict his June 1926 report's parallel data by over . The secret report's alleged en-route solar sextant data were inadvertently so impossibly overprecise that he excised all these alleged raw solar observations out of the version of the report finally sent to geographical societies five months later (while the original version was hidden for 70 years), a realization first published in 2000 by the University of Cambridge after scrupulous refereeing. \n\nAccording to Standish, \"Anyone who is acquainted with the facts and has any amount of logical reasoning can not avoid the conclusion that neither Cook, nor Peary, nor Byrd reached the North Pole; and they all knew it.\"\n\nThe first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his US sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship Norge. Norge, though Norwegian-owned, was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile. The flight started from Svalbard in Norway, and crossed the Arctic Ocean to Alaska. Nobile, with several scientists and crew from the Norge, overflew the Pole a second time on 24 May 1928, in the airship Italia. The Italia crashed on its return from the Pole, with the loss of half the crew.\n\nIn May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole-1, was established by Soviet scientists by air 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole. The expedition members: oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov, meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, and the leader Ivan Papanin conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months. By 19 February 1938, when the group was picked up by the ice breakers Taimyr and Murman, their station had drifted 2850 km to the eastern coast of Greenland. \n\n1940–2000\n\nIn May 1945 an RAF Lancaster of the Aries expedition became the first Commonwealth aircraft to overfly the North Geographic and North Magnetic Poles. The plane was piloted by David Cecil McKinley of the Royal Air Force. It carried an 11-man crew, with Kenneth C. Maclure of the Royal Canadian Air Force in charge of all scientific observations. In 2006, Maclure was honoured with a spot in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame. \n\nDiscounting Peary's disputed claim, the first men to set foot at the North Pole were a Soviet party including geophysicists Mikhail Ostrekin and Pavel Senko, oceanographers Mikhail Somov and Pavel Gordienko, and other scientists and flight crew (24 people in total) of Aleksandr Kuznetsov's Sever-2 expedition (March–May 1948). It was organized by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotelny Island to the North Pole and landed there at 4:44pm (Moscow Time, UTC+04:00) on 23 April 1948. They established a temporary camp and for the next two days conducted scientific observations. On 26 April the expedition flew back to the continent.\n\nNext year, on 9 May 1949, two other Soviet scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole. They jumped from a Douglas C-47 Skytrain, registered CCCP H-369. \n\nOn 3 May 1952, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict, along with scientist Albert P. Crary, landed a modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole. Some Western sources considered this to be the first landing at the Pole until the Soviet landings became widely known.\n\nThe United States Navy submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole on 3 August 1958. On 17 March 1959 USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the Pole, breaking through the ice above it, becoming the first naval vessel to do so. \n\nSetting aside Peary's claim, the first confirmed surface conquest of the North Pole was that of Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean Luc Bombardier, who traveled over the ice by snowmobile and arrived on 19 April 1968. The United States Air Force independently confirmed their position.\n\nOn 6 April 1969, Wally Herbert and companions Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the British Trans-Arctic Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of dog teams and airdrops). They continued on to complete the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean – and by its longest axis, Barrow, Alaska to Svalbard – a feat that has never been repeated. Bob Headland (15 June 2007). [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2103675,00.html Sir Wally Herbert], The Guardian. Because of suggestions (later proven false) of Plaisted's use of air transport, some sources classify Herbert's expedition as the first confirmed to reach the North Pole over the ice surface by any means. In the 1980s, Plaisted's pilots Weldy Phipps and Ken Lee signed affidavits asserting that no such airlift was provided. It is also said that Herbert was the first person to reach the pole of inaccessibility. \n\nOn 17 August 1977, the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika completed the first surface vessel journey to the North Pole.\n\nIn 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton became the first people to cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season. They departed from Cape Crozier, Ellesmere Island, on 17 February 1982 and arrived at the geographic North Pole on 10 April 1982. They travelled on foot and snowmobile. From the Pole, they travelled towards Svalbard but, due to the unstable nature of the ice, ended their crossing at the ice edge after drifting south on an ice floe for 99 days. They were eventually able to walk to their expedition ship MV Benjamin Bowring and boarded it on 4 August 1982 at position 80:31N 00:59W. As a result of this journey, which formed a section of the three-year Transglobe Expedition 1979–1982, Fiennes and Burton became the first people to complete a circumnavigation of the world via both North and South Poles, by surface travel alone. This achievement remains unchallenged to this day.\n\nIn 1985, Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest) and Neil Armstrong (the first man to stand on the moon) landed at the North Pole in a small twin-engined ski plane. Hillary thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest.\n\nIn 1986, Will Steger, with seven teammates, became the first to be confirmed as reaching the Pole by dogsled and without resupply.\n\nOn 6 May 1986, USS Archerfish (SSN 678), USS Ray (SSN 653) and USS Hawkbill (SSN 666) surfaced at the North Pole, the first tri-submarine surfacing at the North Pole.\n\nOn 21 April 1987, Shinji Kazama of Japan became the first person to reach the North Pole on a motorcycle. \n\nOn 18 May 1987, USS Billfish (SSN 676), USS Sea Devil (SSN 664) and HMS Superb (S 109) surfaced at the North Pole, the first international surfacing at the North Pole.\n\nIn 1988, a 13-man strong team (9 Soviets, 4 Canadians) skied across the arctic from Siberia to northern Canada. One of the Canadians, Richard Weber became the first person to reach the Pole from both sides of the Arctic Ocean.\n\nOn 4 May 1990, Børge Ousland and Erling Kagge became the first explorers ever to reach the North Pole unsupported, after a 58-day ski trek from Ellesmere Island in Canada, a distance of 800 km. \n\nOn 7 September 1991, the German research vessel Polarstern and the Swedish icebreaker Oden reached the North Pole as the first conventional powered vessels. Both scientific parties and crew took oceanographic and geological samples and had a common tug of war and a football game on an ice floe. Polarstern again reached the pole exactly 10 years later with the Healy.\n\nIn 1998, 1999, and 2000 Lada Niva Marshs (special very large wheeled versions made by BRONTO, Lada/Vaz's experimental product division) were driven to the North Pole. The 1998 expedition was dropped by parachute and completed the track to the North Pole. The 2000 expedition departed from a Russian research base around 114 km from the Pole and claimed an average speed of 20–15 km/h in an average temperature of −30 degrees.\n\n21st century\n\nIn recent years, journeys to the North Pole by air (landing by helicopter or on a runway prepared on the ice) or by icebreaker have become relatively routine, and are even available to small groups of tourists through adventure holiday companies. Parachute jumps have frequently been made onto the North Pole in recent years. The temporary seasonal Russian camp of Barneo has been established by air a short distance from the Pole annually since 2002, and caters for scientific researchers as well as tourist parties. Trips from the camp to the Pole itself may be arranged overland or by helicopter.\n\nThe first attempt at underwater exploration of the North Pole was made on 22 April 1998 by Russian firefighter and diver Andrei Rozhkov with the support of the Diving Club of Moscow State University, but ended in fatality. The next attempted dive at the North Pole was organized the next year by the same diving club, and ended in success on 24 April 1999. The divers were Michael Wolff (Austria), Brett Cormick (UK), and Bob Wass (USA). \n\nIn 2005, the United States Navy submarine USS Charlotte (SSN-766) surfaced through 155 cm of ice at the North Pole and spent 18 hours there. \n\nIn July 2007, British endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completed a 1 km swim at the North Pole. His feat, undertaken to highlight the effects of global warming, took place in clear water that had opened up between the ice floes. His later attempt to paddle a kayak to the North Pole in late 2008, following the erroneous prediction of clear water to the Pole, was stymied when his expedition found itself stuck in thick ice after only three days. The expedition was then abandoned.\n\nBy September 2007 the North Pole had been visited 66 times by different surface ships: 54 times by Soviet and Russian icebreakers, 4 times by Swedish Oden, 3 times by German Polarstern, 3 times by USCGC Healy and USCGC Polar Sea, and once by CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent and by Swedish Vidar Viking. \n\n2007 descent to the North Pole seabed\n\nOn 2 August 2007, a Russian scientific expedition Arktika 2007 made the first ever manned descent to the ocean floor at the North Pole, to a depth of , as part of the research programme in support of Russia's 2001 extended continental shelf claim to a large swathe of the Arctic Ocean floor. The descent took place in two MIR submersibles and was led by Soviet and Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov. In a symbolic act of visitation, the Russian flag was placed on the ocean floor exactly at the Pole. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6927395.stm Russia plants flag under N Pole], BBC News (2 August 2007). \n\nThe expedition was the latest in a series of efforts intended to give Russia a dominant influence in the Arctic according to the New York Times. The warming Arctic climate and summer shrinkage of the iced area has attracted the attention of many countries, such as China and the United States, toward the top of the world, where resources and shipping routes may soon be exploitable. \n\nMLAE 2009 Expedition\n\nIn 2009, the Russian Marine Live-Ice Automobile Expedition—MLAE 2009 (Vasily Elagin as a leader, and a team of Sergey Larin, Afanasy Makovnev, Vladimir Obikhod, Alexey Ushakov, Alexey Shkrabkin, and Nikolay Nikulshin) reached the North Pole on two custom-built 6 x 6 low-pressure-tire ATVs—Yemelya 1 and Yemelya 2—designed by Vasily Elagin, a known Russian mountain climber, explorer, and engineer. The vehicles reached the North Pole on 26 April 2009, 17:30 (Moscow time). The expedition was supported by the Russian Geographical Society. The Russian Book of Records recognized it as the first successful vehicle trip to the Geographical North Pole.\n\nMLAE 2013 Expedition\n\nOn 1 March 2013, the Russian Marine Live-Ice Automobile Expedition — MLAE 2013 (Vasily Elagin as a leader, and a team of Andrey Vankov, Sergey Isayev, Nikolay Kozlov, Afanasy Makovnev, Vladimir Obikhod, and Alexey Shkrabkin) on two custom-built 6 x 6 low-pressure-tire ATVs—Yemelya 3 and Yemelya 4—started from Golomyanny Island (the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago) to the North Pole across drifting ice of the Arctic Ocean. The vehicles reached the Pole on 6 April and then continued to the Canadian coast. The coast was reached on 30 April 2013 (83°08N, 075°59W), and on 5 May 2013, the expedition finished in Resolute Bay, NU. The way between the Russian borderland (Machtovyi Island of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, 80°15N, 097°27E) and the Canadian coast (83°08N, 075°59W) took 55 days; it was ~2300 km across drifting ice and about 4000 km in total. The expedition was totally self-dependent and used no external supplies. The expedition was supported by the Russian Geographical Society.\n\nDay and night\n\nThe sun at the North Pole is continuously above the horizon during the summer and continuously below the horizon during the winter. Sunrise is just before the March equinox (around 20 March); the sun then takes three months to reach its highest point of near 23½° elevation at the summer solstice (around 21 June), after which time it begins to sink, reaching sunset just after the September equinox (around 23 September). When the sun is visible in the polar sky, it appears to move in a horizontal circle above the horizon. This circle gradually rises from near the horizon just after the vernal equinox to its maximum elevation (in degrees) above the horizon at summer solstice and then sinks back toward the horizon before sinking below it at the autumnal equinox.\n\nA civil twilight period of about two weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset, a nautical twilight period of about five weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset and an astronomical twilight period of about seven weeks occurs before sunrise and after sunset.\n\nThese effects are caused by a combination of the Earth's axial tilt and its revolution around the sun. The direction of the Earth's axial tilt, as well as its angle relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun, remains very nearly constant over the course of a year (both change very slowly over long time periods). At northern midsummer the North Pole is facing towards the sun to its maximum extent. As the year progresses and the Earth moves around the sun, the North Pole gradually turns away from the sun until at midwinter it is facing away from the Sun to its maximum extent. A similar sequence is observed at the South Pole, with a six-month time difference.\n\nTime\n\nIn most places on Earth, local time is determined by longitude, such that the time of day is more-or-less synchronised to the position of the sun in the sky (for example, at midday the sun is roughly at its highest). This line of reasoning fails at the North Pole, where the sun rises and sets only once per year, and all lines of longitude, and hence all time zones, converge. There is no permanent human presence at the North Pole and no particular time zone has been assigned. Polar expeditions may use any time zone that is convenient, such as Greenwich Mean Time, or the time zone of the country from which they departed.\n\nClimate\n\nThe North Pole is substantially warmer than the South Pole because it lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean (which acts as a reservoir of heat), rather than at altitude on a continental land mass.\n\nWinter temperatures at the North Pole can range from about , averaging around . However, a freak storm caused the temperature to reach for a time at a World Meteorological Organization buoy, located at 87.45°N, on December 30, 2015. It was estimated that the temperature at the North Pole was between 30 and during the storm. Summer temperatures (June, July, and August) average around the freezing point (0 C). The highest temperature yet recorded is 13 C, much warmer than the South Pole's record high of only . \n\nThe sea ice at the North Pole is typically around 2 to thick, although ice thickness, its spatial extent, and the fraction of open water within the ice pack can vary rapidly and profoundly in response to weather and climate. Studies have shown that the average ice thickness has decreased in recent years. It is likely that global warming has contributed to this, but it is not possible to attribute the recent abrupt decrease in thickness entirely to the observed warming in the Arctic. Reports have also predicted that within a few decades the Arctic Ocean will be entirely free of ice in the summer. This may have significant commercial implications; see \"Territorial Claims,\" below.\n\nThe retreat of the Arctic sea ice will accelerate global warming, as less ice cover reflects less solar radiation, and may have serious climate implications by contributing to Arctic cyclone generation. \n\nFlora and fauna\n\nPolar bears are believed rarely to travel beyond about 82° North owing to the scarcity of food, though tracks have been seen in the vicinity of the North Pole, and a 2006 expedition reported sighting a polar bear just 1 mi from the Pole. The ringed seal has also been seen at the Pole, and Arctic foxes have been observed less than 60 km away at 89°40′ N. \n\nBirds seen at or very near the Pole include the snow bunting, northern fulmar and black-legged kittiwake, though some bird sightings may be distorted by the tendency of birds to follow ships and expeditions.\n\nFish have been seen in the waters at the North Pole, but these are probably few in number. A member of the Russian team that descended to the North Pole seabed in August 2007 reported seeing no sea creatures living there. However, it was later reported that a sea anemone had been scooped up from the seabed mud by the Russian team and that video footage from the dive showed unidentified shrimps and amphipods. \n\nTerritorial claims to the North Pole and Arctic regions\n\nCurrently, under international law, no country owns the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic countries, Russian Federation (the biggest country), Canada, Norway, Denmark (via Greenland), and the United States (via Alaska), are limited to a 200 nmi exclusive economic zone around their coasts, and the area beyond that is administered by the International Seabed Authority.\n\nUpon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has 10 years to make claims to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. If validated, such a claim gives the claimant state rights to what may be on or beneath the sea bottom within the claimed zone. Norway (ratified the convention in 1996 ), Russia (ratified in 1997), Canada (ratified in 2003) and Denmark (ratified in 2004) have all launched projects to base claims that certain areas of Arctic continental shelves should be subject to their sole sovereign exploitation. \n\nIn 1907 Canada invoked a \"sector principle\" to claim sovereignty over a sector stretching from its coasts to the North Pole. This claim has not been relinquished, but was not consistently pressed until 2013. \n\nCultural associations\n\nIn some children's Western cultures, the geographic North Pole is described as the location of Santa Claus' workshop and residence, although the depictions have been inconsistent between the geographic and magnetic North Pole. Canada Post has assigned postal code H0H 0H0 to the North Pole (referring to Santa's traditional exclamation of \"Ho ho ho!\"). \n\nThis association reflects an age-old esoteric mythology of Hyperborea that posits the North Pole, the otherworldly world-axis, as the abode of God and superhuman beings. The popular figure of the pole-dwelling Santa Claus thus functions as an archetype of spiritual purity and transcendence. \n\nAs Henry Corbin has documented, the North Pole plays a key part in the cultural worldview of Sufism and Iranian mysticism. \"The Orient sought by the mystic, the Orient that cannot be located on our maps, is in the direction of the north, beyond the north.\" \n\nOwing to its remoteness, the Pole is sometimes identified with a mysterious mountain of ancient Iranian tradition called Mount Qaf (Jabal Qaf), the \"farthest point of the earth\". According to certain authors, the Jabal Qaf of Muslim cosmology is a version of Rupes Nigra, a mountain whose ascent, like Dante's climbing of the Mountain of Purgatory, represents the pilgrim's progress through spiritual states. In Iranian theosophy, the heavenly Pole, the focal point of the spiritual ascent, acts as a magnet to draw beings to its \"palaces ablaze with immaterial matter.\""
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What was John Glenn/'s first spacecraft called?
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tc_140
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (born July 18, 1921), (Col, USMC, Ret.), is a former aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States senator. He was selected as one of the \"Mercury Seven\" group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America's first astronauts and fly the Project Mercury spacecraft. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital flights of Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. Glenn is the earliest-born American to go to orbit, and the second earliest-born man overall after Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy. Glenn received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. With the death of Scott Carpenter on October 10, 2013, Glenn became the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven.\n \nGlenn resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and the next day announced plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio; however, a bathroom fall which resulted in a concussion caused him to withdraw from the race in March. He retired from the Marine Corps on January 1, 1965. A member of the Democratic Party, he finally won election to the Senate in 1974 and served through January 3, 1999. With the death of Edward Brooke on January 3, 2015, Glenn became the oldest living former United States Senator.\n\nOn October 29, 1998, while still a sitting senator, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew as a Payload Specialist on Discovery mission STS-95. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.\n\nEarly life, education and military service\n\nJohn Glenn was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn, Sr. (1895–1966) and Teresa () Glenn (1897–1971). He was raised in New Concord, Ohio. \n\nAfter graduating from New Concord High School in 1939, he studied Engineering at Muskingum College. He earned a private pilot's license for credit in a physics course in 1941. Glenn did not complete his senior year in residence or take a proficiency exam, both requirements of the school for the Bachelor of Science degree. However, the school granted Glenn his degree in 1962, after his Mercury space flight. \n\nWorld War II\n\nWhen the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, Glenn quit college to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. However, he was never called to duty, and in March 1942 enlisted as a United States Navy aviation cadet. He went to the University of Iowa for preflight training, then continued on to NAS Olathe, Kansas, for primary training. He made his first solo flight in a military aircraft there. During his advanced training at the NAS Corpus Christi, he was offered the chance to transfer to the U.S. Marine Corps and took it. \n\nUpon completing his training in 1943, Glenn was assigned to Marine Squadron VMJ-353, flying R4D transport planes. He transferred to VMF-155 as an F4U Corsair fighter pilot, and flew 59 combat missions in the South Pacific. He saw combat over the Marshall Islands, where he attacked anti-aircraft batteries on Maloelap Atoll. In 1945, he was assigned to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and was promoted to captain shortly before the war's end.\n\nGlenn flew patrol missions in North China with the VMF-218 Marine Fighter Squadron, until it was transferred to Guam. In 1948 he became a flight instructor at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, followed by attending the Amphibious Warfare School.\n\nKorean War\n\nDuring the Korean War, Glenn was assigned to VMF-311, flying the new F9F Panther jet interceptor. He flew his Panther in 63 combat missions, gaining the nickname \"magnet ass\" from his alleged ability to attract enemy flak. On two occasions, he returned to his base with over 250 holes in his aircraft. For a time, he flew with Marine reservist Ted Williams, a future Hall of Fame baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, as his wingman. He also flew with future Major General Ralph H. Spanjer. \n\nGlenn flew a second Korean combat tour in an interservice exchange program with the United States Air Force, 51st Fighter Wing. He logged 27 missions in the faster F-86F Sabre and shot down three MiG-15s near the Yalu River in the final days before the ceasefire.\n\nFor his service in 149 combat missions in two wars, he received numerous honors, including the Distinguished Flying Cross (six occasions) and the Air Medal with eighteen clusters.\n\nTest pilot\n\nGlenn returned to NAS Patuxent River, appointed to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (class 12), graduating in 1954. He served as an armament officer, flying planes to high altitude and testing their cannons and machine guns. He was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (now Bureau of Naval Weapons) as a test pilot on Navy and Marine Corps jet fighters in Washington, D.C., from November 1956 to April 1959, during which time he also attended the University of Maryland.\n\nGlenn has nearly 9,000 hours of flying time, with approximately 3,000 hours in jet aircraft.\n\nOn July 16, 1957, Glenn completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in a Vought F8U-3P Crusader. The flight from NAS Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field, New York, took 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds. As he passed over his hometown, a child in the neighborhood reportedly ran to the Glenn house shouting \"Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb!\" as the sonic boom shook the town. Project Bullet, the name of the mission, included both the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed (despite three in-flight refuelings during which speeds dropped below 300 mph), and the first continuous transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States. For this mission Glenn received his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross. \n\nNASA career\n\nIn 1958, the newly formed NASA began a recruiting program for astronauts. Requirements were that each had to be a military test pilot between the ages of 25 and 40 with sufficient flight hours, no more than 5'11\" in height, and possess a degree in a scientific field. 508 pilots were subjected to rigorous mental and physical tests, and finally the selection was narrowed down to seven astronauts (Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton), who were introduced to the public at a NASA press conference in April 1959. Glenn just barely met the requirements as he was close to the age cutoff of 40 and also lacked the required science-based degree at the time. During this time, he remained an officer in the United States Marine Corps.\n\nGlenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, circling the globe three times during a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds. This made Glenn the third American in space and the fifth human being in space.\n\nPerth, Western Australia, became known worldwide as the \"City of Light\" when residents turned on their house, car and streetlights as Glenn passed overhead. (The city repeated the act when Glenn rode the Space Shuttle in 1998). During the first mission there was concern over a ground indication that his heat shield had come loose, which could allow it to fail during re-entry through the atmosphere, causing his capsule to burn up. Flight controllers had Glenn modify his re-entry procedure by keeping his retrorocket pack on over the shield in an attempt to keep it in place. He made his splashdown safely, and afterwards it was determined that the indicator was faulty.\n\nAs the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, met President Kennedy, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City, reminiscent of that given for Charles Lindbergh and other great dignitaries.\n\nGlenn's fame and political attributes were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a personal friend of the Kennedy family. On February 23, 1962, President Kennedy escorted him in a parade to Hangar S at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where he awarded Glenn with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.\n\nIn July 1962 Glenn testified before the House Space Committee in favor of excluding women from the NASA astronaut program. Although NASA had no official policy prohibiting women, in practice the requirement that astronauts had to be military test pilots excluded them entirely. The impact of the testimony of so prestigious a hero is debatable, but no female astronaut flew on a NASA mission until Sally Ride in 1983 (in the meantime, the Soviets had flown two women on space missions), and none piloted a mission until Eileen Collins in 1995, more than 30 years after the hearings. In the late 1970s, Glenn is reported to have supported Shuttle Mission Specialist Astronaut Judith Resnik in her career. \n\nGlenn resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and the next day announced his candidacy as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio. On February 26, 1964, Glenn suffered a concussion from a slip and fall against a bathtub; this led him to withdraw from the race on March 30. Glenn then went on convalescent leave from the Marine Corps until he could make a full recovery, necessary for his retirement from the Marines. He retired on January 1, 1965, as a Colonel and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola.\n\nPolitical career\n\nU.S. Senate\n\nNASA psychologists had determined during Glenn's training that he was the astronaut best suited for public life. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy suggested to Glenn and his wife in December 1962 that he should run against incumbent United States Senator Stephen M. Young of Ohio in the 1964 Democratic primary election. In 1964 Glenn announced that he was resigning from the space program to run against Young, but withdrew when he hit his head on a bathtub. Glenn sustained a concussion and injured his inner ear, and recovery left him unable to campaign. Glenn remained close to the Kennedy family and was with Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1968.\n\nIn 1970, Glenn was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary for nomination for the Senate by fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum, by a 51% to 49% margin. Metzenbaum lost the general election race to Robert Taft, Jr. In 1974, Glenn rejected Ohio governor John J. Gilligan and the Ohio Democratic party's demand that he run for Lieutenant Governor. Instead, he challenged Metzenbaum again, whom Gilligan had appointed to the Senate to replace William B. Saxbe, who had resigned to become Attorney General of the United States.\n\nIn the primary race, Metzenbaum contrasted his strong business background with Glenn's military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had \"never held a payroll\". Glenn's reply came to be known as the \"Gold Star Mothers\" speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans' hospital and \"look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn't hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job.\" Many felt the \"Gold Star Mothers\" speech won the primary for Glenn. Glenn won the primary by 54 to 46%. After defeating Metzenbaum, Glenn defeated Ralph Perk, the Republican Mayor of Cleveland, in the general election, beginning a Senate career that would continue until 1999. In 1980, Glenn won re-election to the seat, defeating Republican challenger Jim Betts, by over 40 percentage points.\n\nIn 1986, Glenn defeated challenger U.S. Representative Tom Kindness. Metzenbaum would go on to seek a rematch against Taft in 1976, winning a close race on Jimmy Carter's coattails.\n\nIn the late 1970s and early 1980s, Glenn and Metzenbaum had strained relations. There was a thaw in 1983, when Metzenbaum endorsed Glenn for president, and again in 1988, when Metzenbaum was opposed for re-election by Cleveland mayor George Voinovich. Voinovich accused Metzenbaum of being soft on child pornography. Voinovich's charges were criticized by many, including Glenn, who now came to Metzenbaum's aid, recording a statement for television refuting Voinovich's charges. Metzenbaum won the election by 57% to 41%.\n\nSavings and loan scandal\n\nGlenn was one of the five U.S. senators caught up in the Lincoln Savings and Keating Five Scandal after accepting a $200,000 contribution from Charles Keating. Glenn and Republican senator John McCain were the only senators exonerated. The Senate Commission found that Glenn had exercised \"poor judgment\". The association of his name with the scandal gave Republicans hope that he would be vulnerable in the 1992 campaign. Instead, Glenn defeated Lieutenant Governor Mike DeWine to keep his seat, though his percentage was reduced to a career low of 51%. DeWine used the memorable campaign slogan, \"What on earth has John Glenn done?\" This 1992 re-election victory was the last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Ohio until 2006; DeWine later won Metzenbaum's seat upon his retirement.\n\nPresidential politics\n\nIn 1976, Glenn was a candidate for the Democratic vice presidential nomination. However, Glenn's keynote address at the Democratic National Convention failed to impress the delegates and the nomination went to veteran politician Walter Mondale. Glenn also ran for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. A November 1983 New York Times/CBS News poll found him second, supported by 41% of those polled, to Mondale's 49%.\n\nGlenn and his staff worried about the 1983 release of The Right Stuff, a film about the original seven Mercury astronauts based on the best-selling Tom Wolfe book of the same name. The book had depicted Glenn as a \"zealous moralizer\", and he did not attend the film's Washington premiere on October 16, 1983. Reviewers saw Ed Harris' portrayal of Glenn as heroic, however, and his staff immediately began to emphasize the film to the press. Aide Greg Schneiders suggested an unusual strategy, similar to Glenn's personal campaign and voting style, in which he would avoid appealing to narrow special interest groups and instead seek to win support from ordinary Democratic primary voters, the \"constituency of the whole\". Mondale defeated Glenn for the nomination however, and he was left with $3 million in campaign debt for over 20 years before he was granted a reprieve by the Federal Election Commission. He was a potential vice presidential running mate in 1984, 1988, and 1992.\n\nIssues\n\nDuring Glenn's time in the Senate, he was chief author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, served as chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1987 until 1995, sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and the Special Committee on Aging. Once Republicans regained control of the Senate, Glenn also served as the ranking minority member on a special Senate investigative committee chaired by Tennessee senator Fred Dalton Thompson that looked into illegal foreign donations by China to U.S. political campaigns for the 1996 election. There was considerable acrimony between the two very high-profile senators during the life of this committee, which reached a level of public disagreement between the five leaders of a congressional committee seldom seen in recent years, amid allegations that Glenn suppressed these issues prior to his subsequent Space Shuttle flight which had to be approved by President Clinton. In 1998, Glenn declined to run for re-election. Mary O. Boyle was the Democratic party nominee. She faced Republican nominee and sitting governor George Voinovich in the general election, which Voinovich won.\n\nReturn to space\n\nGlenn returned to space on the Space Shuttle on October 29, 1998, becoming, at age 77, the oldest person to go into space as a Payload Specialist on Discovery's STS-95 mission. According to The New York Times, Glenn \"won his seat on the Shuttle flight by lobbying NASA for two years to fly as a human guinea pig for geriatric studies\", which were named as the main reasons for his participation in the mission. Glenn states in his memoir that he had no idea NASA was willing to send him back into space when NASA announced the decision. \n\nGlenn's participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some in the space community as a political favor granted to Glenn by President Clinton. It was noted that Glenn's flight offered valuable research on weightlessness and other aspects of space flight on the same person at two points in life 36 years apart—by far the longest interval between space flights by the same person—providing information on the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on the elderly, with an ideal control subject. Shortly before the flight, researchers learned that Glenn had to be disqualified from one of the flight's two main priority human experiments (about the effects of melatonin) because he did not meet one of study's medical conditions; he still participated in two other experiments about sleep monitoring and protein use. \n\nUpon the safe return of the STS-95 crew, Glenn (and his crewmates) received another ticker-tape parade, making him the tenth, and latest, person to have received multiple ticker-tape parades in a lifetime (as opposed to that of a sports team). Just prior to the flight, on October 15, 1998, and for several months after, the main causeway to the Johnson Space Center, NASA Road 1, was temporarily renamed \"John Glenn Parkway\".\n\nIn 2001, Glenn vehemently opposed the sending of Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, to the International Space Station on the grounds that Tito's trip served no scientific purpose. \n\nPublic affairs institute\n\nGlenn helped found the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University in 1998 to encourage public service. On July 22, 2006, the institute merged with OSU's School of Public Policy and Management to become the John Glenn School of Public Affairs. Today Glenn holds an adjunct professorship at the Glenn School. In February 2015, it was announced that the School would become the John Glenn College of Public Affairs beginning in April 2015. \n\nPersonal life\n\nOn April 6, 1943, Glenn married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Margaret Castor (b. 1920). Both Glenn and his wife attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. He also was a member of the Stag Club Fraternity at Muskingum College. \n\nGlenn was also one of the original owners of a Holiday Inn franchise near Orlando, Florida, that is today known as the Seralago Hotel & Suites Main Gate East. \n\nGlenn is an honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics; a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Marine Corps Aviation Association, Order of Daedalians, National Space Club Board of Trustees, National Space Society Board of Governors, International Association of Holiday Inns, Ohio Democratic Party, State Democratic Executive Committee, Franklin County (Ohio) Democratic Party, and 10th District (Ohio) Democratic Action Club.\n\nA Freemason, Glenn is a member of Concord Lodge # 688 New Concord, Ohio, and DeMolay International, the Masonic youth organization, and is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church. \n\nGlenn's name was used for the character of John Tracy in the 1960s children's TV series Thunderbirds.\n\nGlenn's boyhood home in New Concord has been restored and made into an historic house museum and education center. \n\nIn 2001, Glenn appeared as a guest star on the American television sitcom Frasier. \n\nOn August 4, 2006, Glenn and his wife were injured in an automobile accident on I-270 near Columbus, Ohio, and were hospitalized for two days. Glenn suffered a \"very sore chest\" and a fractured sternum. Annie Glenn was treated for minor injuries. Glenn was cited for failure to yield the right-of-way. \n\nOn September 5, 2009, John and Annie Glenn dotted the \"i\" during The Ohio State University's Script Ohio marching band performance, at the Ohio State-Navy football game halftime show. Bob Hope, Woody Hayes, Buster Douglas, E. Gordon Gee, Novice Fawcett, Robert Ries, and Jack Nicklaus are the only other non-band members to have received this honor. \n\nOn February 20, 2012, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Friendship 7 flight, Glenn was surprised with the opportunity to speak with the orbiting crew of the International Space Station while Glenn was on-stage with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden at Ohio State, where the public affairs school is named for him. \n\nOn April 19, 2012, Glenn participated in the ceremonial transfer of the retired Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian Institution for permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Speaking at the event, Glenn criticized the \"unfortunate\" decision to end the Space Shuttle program, expressing his opinion that grounding the shuttles delayed research. \n\nOn June 28, 2016, the Columbus, Ohio airport was officially renamed the John Glenn Columbus International Airport. Just before his 95th birthday, Glenn and his wife Annie attended the ceremony, and he spoke eloquently about how visiting that airport as a child inspired his interest in flying. \n\nGlenn has stated that he sees no contradiction between believing in God and the knowledge that evolution is \"a fact\", and that he believes evolution should be taught in schools. \n\nImage gallery\n\nFile:John Glenn at the Mercury Control Center.jpg|Glenn at the Mercury Control Center on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base\nFile:19620220-JohnGlennMedical.jpg|Medical debriefing of Major John H. Glenn, Jr., USMC after orbital flight of Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962 aboard the aircraft carrier . The debriefing team for Lt. Colonel Glenn (center) was led by Commander Seldon C. \"Smokey\" Dunn, MC, USN (FS) (RAM-qualified) (far right w/EKG in hands).\nFile:19620220-JohnGlennEKG.jpg|\"Best regards and many thanks for all the help, 'Smokey' John H. Glenn Jr Mercury Astronaut a good date -- 20 February 62\"\nFile:LC-14 Glenn plaque.jpg|Plaque near Mercury launch pad\n\nAwards and honors\n\n*Congressional Gold Medal\n*The Woodrow Wilson Award\n*National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, 1962\n*John J. Montgomery Award, 1963\n*Golden Plate Award for Science and Exploration, 1964\n*General Thomas D. White National Defense Award. \n\nThe NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio, is named after him. Also, Senator John Glenn Highway runs along a stretch of I-480 in Ohio across from the NASA Glenn Research Center. Colonel Glenn Highway, which runs by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Wright State University near Dayton, Ohio, John Glenn High School in his hometown of New Concord, Ohio, and Col. John Glenn Elementary in Seven Hills, Ohio, are named for him as well. High Schools in Westland and Bay City, Michigan; Walkerton, Indiana; San Angelo, Texas; Elwood, Long Island, New York; and Norwalk, California were also named after him.\n\nThe fireboat John H. Glenn Jr. was named for him. This fireboat is operated by the DCFD and protects the sections of the Potomac River and the Anacostia River that run through Washington, D.C.\n\nThe USNS John Glenn (T-MLP-2), a mobile landing platform that is scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. Navy in 2014 is named for him. It was christened February 1, 2014, in San Diego at General Dynamics’ National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. \n\nIn 1961, Glenn received an Honorary LL.D from Muskingum University, the college he had attended before joining the military in World War II.\n\nHe also received Honorary Doctorates from Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan, Wagner College in Staten Island, New York, and New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire.\n\nGlenn was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1976. \n\nGlenn was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1977.\n\nIn 1990, Glenn was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. \n\nIn 2000, Glenn received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. \n\nIn 2004, Glenn was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution. \n\nIn 2009, Glenn received an Honorary LL.D from Williams College, and in 2010, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Ohio Northern University. \n\nIn 2013, Flying magazine ranked Glenn No. 26 on their \"51 Heroes of Aviation\" list. \n\nOn January 3, 2015, with the death of Edward Brooke, Glenn became the oldest former United States senator still living. Glenn is the 60th person to hold this distinction.\n\nPhysical description\n\n*Weight: 170 lb (77 kg)\n*Height: 5 ft 10½ in (1.79 m)\n*Hair: Red\n*Eyes: Green"
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Which branch of medicine is concerned with disorders of the blood?
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tc_141
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Medicine (British English; American English) is the science and practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The word medicine is derived from Latin medicus, meaning \"a physician\". Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others. \n\nMedicine has existed for thousands of years, during most of which it was an art (an area of skill and knowledge) frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or an ancient philosopher and physician would apply bloodletting according to the theories of humorism. In recent centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has become a combination of art and science (both basic and applied, under the umbrella of medical science). While stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, the knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science.\n\nPrescientific forms of medicine are now known as traditional medicine and folk medicine. They remain commonly used with or instead of scientific medicine and are thus called alternative medicine. For example, evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture is \"variable and inconsistent\" for any condition, but is generally safe when done by an appropriately trained practitioner. In contrast, treatments outside the bounds of safety and efficacy are termed quackery.\n\nClinical practice\n\nMedical availability and clinical practice varies across the world due to regional differences in culture and technology. Modern scientific medicine is highly developed in the Western world, while in developing countries such as parts of Africa or Asia, the population may rely more heavily on traditional medicine with limited evidence and efficacy and no required formal training for practitioners. Even in the developed world however, evidence-based medicine is not universally used in clinical practice; for example, a 2007 survey of literature reviews found that about 49% of the interventions lacked sufficient evidence to support either benefit or harm. \n\nIn modern clinical practice, doctors personally assess patients in order to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease using clinical judgment. The doctor-patient relationship typically begins an interaction with an examination of the patient's medical history and medical record, followed by a medical interview and a physical examination. Basic diagnostic medical devices (e.g. stethoscope, tongue depressor) are typically used. After examination for signs and interviewing for symptoms, the doctor may order medical tests (e.g. blood tests), take a biopsy, or prescribe pharmaceutical drugs or other therapies. Differential diagnosis methods help to rule out conditions based on the information provided. During the encounter, properly informing the patient of all relevant facts is an important part of the relationship and the development of trust. The medical encounter is then documented in the medical record, which is a legal document in many jurisdictions.\n Follow-ups may be shorter but follow the same general procedure, and specialists follow a similar process. The diagnosis and treatment may take only a few minutes or a few weeks depending upon the complexity of the issue.\n\nThe components of the medical interview and encounter are:\n* Chief complaint (CC): the reason for the current medical visit. These are the 'symptoms.' They are in the patient's own words and are recorded along with the duration of each one. Also called 'chief concern' or 'presenting complaint'.\n* History of present illness (HPI): the chronological order of events of symptoms and further clarification of each symptom. Distinguishable from history of previous illness, often called past medical history (PMH). Medical history comprises HPI and PMH.\n* Current activity: occupation, hobbies, what the patient actually does.\n* Medications (Rx): what drugs the patient takes including prescribed, over-the-counter, and home remedies, as well as alternative and herbal medicines/herbal remedies. Allergies are also recorded.\n* Past medical history (PMH/PMHx): concurrent medical problems, past hospitalizations and operations, injuries, past infectious diseases and/or vaccinations, history of known allergies.\n* Social history (SH): birthplace, residences, marital history, social and economic status, habits (including diet, medications, tobacco, alcohol).\n* Family history (FH): listing of diseases in the family that may impact the patient. A family tree is sometimes used.\n* Review of systems (ROS) or systems inquiry: a set of additional questions to ask, which may be missed on HPI: a general enquiry (have you noticed any weight loss, change in sleep quality, fevers, lumps and bumps? etc.), followed by questions on the body's main organ systems (heart, lungs, digestive tract, urinary tract, etc.).\n\nThe physical examination is the examination of the patient for medical signs of disease, which are objective and observable, in contrast to symptoms which are volunteered by the patient and not necessarily objectively observable. The healthcare provider uses the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and sometimes smell (e.g., in infection, uremia, diabetic ketoacidosis). Four actions are the basis of physical examination: inspection, palpation (feel), percussion (tap to determine resonance characteristics), and auscultation (listen), generally in that order although auscultation occurs prior to percussion and palpation for abdominal assessments. \n\nThe clinical examination involves the study of:\n* Vital signs including height, weight, body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, respiration rate, and hemoglobin oxygen saturation\n* General appearance of the patient and specific indicators of disease (nutritional status, presence of jaundice, pallor or clubbing)\n* Skin\n* Head, eye, ear, nose, and throat (HEENT)\n* Cardiovascular (heart and blood vessels)\n* Respiratory (large airways and lungs)\n* Abdomen and rectum\n* Genitalia (and pregnancy if the patient is or could be pregnant)\n* Musculoskeletal (including spine and extremities)\n* Neurological (consciousness, awareness, brain, vision, cranial nerves, spinal cord and peripheral nerves)\n* Psychiatric (orientation, mental state, evidence of abnormal perception or thought).\n\nIt is to likely focus on areas of interest highlighted in the medical history and may not include everything listed above.\n\nThe treatment plan may include ordering additional medical laboratory tests and medical imaging studies, starting therapy, referral to a specialist, or watchful observation. Follow-up may be advised. Depending upon the health insurance plan and the managed care system, various forms of \"utilization review\", such as prior authorization of tests, may place barriers on accessing expensive services. \n\nThe medical decision-making (MDM) process involves analysis and synthesis of all the above data to come up with a list of possible diagnoses (the differential diagnoses), along with an idea of what needs to be done to obtain a definitive diagnosis that would explain the patient's problem.\n\nOn subsequent visits, the process may be repeated in an abbreviated manner to obtain any new history, symptoms, physical findings, and lab or imaging results or specialist consultations.\n\nInstitutions\n\nContemporary medicine is in general conducted within health care systems. Legal, credentialing and financing frameworks are established by individual governments, augmented on occasion by international organizations, such as churches. The characteristics of any given health care system have significant impact on the way medical care is provided.\n\nFrom ancient times, Christian emphasis on practical charity gave rise to the development of systematic nursing and hospitals and the Catholic Church today remains the largest non-government provider of medical services in the world. Advanced industrial countries (with the exception of the United States) and many developing countries provide medical services through a system of universal health care that aims to guarantee care for all through a single-payer health care system, or compulsory private or co-operative health insurance. This is intended to ensure that the entire population has access to medical care on the basis of need rather than ability to pay. Delivery may be via private medical practices or by state-owned hospitals and clinics, or by charities, most commonly by a combination of all three.\n\nMost tribal societies provide no guarantee of healthcare for the population as a whole. In such societies, healthcare is available to those that can afford to pay for it or have self-insured it (either directly or as part of an employment contract) or who may be covered by care financed by the government or tribe directly.\n\nTransparency of information is another factor defining a delivery system. Access to information on conditions, treatments, quality, and pricing greatly affects the choice by patients/consumers and, therefore, the incentives of medical professionals. While the US healthcare system has come under fire for lack of openness, new legislation may encourage greater openness. There is a perceived tension between the need for transparency on the one hand and such issues as patient confidentiality and the possible exploitation of information for commercial gain on the other.\n\nDelivery\n\nProvision of medical care is classified into primary, secondary, and tertiary care categories.\n\nPrimary care medical services are provided by physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, or other health professionals who have first contact with a patient seeking medical treatment or care. These occur in physician offices, clinics, nursing homes, schools, home visits, and other places close to patients. About 90% of medical visits can be treated by the primary care provider. These include treatment of acute and chronic illnesses, preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes.\n\nSecondary care medical services are provided by medical specialists in their offices or clinics or at local community hospitals for a patient referred by a primary care provider who first diagnosed or treated the patient. Referrals are made for those patients who required the expertise or procedures performed by specialists. These include both ambulatory care and inpatient services, emergency rooms, intensive care medicine, surgery services, physical therapy, labor and delivery, endoscopy units, diagnostic laboratory and medical imaging services, hospice centers, etc. Some primary care providers may also take care of hospitalized patients and deliver babies in a secondary care setting.\n\nTertiary care medical services are provided by specialist hospitals or regional centers equipped with diagnostic and treatment facilities not generally available at local hospitals. These include trauma centers, burn treatment centers, advanced neonatology unit services, organ transplants, high-risk pregnancy, radiation oncology, etc.\n\nModern medical care also depends on information – still delivered in many health care settings on paper records, but increasingly nowadays by electronic means.\n\nIn low-income countries, modern healthcare is often too expensive for the average person. International healthcare policy researchers have advocated that \"user fees\" be removed in these areas to ensure access, although even after removal, significant costs and barriers remain. \n\nBranches\n\nWorking together as an interdisciplinary team, many highly trained health professionals besides medical practitioners are involved in the delivery of modern health care. Examples include: nurses, emergency medical technicians and paramedics, laboratory scientists, pharmacists, podiatrists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, dietitians, and bioengineers, surgeons, surgeon's assistant, surgical technologist.\n\nThe scope and sciences underpinning human medicine overlap many other fields. Dentistry, while considered by some a separate discipline from medicine, is a medical field.\n\nA patient admitted to the hospital is usually under the care of a specific team based on their main presenting problem, e.g., the Cardiology team, who then may interact with other specialties, e.g., surgical, radiology, to help diagnose or treat the main problem or any subsequent complications/developments.\n\nPhysicians have many specializations and subspecializations into certain branches of medicine, which are listed below. There are variations from country to country regarding which specialties certain subspecialties are in.\n\nThe main branches of medicine are:\n* Basic sciences of medicine; this is what every physician is educated in, and some return to in biomedical research\n* Medical specialties\n* Interdisciplinary fields, where different medical specialties are mixed to function in certain occasions.\n\nBasic sciences\n\n* Anatomy is the study of the physical structure of organisms. In contrast to macroscopic or gross anatomy, cytology and histology are concerned with microscopic structures.\n* Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry taking place in living organisms, especially the structure and function of their chemical components.\n* Biomechanics is the study of the structure and function of biological systems by means of the methods of Mechanics.\n* Biostatistics is the application of statistics to biological fields in the broadest sense. A knowledge of biostatistics is essential in the planning, evaluation, and interpretation of medical research. It is also fundamental to epidemiology and evidence-based medicine.\n* Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physics and physical chemistry to study biological systems.\n* Cytology is the microscopic study of individual cells.\n\n* Embryology is the study of the early development of organisms.\n* Endocrinology is the study of hormones and their effect throughout the body of animals.\n* Epidemiology is the study of the demographics of disease processes, and includes, but is not limited to, the study of epidemics.\n* Genetics is the study of genes, and their role in biological inheritance.\n* Histology is the study of the structures of biological tissues by light microscopy, electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry.\n* Immunology is the study of the immune system, which includes the innate and adaptive immune system in humans, for example.\n* Medical physics is the study of the applications of physics principles in medicine.\n* Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, including protozoa, bacteria, fungi, and viruses.\n* Molecular biology is the study of molecular underpinnings of the process of replication, transcription and translation of the genetic material.\n* Neuroscience includes those disciplines of science that are related to the study of the nervous system. A main focus of neuroscience is the biology and physiology of the human brain and spinal cord. Some related clinical specialties include neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry.\n* Nutrition science (theoretical focus) and dietetics (practical focus) is the study of the relationship of food and drink to health and disease, especially in determining an optimal diet. Medical nutrition therapy is done by dietitians and is prescribed for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, weight and eating disorders, allergies, malnutrition, and neoplastic diseases.\n* Pathology as a science is the study of disease—the causes, course, progression and resolution thereof.\n* Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their actions.\n* Photobiology is the study of the interactions between non-ionizing radiation and living organisms.\n* Physiology is the study of the normal functioning of the body and the underlying regulatory mechanisms.\n* Radiobiology is the study of the interactions between ionizing radiation and living organisms.\n* Toxicology is the study of hazardous effects of drugs and poisons.\n\nSpecialties\n\nIn the broadest meaning of \"medicine\", there are many different specialties. In the UK, most specialities have their own body or college, which have its own entrance examination. These are collectively known as the Royal Colleges, although not all currently use the term \"Royal\". The development of a speciality is often driven by new technology (such as the development of effective anaesthetics) or ways of working (such as emergency departments); the new specialty leads to the formation of a unifying body of doctors and the prestige of administering their own examination.\n\nWithin medical circles, specialities usually fit into one of two broad categories: \"Medicine\" and \"Surgery.\" \"Medicine\" refers to the practice of non-operative medicine, and most of its subspecialties require preliminary training in Internal Medicine. In the UK, this was traditionally evidenced by passing the examination for the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) or the equivalent college in Scotland or Ireland. \"Surgery\" refers to the practice of operative medicine, and most subspecialties in this area require preliminary training in General Surgery, which in the UK leads to membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS). At present, some specialties of medicine do not fit easily into either of these categories, such as radiology, pathology, or anesthesia. Most of these have branched from one or other of the two camps above; for example anaesthesia developed first as a faculty of the Royal College of Surgeons (for which MRCS/FRCS would have been required) before becoming the Royal College of Anaesthetists and membership of the college is attained by sitting for the examination of the Fellowship of the Royal College of Anesthetists (FRCA).\n\nSurgical specialty\n\nSurgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, to help improve bodily function or appearance or to repair unwanted ruptured areas (for example, a perforated ear drum). Surgeons must also manage pre-operative, post-operative, and potential surgical candidates on the hospital wards. Surgery has many sub-specialties, including general surgery, ophthalmic surgery, cardiovascular surgery, colorectal surgery, neurosurgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, oncologic surgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, podiatric surgery, transplant surgery, trauma surgery, urology, vascular surgery, and pediatric surgery. In some centers, anesthesiology is part of the division of surgery (for historical and logistical reasons), although it is not a surgical discipline. Other medical specialties may employ surgical procedures, such as ophthalmology and dermatology, but are not considered surgical sub-specialties per se.\n\nSurgical training in the U.S. requires a minimum of five years of residency after medical school. Sub-specialties of surgery often require seven or more years. In addition, fellowships can last an additional one to three years. Because post-residency fellowships can be competitive, many trainees devote two additional years to research. Thus in some cases surgical training will not finish until more than a decade after medical school. Furthermore, surgical training can be very difficult and time-consuming.\n\nInternal specialty\n\nInternal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. According to some sources, an emphasis on internal structures is implied. In North America, specialists in internal medicine are commonly called \"internists.\" Elsewhere, especially in Commonwealth nations, such specialists are often called physicians. These terms, internist or physician (in the narrow sense, common outside North America), generally exclude practitioners of gynecology and obstetrics, pathology, psychiatry, and especially surgery and its subspecialities.\n\nBecause their patients are often seriously ill or require complex investigations, internists do much of their work in hospitals. Formerly, many internists were not subspecialized; such general physicians would see any complex nonsurgical problem; this style of practice has become much less common. In modern urban practice, most internists are subspecialists: that is, they generally limit their medical practice to problems of one organ system or to one particular area of medical knowledge. For example, gastroenterologists and nephrologists specialize respectively in diseases of the gut and the kidneys. \n\nIn the Commonwealth of Nations and some other countries, specialist pediatricians and geriatricians are also described as specialist physicians (or internists) who have subspecialized by age of patient rather than by organ system. Elsewhere, especially in North America, general pediatrics is often a form of Primary care.\n\nThere are many subspecialities (or subdisciplines) of internal medicine:\n\n*Angiology/Vascular Medicine\n*Cardiology\n*Critical care medicine\n*Endocrinology\n*Gastroenterology\n*Geriatrics\n*Hematology\n*Hepatology\n*Infectious disease\n*Nephrology\n*Neurology\n*Oncology\n*Pediatrics\n*Pulmonology/Pneumology/Respirology/chest medicine\n*Rheumatology\n*Sports Medicine\n\nTraining in internal medicine (as opposed to surgical training), varies considerably across the world: see the articles on Medical education and Physician for more details. In North America, it requires at least three years of residency training after medical school, which can then be followed by a one- to three-year fellowship in the subspecialties listed above. In general, resident work hours in medicine are less than those in surgery, averaging about 60 hours per week in the USA. This difference does not apply in the UK where all doctors are now required by law to work less than 48 hours per week on average.\n\nDiagnostic specialties\n\n* Clinical laboratory sciences are the clinical diagnostic services that apply laboratory techniques to diagnosis and management of patients. In the United States, these services are supervised by a pathologist. The personnel that work in these medical laboratory departments are technically trained staff who do not hold medical degrees, but who usually hold an undergraduate medical technology degree, who actually perform the tests, assays, and procedures needed for providing the specific services. Subspecialties include transfusion medicine, cellular pathology, clinical chemistry, hematology, clinical microbiology and clinical immunology.\n* Pathology as a medical specialty is the branch of medicine that deals with the study of diseases and the morphologic, physiologic changes produced by them. As a diagnostic specialty, pathology can be considered the basis of modern scientific medical knowledge and plays a large role in evidence-based medicine. Many modern molecular tests such as flow cytometry, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunohistochemistry, cytogenetics, gene rearrangements studies and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) fall within the territory of pathology.\n* Diagnostic radiology is concerned with imaging of the body, e.g. by x-rays, x-ray computed tomography, ultrasonography, and nuclear magnetic resonance tomography. Interventional radiologists can access areas in the body under imaging for an intervention or diagnostic sampling. \n* Nuclear medicine is concerned with studying human organ systems by administering radiolabelled substances (radiopharmaceuticals) to the body, which can then be imaged outside the body by a gamma camera or a PET scanner. Each radiopharmaceutical consists of two parts: a tracer that is specific for the function under study (e.g., neurotransmitter pathway, metabolic pathway, blood flow, or other), and a radionuclide (usually either a gamma-emitter or a positron emitter). There is a degree of overlap between nuclear medicine and radiology, as evidenced by the emergence of combined devices such as the PET/CT scanner.\n* Clinical neurophysiology is concerned with testing the physiology or function of the central and peripheral aspects of the nervous system. These kinds of tests can be divided into recordings of: (1) spontaneous or continuously running electrical activity, or (2) stimulus evoked responses. Subspecialties include electroencephalography, electromyography, evoked potential, nerve conduction study and polysomnography. Sometimes these tests are performed by techs without a medical degree, but the interpretation of these tests is done by a medical professional.\n\nOther major specialties\n\nThe followings are some major medical specialties that do not directly fit into any of the above-mentioned groups.\n* Anesthesiology (also known as anaesthetics): concerned with the perioperative management of the surgical patient. The anesthesiologist's role during surgery is to prevent derangement in the vital organs' (i.e. brain, heart, kidneys) functions and postoperative pain. Outside of the operating room, the anesthesiology physician also serves the same function in the labor & delivery ward, and some are specialized in critical medicine.\n* Dermatology is concerned with the skin and its diseases. In the UK, dermatology is a subspecialty of general medicine.\n* Emergency medicine is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of acute or life-threatening conditions, including trauma, surgical, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric emergencies.\n* Family medicine, family practice, general practice or primary care is, in many countries, the first port-of-call for patients with non-emergency medical problems. Family physicians often provide services across a broad range of settings including office based practices, emergency room coverage, inpatient care, and nursing home care.\n\n* Obstetrics and gynecology (often abbreviated as OB/GYN (American English) or Obs & Gynae (British English)) are concerned respectively with childbirth and the female reproductive and associated organs. Reproductive medicine and fertility medicine are generally practiced by gynecological specialists.\n* Medical Genetics is concerned with the diagnosis and management of hereditary disorders.\n* Neurology is concerned with diseases of the nervous system. In the UK, neurology is a subspecialty of general medicine.\n* Ophthalmology is exclusively concerned with the eye and ocular adnexa, combining conservative and surgical therapy.\n* Pediatrics (AE) or paediatrics (BE) is devoted to the care of infants, children, and adolescents. Like internal medicine, there are many pediatric subspecialties for specific age ranges, organ systems, disease classes, and sites of care delivery.\n* Pharmaceutical medicine is the medical scientific discipline concerned with the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring and medical aspects of marketing of medicines for the benefit of patients and public health.\n* Physical medicine and rehabilitation (or physiatry) is concerned with functional improvement after injury, illness, or congenital disorders.\n* Podiatric medicine is the study of, diagnosis, and medical & surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, lower limb, hip and lower back.\n* Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the bio-psycho-social study of the etiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cognitive, perceptual, emotional and behavioral disorders. Related non-medical fields include psychotherapy and clinical psychology.\n* Preventive medicine is the branch of medicine concerned with preventing disease.\n** Community health or public health is an aspect of health services concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis.\n\nInterdisciplinary fields\n \nSome interdisciplinary sub-specialties of medicine include:\n* Aerospace medicine deals with medical problems related to flying and space travel.\n* Addiction medicine deals with the treatment of addiction.\n* Medical ethics deals with ethical and moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine.\n* Biomedical Engineering is a field dealing with the application of engineering principles to medical practice.\n* Clinical pharmacology is concerned with how systems of therapeutics interact with patients.\n* Conservation medicine studies the relationship between human and animal health, and environmental conditions. Also known as ecological medicine, environmental medicine, or medical geology.\n* Disaster medicine deals with medical aspects of emergency preparedness, disaster mitigation and management.\n* Diving medicine (or hyperbaric medicine) is the prevention and treatment of diving-related problems.\n* Evolutionary medicine is a perspective on medicine derived through applying evolutionary theory.\n* Forensic medicine deals with medical questions in legal context, such as determination of the time and cause of death, type of weapon used to inflict trauma, reconstruction of the facial features using remains of deceased (skull) thus aiding identification.\n* Gender-based medicine studies the biological and physiological differences between the human sexes and how that affects differences in disease.\n* Hospice and Palliative Medicine is a relatively modern branch of clinical medicine that deals with pain and symptom relief and emotional support in patients with terminal illnesses including cancer and heart failure.\n* Hospital medicine is the general medical care of hospitalized patients. Physicians whose primary professional focus is hospital medicine are called hospitalists in the USA and Canada. The term Most Responsible Physician (MRP) or attending physician is also used interchangeably to describe this role.\n* Laser medicine involves the use of lasers in the diagnostics and/or treatment of various conditions.\n* Medical humanities includes the humanities (literature, philosophy, ethics, history and religion), social science (anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, sociology), and the arts (literature, theater, film, and visual arts) and their application to medical education and practice.\n* Health informatics is a relatively recent field that deal with the application of computers and information technology to medicine.\n* Nosology is the classification of diseases for various purposes.\n* Nosokinetics is the science/subject of measuring and modelling the process of care in health and social care systems.\n* Occupational medicines principal role is the provision of health advice to organizations and individuals to ensure that the highest standards of health and safety at work can be achieved and maintained.\n* Pain management (also called pain medicine, or algiatry) is the medical discipline concerned with the relief of pain.\n* Pharmacogenomics is a form of individualized medicine.\n* Podiatric medicine is the study of, diagnosis, and medical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, lower limb, hip and lower back.\n* Sexual medicine is concerned with diagnosing, assessing and treating all disorders related to sexuality.\n* Sports medicine deals with the treatment and prevention and rehabilitation of sports/exercise injuries such as muscle spasms, muscle tears, injuries to ligaments (ligament tears or ruptures) and their repair in athletes, amateur and professional.\n* Therapeutics is the field, more commonly referenced in earlier periods of history, of the various remedies that can be used to treat disease and promote health. \n* Travel medicine or emporiatrics deals with health problems of international travelers or travelers across highly different environments.\n* Tropical medicine deals with the prevention and treatment of tropical diseases. It is studied separately in temperate climates where those diseases are quite unfamiliar to medical practitioners and their local clinical needs.\n* Urgent care focuses on delivery of unscheduled, walk-in care outside of the hospital emergency department for injuries and illnesses that are not severe enough to require care in an emergency department. In some jurisdictions this function is combined with the emergency room.\n* Veterinary medicine; veterinarians apply similar techniques as physicians to the care of animals.\n* Wilderness medicine entails the practice of medicine in the wild, where conventional medical facilities may not be available.\n* Many other health science fields, e.g. dietetics\n\nEducation and legal controls\n\nMedical education and training varies around the world. It typically involves entry level education at a university medical school, followed by a period of supervised practice or internship, and/or residency. This can be followed by postgraduate vocational training. A variety of teaching methods have been employed in medical education, still itself a focus of active research. In Canada and the United States of America, a Doctor of Medicine degree, often abbreviated M.D., or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree, often abbreviated as D.O. and unique to the United States, must be completed in and delivered from a recognized university.\n\nSince knowledge, techniques, and medical technology continue to evolve at a rapid rate, many regulatory authorities require continuing medical education. Medical practitioners upgrade their knowledge in various ways, including medical journals, seminars, conferences, and online programs.\n\nIn most countries, it is a legal requirement for a medical doctor to be licensed or registered. In general, this entails a medical degree from a university and accreditation by a medical board or an equivalent national organization, which may ask the applicant to pass exams. This restricts the considerable legal authority of the medical profession to physicians that are trained and qualified by national standards. It is also intended as an assurance to patients and as a safeguard against charlatans that practice inadequate medicine for personal gain. While the laws generally require medical doctors to be trained in \"evidence based\", Western, or Hippocratic Medicine, they are not intended to discourage different paradigms of health.\n\nIn the European Union, the profession of doctor of medicine is regulated. A profession is said to be regulated when access and exercise is subject to the possession of a specific professional qualification.\nThe regulated professions database contains a list of regulated professions for doctor of medicine in the EU member states, EEA countries and Switzerland. This list is covered by the Directive 2005/36/EC.\n\nDoctors who are negligent or intentionally harmful in their care of patients can face charges of medical malpractice and be subject to civil, criminal, or professional sanctions.\n\nMedical ethics\n\nMedical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology. Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:\n* autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)\n* beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)\n* justice - concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality).\n* non-maleficence - \"first, do no harm\" (primum non-nocere).\n* respect for persons - the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.\n* truthfulness and honesty - the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and others.\n\nValues such as these do not give answers as to how to handle a particular situation, but provide a useful framework for understanding conflicts. When moral values are in conflict, the result may be an ethical dilemma or crisis. Sometimes, no good solution to a dilemma in medical ethics exists, and occasionally, the values of the medical community (i.e., the hospital and its staff) conflict with the values of the individual patient, family, or larger non-medical community. Conflicts can also arise between health care providers, or among family members. For example, some argue that the principles of autonomy and beneficence clash when patients refuse blood transfusions, considering them life-saving; and truth-telling was not emphasized to a large extent before the HIV era.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient world\n\nPrehistoric medicine incorporated plants (herbalism), animal parts, and minerals. In many cases these materials were used ritually as magical substances by priests, shamans, or medicine men. Well-known spiritual systems include animism (the notion of inanimate objects having spirits), spiritualism (an appeal to gods or communion with ancestor spirits); shamanism (the vesting of an individual with mystic powers); and divination (magically obtaining the truth). The field of medical anthropology examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or impacted by issues of health, health care and related issues.\n\nEarly records on medicine have been discovered from ancient Egyptian medicine, Babylonian Medicine, Ayurvedic medicine (in the Indian subcontinent), classical Chinese medicine (predecessor to the modern traditional Chinese Medicine), and ancient Greek medicine and Roman medicine.\n\nIn Egypt, Imhotep (3rd millennium BC) is the first physician in history known by name. The oldest Egyptian medical text is the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus from around 2000 BCE, which describes gynaecological diseases. The Edwin Smith Papyrus dating back to 1600 BCE is an early work on surgery, while the Ebers Papyrus dating back to 1500 BCE is akin to a textbook on medicine. \n\nIn China, archaeological evidence of medicine in Chinese dates back to the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty, based on seeds for herbalism and tools presumed to have been used for surgery. The Huangdi Neijing, the progenitor of Chinese medicine, is a medical text written beginning in the 2nd century BCE and compiled in the 3rd century. \n\nIn India, the surgeon Sushruta described numerous surgical operations, including the earliest forms of plastic surgery. Earliest records of dedicated hospitals come from Mihintale in Sri Lanka where evidence of dedicated medicinal treatment facilities for patients are found. \n\nIn Greece, the Greek physician Hippocrates, the \"father of western medicine\", laid the foundation for a rational approach to medicine. Hippocrates introduced the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still relevant and in use today, and was the first to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, \"exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence\". The Greek physician Galen was also one of the greatest surgeons of the ancient world and performed many audacious operations, including brain and eye surgeries. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the onset of the Early Middle Ages, the Greek tradition of medicine went into decline in Western Europe, although it continued uninterrupted in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.\n\nMost of our knowledge of ancient Hebrew medicine during the 1st millennium BC comes from the Torah, i.e. the Five Books of Moses, which contain various health related laws and rituals. The Hebrew contribution to the development of modern medicine started in the Byzantine Era, with the physician Asaph the Jew. \n\nMiddle Ages\n\nAfter 750 CE, the Muslim world had the works of Hippocrates, Galen and Sushruta translated into Arabic, and Islamic physicians engaged in some significant medical research. Notable Islamic medical pioneers include the Persian polymath, Avicenna, who, along with Imhotep and Hippocrates, has also been called the \"father of medicine\". He wrote The Canon of Medicine, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine. Others include Abulcasis, Avenzoar, Ibn al-Nafis, and Averroes. Rhazes [http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst372/readings/tschanz.html copy] was one of the first to question the Greek theory of humorism, which nevertheless remained influential in both medieval Western and medieval Islamic medicine. Al-Risalah al-Dhahabiah by Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims, is revered as the most precious Islamic literature in the Science of Medicine. The Islamic Bimaristan hospitals were an early example of public hospitals. \n\nIn Europe, Charlemagne decreed that a hospital should be attached to each cathedral and monastery and the historian Geoffrey Blainey likened the activities of the Catholic Church in health care during the Middle Ages to an early version of a welfare state: \"It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal\". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor. This welfare system the church funded through collecting taxes on a large scale and possessing large farmlands and estates. The Benedictine order was noted for setting up hospitals and infirmaries in their monasteries, growing medical herbs and becoming the chief medical care givers of their districts, as at the great Abbey of Cluny. The Church also established a network of cathedral schools and universities where medicine was studied. The Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno, looking to the learning of Greek and Arab physicians, grew to be the finest medical school in Medieval Europe. \n\nHowever, the fourteenth and fifteenth century Black Death devastated both the Middle East and Europe, and it has even been argued that Western Europe was generally more effective in recovering from the pandemic than the Middle East. In the early modern period, important early figures in medicine and anatomy emerged in Europe, including Gabriele Falloppio and William Harvey.\n\nThe major shift in medical thinking was the gradual rejection, especially during the Black Death in the 14th and 15th centuries, of what may be called the 'traditional authority' approach to science and medicine. This was the notion that because some prominent person in the past said something must be so, then that was the way it was, and anything one observed to the contrary was an anomaly (which was paralleled by a similar shift in European society in general – see Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemy's theories on astronomy). Physicians like Vesalius improved upon or disproved some of the theories from the past. The main tomes used both by medicine students and expert physicians were Materia Medica and Pharmacopoeia.\n\nAndreas Vesalius was the author of De humani corporis fabrica, an important book on human anatomy. Bacteria and microorganisms were first observed with a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, initiating the scientific field microbiology. Independently from Ibn al-Nafis, Michael Servetus rediscovered the pulmonary circulation, but this discovery did not reach the public because it was written down for the first time in the \"Manuscript of Paris\" in 1546, and later published in the theological work for which he paid with his life in 1553. Later this was described by Renaldus Columbus and Andrea Cesalpino. Herman Boerhaave is sometimes referred to as a \"father of physiology\" due to his exemplary teaching in Leiden and textbook 'Institutiones medicae' (1708). Pierre Fauchard has been called \"the father of modern dentistry\". \n\nModern\n\nVeterinary medicine was, for the first time, truly separated from human medicine in 1761, when the French veterinarian Claude Bourgelat founded the world's first veterinary school in Lyon, France. Before this, medical doctors treated both humans and other animals.\n\nModern scientific biomedical research (where results are testable and reproducible) began to replace early Western traditions based on herbalism, the Greek \"four humours\" and other such pre-modern notions. The modern era really began with Edward Jenner's discovery of the smallpox vaccine at the end of the 18th century (inspired by the method of inoculation earlier practiced in Asia), Robert Koch's discoveries around 1880 of the transmission of disease by bacteria, and then the discovery of antibiotics around 1900.\n\nThe post-18th century modernity period brought more groundbreaking researchers from Europe. From Germany and Austria, doctors Rudolf Virchow, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Karl Landsteiner and Otto Loewi made notable contributions. In the United Kingdom, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister, Francis Crick and Florence Nightingale are considered important. Spanish doctor Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered the father of modern neuroscience.\n\nFrom New Zealand and Australia came Maurice Wilkins, Howard Florey, and Frank Macfarlane Burnet.\n\nIn the United States, William Williams Keen, William Coley, James D. Watson, Italy (Salvador Luria), Switzerland (Alexandre Yersin), Japan (Kitasato Shibasaburō), and France (Jean-Martin Charcot, Claude Bernard, Paul Broca) and others did significant work. Russian Nikolai Korotkov also did significant work, as did Sir William Osler and Harvey Cushing.\n\nAs science and technology developed, medicine became more reliant upon medications. Throughout history and in Europe right until the late 18th century, not only animal and plant products were used as medicine, but also human body parts and fluids. Pharmacology developed in part from herbalism and some drugs are still derived from plants (atropine, ephedrine, warfarin, aspirin, digoxin, vinca alkaloids, taxol, hyoscine, etc.). Vaccines were discovered by Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur.\n\nThe first antibiotic was arsphenamine (Salvarsan) discovered by Paul Ehrlich in 1908 after he observed that bacteria took up toxic dyes that human cells did not. The first major class of antibiotics was the sulfa drugs, derived by German chemists originally from azo dyes.\n\nPharmacology has become increasingly sophisticated; modern biotechnology allows drugs targeted towards specific physiological processes to be developed, sometimes designed for compatibility with the body to reduce side-effects. Genomics and knowledge of human genetics is having some influence on medicine, as the causative genes of most monogenic genetic disorders have now been identified, and the development of techniques in molecular biology and genetics are influencing medical technology, practice and decision-making.\n\nEvidence-based medicine is a contemporary movement to establish the most effective algorithms of practice (ways of doing things) through the use of systematic reviews and meta-analysis. The movement is facilitated by modern global information science, which allows as much of the available evidence as possible to be collected and analyzed according to standard protocols that are then disseminated to healthcare providers. The Cochrane Collaboration leads this movement. A 2001 review of 160 Cochrane systematic reviews revealed that, according to two readers, 21.3% of the reviews concluded insufficient evidence, 20% concluded evidence of no effect, and 22.5% concluded positive effect.\n\nTraditional medicine\n\nTraditional medicine (also known as indigenous or folk medicine) comprises knowledge systems that developed over generations within various societies before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as \"the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.\" \n\nIn some Asian and African countries, up to 80% of the population relies on traditional medicine for their primary health care needs. When adopted outside of its traditional culture, traditional medicine is often called alternative medicine. Practices known as traditional medicines include Ayurveda, Siddha medicine, Unani, ancient Iranian medicine, Irani, Islamic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Korean medicine, acupuncture, Muti, Ifá, and traditional African medicine.\n\nThe WHO notes however that \"inappropriate use of traditional medicines or practices can have negative or dangerous effects\" and that \"further research is needed to ascertain the efficacy and safety\" of several of the practices and medicinal plants used by traditional medicine systems. The line between alternative medicine and quackery is a contentious subject.\n\nTraditional medicine may include formalized aspects of folk medicine, that is to say longstanding remedies passed on and practised by lay people. Folk medicine consists of the healing practices and ideas of body physiology and health preservation known to some in a culture, transmitted informally as general knowledge, and practiced or applied by anyone in the culture having prior experience. Folk medicine may also be referred to as traditional medicine, alternative medicine, indigenous medicine, or natural medicine. These terms are often considered interchangeable, even though some authors may prefer one or the other because of certain overtones they may be willing to highlight. In fact, out of these terms perhaps only indigenous medicine and traditional medicine have the same meaning folk medicine, while the others should be understood rather in a modern or modernized context."
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Where was The Iron Triangle?
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tc_145
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Iron Triangle (Vietnamese:Tam Giác Sắt) was a 120 sqmi area in the Bình Dương Province of Vietnam, so named due to it being a stronghold of Viet Minh activity during the war. The region was under control of the Viet Minh throughout the French war in Vietnam and continued to be so throughout the phase of American involvement in the Vietnam War, despite concerted efforts on the part of US and South Vietnamese forces to destabilize the region as a power base for their enemy, the communist North Vietnamese–sponsored and–directed South Vietnamese insurgent movement, the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong (NLF).\n\nGeography \n\nThe Location of the Iron Triangle was between the Saigon River on the west and the Tinh River on the east and bordering Route 13 about 25 miles (40 km) north of Saigon. The southern apex of the \"triangle\" was seven miles (11 km) from Phu Cong, the capital of Bình Dương Province. Its proximity to Saigon was both a reason for American and South Vietnamese efforts to eradicate it, as well as why it remained a crucial area for Communist forces to control.\n\nHistory \n\nThe French War \n\nDuring the French war in Indochina, from 1946 to 1954, the Viet Minh elaborated on a network of hidden fortifications and tunnels throughout the region to defend themselves against the superior military power of the French. These tunnel networks had begun as early as the 1880s to resist French occupation. The network afforded communist fighters the ability to \"disappear\" into the countryside. This became especially important during the Vichy Regime, when Vietnam was dually occupied by French and Japanese forces, so as to remain undetected by not one but two occupying enemies.\n\nThe American War\n\nThe tunnels were expanded further after the war with the French as a base for underground operations against the Ngo Dinh Diem government and later US-backed South Vietnamese governments. The tunnel system at its height was said to have over 30000 mi of tunnels throughout North and South Vietnam, with hundreds of miles of these located in the Iron Triangle, especially concentrated in the area around the town of Cu Chi. Due to the threat that the Củ Chi tunnels posed to the Saigon government, the United States stepped up its military offensive in the region in the fall of 1966 and 1967. They launched three operations during this time: Operation Attleboro, Operation Cedar Falls, and Operation Junction City. Operation Cedar Falls was an especially intensive attack involving nearly 16,000 American troops and 14,000 soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army. The operation took nineteen days, and 72 Americans and 720 Viet Cong were killed. Despite their massive attack with B-52 bombers and Rome plows and efforts to destroy the tunnel system with explosives, flooding, and \"tunnel rats\" (specially trained soldiers who would infiltrate the tunnels armed only with a flashlight and a handgun), the Americans failed to totally destroy the Viet Cong support system that had been built for over two decades.\n\nThe Iron Triangle at the end of the Vietnam War \n\nThe area remained an active organizing center for the Viet Cong right through to the end of the war, due to both its undeniable strategic importance, as well as support from local populations who had been negatively impacted by the American bombing campaign. In April 1975, General Văn Tiến Dũng, political bureau members Phạm Hùng and Lê Đức Thọ, and southern military commander Trần Văn Trà all joined together in the Iron Triangle region to orchestrate the final, decisive attack on Saigon. The area had remained allied with the nationalist communist forces from the beginning of the French war in 1946 to the fall of Saigon in 1975: an exception in a country often torn region by region between control by American forces and control by the Viet Cong.\n\nNotes"
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What is the correct name of laughing gas?
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tc_146
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Nitrous oxide"
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"Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, nitro, or NOS is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless, non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anaesthetic and analgesic effects. It is known as \"laughing gas\" due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as a dissociative anaesthetic. It is also used as an oxidiser in rocket propellants, and in motor racing to increase the power output of engines. At elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizer similar to molecular oxygen.\n\nNitrous oxide gives rise to nitric oxide (NO) on reaction with oxygen atoms, and this NO in turn reacts with ozone. As a result, it is the main naturally occurring regulator of stratospheric ozone. It is also a major greenhouse gas and air pollutant. Considered over a 100-year period, it is calculated to have between 265 and 310 times more impact per unit mass (global-warming potential) than carbon dioxide. \n\nIt is on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a health system. \n\nApplications\n\nRocket motors\n\nNitrous oxide can be used as an oxidizer in a rocket motor. This has the advantages over other oxidisers in that it is not only non-toxic, but also, due to its stability at room temperature, easy to store and relatively safe to carry on a flight. As a secondary benefit it can be readily decomposed to form breathing air. Its high density and low storage pressure (when maintained at low temperature) enable it to be highly competitive with stored high-pressure gas systems.\n\nIn a 1914 patent, American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard suggested nitrous oxide and gasoline as possible propellants for a liquid-fuelled rocket. Nitrous oxide has been the oxidiser of choice in several hybrid rocket designs (using solid fuel with a liquid or gaseous oxidizer). The combination of nitrous oxide with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene fuel has been used by SpaceShipOne and others. It is also notably used in amateur and high power rocketry with various plastics as the fuel.\n\nNitrous oxide can also be used in a monopropellant rocket. In the presence of a heated catalyst, will decompose exothermically into nitrogen and oxygen, at a temperature of approximately 1070 F. Because of the large heat release, the catalytic action rapidly becomes secondary as thermal autodecomposition becomes dominant. In a vacuum thruster, this can provide a monopropellant specific impulse (Isp) of as much as 180 s. While noticeably less than the Isp available from hydrazine thrusters (monopropellant or bipropellant with dinitrogen tetroxide), the decreased toxicity makes nitrous oxide an option worth investigating.\n\nNitrous oxide is said to deflagrate somewhere around 600 C at a pressure of 21 atmospheres.Munke, Konrad (2 July 2001) [http://hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/SpecialTopics/Misc/eindhoven.pdf Nitrous Oxide Trailer Rupture], Report at CGA Seminar \"Safety and Reliability of Industrial Gases, Equipment and Facilities\", 15–17 October 2001, St. Louis, Missouri At 600 for example, the required ignition energy is only 6 joules, whereas at 130 psi a 2500-joule ignition energy input is insufficient. \n\nInternal combustion engine\n\nIn vehicle racing, nitrous oxide (often referred to as just \"nitrous\") allows the engine to burn more fuel by providing more oxygen than air alone, resulting in a more powerful combustion. The gas itself is not flammable at a low pressure/temperature, but it delivers more oxygen than atmospheric air by breaking down at elevated temperatures. Therefore, it is often mixed with another fuel that is easier to deflagrate. Nitrous oxide is a strong oxidant roughly equivalent to hydrogen peroxide and much stronger than oxygen gas.\n\nNitrous oxide is stored as a compressed liquid; the evaporation and expansion of liquid nitrous oxide in the intake manifold causes a large drop in intake charge temperature, resulting in a denser charge, further allowing more air/fuel mixture to enter the cylinder. Nitrous oxide is sometimes injected into (or prior to) the intake manifold, whereas other systems directly inject right before the cylinder (direct port injection) to increase power.\n\nThe technique was used during World War II by Luftwaffe aircraft with the GM-1 system to boost the power output of aircraft engines. Originally meant to provide the Luftwaffe standard aircraft with superior high-altitude performance, technological considerations limited its use to extremely high altitudes. Accordingly, it was only used by specialized planes like high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, high-speed bombers, and high-altitude interceptor aircraft. It could sometimes be found on Luftwaffe aircraft also fitted with another engine-boost system, MW 50, a form of water injection for aviation engines that used methanol for its boost capabilities.\n\nOne of the major problems of using nitrous oxide in a reciprocating engine is that it can produce enough power to damage or destroy the engine. Very large power increases are possible, and if the mechanical structure of the engine is not properly reinforced, the engine may be severely damaged or destroyed during this kind of operation. It is very important with nitrous oxide augmentation of petrol engines to maintain proper operating temperatures and fuel levels to prevent \"pre-ignition\", or \"detonation\" (sometimes referred to as \"knock\"). Most problems that are associated with nitrous do not come from mechanical failure due to the power increases. Since nitrous allows a much denser charge into the cylinder it dramatically increases cylinder pressures. The increased pressure and temperature can cause problems such as melting the piston or valves. It may also crack or warp the piston or head and cause pre-ignition due to uneven heating.\n\nAutomotive-grade liquid nitrous oxide differs slightly from medical-grade nitrous oxide. A small amount of sulfur dioxide () is added to prevent substance abuse. Multiple washes through a base (such as sodium hydroxide) can remove this, decreasing the corrosive properties observed when is further oxidised during combustion into sulfuric acid, making emissions cleaner.\n\nAerosol propellant\n\nThe gas is approved for use as a food additive (also known as E942), specifically as an aerosol spray propellant. Its most common uses in this context are in aerosol whipped cream canisters, cooking sprays, and as an inert gas used to displace oxygen, to inhibit bacterial growth, when filling packages of potato chips and other similar snack foods.\n\nThe gas is extremely soluble in fatty compounds. In aerosol whipped cream, it is dissolved in the fatty cream until it leaves the can, when it becomes gaseous and thus creates foam. Used in this way, it produces whipped cream four times the volume of the liquid, whereas whipping air into cream only produces twice the volume. If air were used as a propellant, oxygen would accelerate rancidification of the butterfat; nitrous oxide inhibits such degradation. Carbon dioxide cannot be used for whipped cream because it is acidic in water, which would curdle the cream and give it a seltzer-like \"sparkling\" sensation.\n\nHowever, the whipped cream produced with nitrous oxide is unstable and will return to a more liquid state within half an hour to one hour. Thus, the method is not suitable for decorating food that will not be immediately served.\n\nSimilarly, cooking spray, which is made from various types of oils combined with lecithin (an emulsifier), may use nitrous oxide as a propellant; other propellants used in cooking spray include food-grade alcohol and propane.\n\nUsers of nitrous oxide often obtain it from whipped cream dispensers that use nitrous oxide as a propellant (see above section), for recreational use as a euphoria-inducing inhalant drug. It is not harmful in small doses, but risks due to lack of oxygen do exist (see Recreational use below).\n\nMedicine\n\nNitrous oxide has been used for anaesthesia in dentistry since December 1844, where Horace Wells made the first 12–15 dental operations with the gas in Hartford. Its debut as a generally accepted method, however, came in 1863, when Gardner Quincy Colton introduced it more broadly at all the Colton Dental Association clinics, that he founded in New Haven and New York City. The first devices used in dentistry to administer the gas, known as Nitrous Oxide inhalers, were designed in a very simple way with the gas stored and breathed through a breathing bag made of rubber cloth, without a scavenger system and flowmeter, and with no addition of oxygen/air. Today these simple and somewhat unreliable inhalers have been replaced by the more modern relative analgesia machine, which is an automated machine designed to deliver a precisely dosed and breath-actuated flow of nitrous oxide mixed with oxygen, for the patient to inhale safely. The machine used in dentistry is designed as a simplified version of the larger anaesthetic machine used by hospitals, as it doesn't feature the additional anaesthetic vaporiser and medical ventilator. The purpose of the machine allows for a simpler design, as it only delivers a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen for the patient to inhale, in order to depress the feeling of pain while keeping the patient in a conscious state.\n\nRelative analgesia machines typically feature a constant-supply flowmeter, which allow the proportion of nitrous oxide and the combined gas flow rate to be individually adjusted. The gas is administered by dentists through a demand-valve inhaler over the nose, which will only release gas when the patient inhales through the nose. Because nitrous oxide is minimally metabolised in humans (with a rate of 0.004%), it retains its potency when exhaled into the room by the patient, and can pose an intoxicating and prolonged exposure hazard to the clinic staff if the room is poorly ventilated. Where nitrous oxide is administered, a continuous-flow fresh-air ventilation system or nitrous scavenger system is used to prevent a waste-gas buildup.\n\nHospitals administer nitrous oxide as one of the anaesthetic drugs delivered by anaesthetic machines. Nitrous oxide is a weak general anaesthetic, and so is generally not used alone in general anaesthesia. In general anaesthesia it is used as a carrier gas in a 2:1 ratio with oxygen for more powerful general anaesthetic drugs such as sevoflurane or desflurane. It has a minimum alveolar concentration of 105% and a blood/gas partition coefficient of 0.46.\n\nThe medical grade gas tanks, with the tradename Entonox and Nitronox contain a mixture with 50%, but this will normally be diluted to a lower percentage upon the operational delivery to the patient. Inhalation of nitrous oxide is frequently used to relieve pain associated with childbirth, trauma, oral surgery, and acute coronary syndrome (includes heart attacks). Its use during labour has been shown to be a safe and effective aid for women wanting to give birth without an epidural. Its use for acute coronary syndrome is of unknown benefit.\n\nIn Britain and Canada, Entonox and Nitronox are commonly used by ambulance crews (including unregistered practitioners) as a rapid and highly effective analgesic gas.\n\nNitrous oxide has been shown to be effective in treating a number of addictions, including alcohol withdrawal. \n\nNitrous oxide is also gaining interest as a substitute gas for carbon dioxide in laparoscopic surgery. It has been found to be as safe as carbon dioxide with better pain relief. \n\nRecreational use\n\nNitrous oxide can cause analgesia, depersonalisation, derealisation, dizziness, euphoria, and some sound distortion. Research has also found that it increases suggestibility and imagination. Inhalation of nitrous oxide for recreational use, with the purpose of causing euphoria and/or slight hallucinations, began as a phenomenon for the British upper class in 1799, known as \"laughing gas parties\". Until at least 1863, a low availability of equipment to produce the gas, combined with a low usage of the gas for medical purposes, meant it was a relatively rare phenomenon that mainly happened among students at medical universities. When equipment became more widely available for dentistry and hospitals, most countries also restricted the legal access to buy pure nitrous oxide gas cylinders to those sectors. Despite only medical staff and dentists today being legally allowed to buy the pure gas, a Consumers Union report from 1972 found that the use of the gas for recreational purpose was [then] still taking place, based upon reports of its use in Maryland 1971, Vancouver 1972, and a survey made by Dr. Edward J. Lynn of its non-medical use in Michigan 1970.\n\nIn Australia, nitrous oxide bulbs are known as nangs, possibly derived from the sound distortion perceived by consumers. \n\nIn the United Kingdom, nitrous oxide is used by almost half a million young people at nightspots, festivals and parties. In August 2015, the London Borough of Lambeth Council banned the use of the drug for recreational purposes, making offenders liable to an on-the-spot fine of up to £1,000. \n\nMechanism of action\n\nThe pharmacological mechanism of action of in medicine is not fully known. However, it has been shown to directly modulate a broad range of ligand-gated ion channels, and this likely plays a major role in many of its effects. It moderately blocks NMDA and β2-subunit-containing nACh channels, weakly inhibits AMPA, kainate, GABAC, and 5-HT3 receptors, and slightly potentiates GABAA and glycine receptors. It has also been shown to activate two-pore-domain channels. While affects quite a few ion channels, its anaesthetic, hallucinogenic, and euphoriant effects are likely caused predominantly or fully via inhibition of NMDA receptor-mediated currents. In addition to its effects on ion channels, may act to imitate nitric oxide (NO) in the central nervous system, and this may be related to its analgesic and anxiolytic properties.\n\nAnxiolytic effect\n\nIn behavioural tests of anxiety, a low dose of is an effective anxiolytic, and this anti-anxiety effect is associated with enhanced activity of GABAA receptors, as it is partially reversed by benzodiazepine receptor antagonists. Mirroring this, animals which have developed tolerance to the anxiolytic effects of benzodiazepines are partially tolerant to . Indeed, in humans given 30% , benzodiazepine receptor antagonists reduced the subjective reports of feeling \"high\", but did not alter psychomotor performance, in human clinical studies. \n\nAnalgesic effect\n\nThe analgesic effects of are linked to the interaction between the endogenous opioid system and the descending noradrenergic system. When animals are given morphine chronically they develop tolerance to its pain-killing effects, and this also renders the animals tolerant to the analgesic effects of . Administration of antibodies which bind and block the activity of some endogenous opioids (not β-endorphin) also block the antinociceptive effects of . Drugs which inhibit the breakdown of endogenous opioids also potentiate the antinociceptive effects of . Several experiments have shown that opioid receptor antagonists applied directly to the brain block the antinociceptive effects of , but these drugs have no effect when injected into the spinal cord.\n\nConversely, α2-adrenoceptor antagonists block the pain reducing effects of when given directly to the spinal cord, but not when applied directly to the brain. Indeed, α2B-adrenoceptor knockout mice or animals depleted in norepinephrine are nearly completely resistant to the antinociceptive effects of . Apparently -induced release of endogenous opioids causes disinhibition of brain stem noradrenergic neurons, which release norepinephrine into the spinal cord and inhibit pain signalling. Exactly how causes the release of endogenous opioid peptides is still uncertain.\n\nEuphoric effect\n\nIn rats, stimulates the mesolimbic reward pathway via inducing dopamine release and activating dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, presumably through antagonisation of NMDA receptors localised in the system. This action has been implicated in its euphoric effects, and notably, appears to augment its analgesic properties as well.\n\nHowever, it is remarkable that in mice, blocks amphetamine-induced carrier-mediated dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens and behavioural sensitisation, abolishes the conditioned place preference (CPP) of cocaine and morphine, and does not produce reinforcing (or aversive) effects of its own. Studies on CPP of in rats is mixed, consisting of reinforcement, aversion, and no change. In contrast, it is a positive reinforcer in squirrel monkeys, and is well known as a drug of abuse in humans. These discrepancies in response to may reflect species variation or methodological differences. In human clinical studies, was found to produce mixed responses similarly to rats, reflecting high subjective individual variability. \n\nNeurotoxicity and neuroprotection\n\nLike other NMDA antagonists, was suggested to produce neurotoxicity in the form of Olney's lesions in rodents upon prolonged (several hour) exposure. However, new research has arisen suggesting that Olney's lesions do not occur in humans, and similar drugs like ketamine are now believed not to be acutely neurotoxic. It has been argued that, because has a very short duration under normal circumstances, it is less likely to be neurotoxic than other NMDA antagonists. Indeed, in rodents, short-term exposure results in only mild injury that is rapidly reversible, and permanent neuronal death only occurs after constant and sustained exposure. Nitrous oxide may also cause neurotoxicity after extended exposure because of hypoxia. This is especially true of non-medical formulations such as whipped-cream chargers (also known as \"whippets\" or \"nangs\"), which are not necessarily mixed with oxygen. \n\nAdditionally, nitrous oxide depletes vitamin B12 levels. This can cause serious neurotoxicity with even acute use if the user has preexisting vitamin B12 deficiency. \n\nNitrous oxide is also neuroprotective, inhibiting glutamate-induced excitotoxicity.\n\nSafety\n\nThe major safety hazards of nitrous oxide come from the fact that it is a compressed liquefied gas, an asphyxiation risk, and a dissociative anaesthetic. Exposure to nitrous oxide causes short-term decreases in mental performance, audiovisual ability, and manual dexterity. Abusing nitrous oxide can lead to oxygen deprivation resulting in loss of blood pressure, fainting and even heart attacks. \n\nLong-term exposure can cause vitamin B deficiency, numbness, reproductive side effects (in pregnant females), and other problems (see Biological). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends that workers' exposure to nitrous oxide should be controlled during the administration of anaesthetic gas in medical, dental, and veterinary operators. People can be exposed to nitrous oxide in the workplace by breathing it in or getting the liquid on their skin or in their eyes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a Recommended exposure limit (REL) of 25 ppm (46 mg/m3) exposure to waste anaesthetic. \n\nChemical/physical\n\nAt room temperature (20 °C (68 °F)) the saturated vapour pressure is 58.5 bar, rising up to 72.45 bar at —the critical temperature. The pressure curve is thus unusually sensitive to temperature. Liquid nitrous oxide acts as a good solvent for many organic compounds; liquid mixtures may form shock sensitive explosives.\n\nAs with many strong oxidisers, contamination of parts with fuels have been implicated in rocketry accidents, where small quantities of nitrous/fuel mixtures explode due to \"water hammer\"-like effects (sometimes called \"dieseling\"—heating due to adiabatic compression of gases can reach decomposition temperatures). Some common building materials such as stainless steel and aluminium can act as fuels with strong oxidisers such as nitrous oxide, as can contaminants, which can ignite due to adiabatic compression. \n\nThere have also been accidents where nitrous oxide decomposition in plumbing has led to the explosion of large tanks.\n\nBiological\n\nNitrous oxide inactivates the cobalamin form of vitamin B12 by oxidation. Symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency, including sensory neuropathy, myelopathy, and encephalopathy, can occur within days or weeks of exposure to nitrous oxide anaesthesia in people with subclinical vitamin B12 deficiency. Symptoms are treated with high doses of vitamin B12, but recovery can be slow and incomplete. People with normal vitamin B12 levels have stores to make the effects of nitrous oxide insignificant, unless exposure is repeated and prolonged (nitrous oxide abuse). Vitamin B12 levels should be checked in people with risk factors for vitamin B12 deficiency prior to using nitrous oxide anaesthesia. \n\nA study of workers \nand several experimental animal studies indicate that adverse reproductive effects for pregnant females may also result from chronic exposure to nitrous oxide.\n\nNitrous oxide reductase is an important enzyme which limits the emission of the gas to the atmosphere. \n\nEnvironmental\n\n is a greenhouse gas with a large global warming potential (GWP). When compared to carbon dioxide (), has 298 times the ability per molecule of gas to trap heat in the atmosphere. is produced naturally in the soil during the microbial processes of nitrification and denitrification. \n\nThe United States of America signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ([http://unfccc.int/2860.php UNFCCC]) in 1992, agreeing to inventory and assess the various sources of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. The agreement requires parties to \"develop, periodically update, publish and make available... national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, using comparable methodologies...\". In response to this agreement, the U.S. is obligated to inventory anthropogenic emissions by sources and sinks, of which agriculture is a key contributor. In 2008, agriculture contributed 6.1% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and cropland contributed nearly 69% of total direct nitrous oxide () emissions. Additionally, estimated emissions from agricultural soils were 6% higher in 2008 than 1990.\n\nAccording to 2006 data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, industrial sources make up only about 20% of all anthropogenic sources, and include the production of nylon, and the burning of fossil fuel in internal combustion engines. Human activity is thought to account for 30%; tropical soils and oceanic release account for 70%. However, a 2008 study by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen suggests that the amount of nitrous oxide release attributable to agricultural nitrate fertilizers has been seriously underestimated, most of which would presumably come under soil and oceanic release in the Environmental Protection Agency data. Atmospheric levels have risen by more than 15% since 1750. Nitrous oxide also causes ozone depletion. A new study suggests that NO emission currently is the single most important ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emission and is expected to remain the largest throughout the 21st century. \n\nProduction\n\nNitrous oxide is most commonly prepared by careful heating of ammonium nitrate, which decomposes into nitrous oxide and water vapour. The addition of various phosphates favours formation of a purer gas at slightly lower temperatures. One of the earliest commercial producers was George Poe in Trenton, New Jersey.\n\n(s) → 2 (g) + (g)\n\nThis reaction occurs between 170 and, temperatures where ammonium nitrate is a moderately sensitive explosive and a very powerful oxidizer. Above 240 C the exothermic reaction may accelerate to the point of detonation, so the mixture must be cooled to avoid such a disaster. Superheated steam is used to reach reaction temperature in some turnkey production plants. \n\nDownstream, the hot, corrosive mixture of gases must be cooled to condense the steam, and filtered to remove higher oxides of nitrogen. Ammonium nitrate smoke, as an extremely persistent colloid, will also have to be removed. The cleanup is often done in a train of three gas washes; namely base, acid and base again. Any significant amounts of nitric oxide (NO) may not necessarily be absorbed directly by the base (sodium hydroxide) washes.\n\nThe nitric oxide impurity is sometimes chelated out with ferrous sulfate, reduced with iron metal, or oxidised and absorbed in base as a higher oxide. The first base wash may (or may not) react out much of the ammonium nitrate smoke. However, this reaction generates ammonia gas, which may have to be absorbed in the acid wash.\n\nAs a byproduct\n\nThe synthesis of adipic acid; one of the two reactants used in nylon manufacture, produces nitrogen oxides including nitric oxides This might become a major commercial source, but will require the removal of higher oxides of nitrogen and organic impurities. Currently much of the gas is decomposed before release for environmental protection.\n\nOther routes\n\nHeating a mixture of sodium nitrate and ammonium sulfate. \n2 + (NH4)2SO4 → Na2SO4 + 2+ 4.\n\nThe reaction of urea, nitric acid and sulfuric acid \n2 (NH2)2CO + 2 + → 2 + 2 + (NH4)2SO4 + 2.\n\nDirect oxidation of ammonia with a manganese dioxide-bismuth oxide catalyst: cf. Ostwald process.\n2 + 2 → + 3 \n\nReacting Hydroxylammonium chloride with sodium nitrite. If the nitrite is added to the hydroxylamine solution, the only remaining by-product is salt water. However, if the hydroxylamine solution is added to the nitrite solution (nitrite is in excess), then toxic higher oxides of nitrogen are also formed.\n+ → + NaCl + 2 \n\nReacting with and HCl:\n2 + 8 HCl + 4 → 5 + 4 + \n\nHyponitrous acid decomposes to N2O and water with a half-life of 16 days at 25 °C at pH 1–3.Egon Wiberg, Arnold Frederick Holleman (2001) Inorganic Chemistry, Elsevier ISBN 0-12-352651-5\nH2N2O2→ H2O + N2O\n\nSoil\n\nOf the entire anthropogenic emission (5.7 teragrams -N per year), agricultural soils provide 3.5 teragrams –N per year. Nitrous oxide is produced naturally in the soil during the microbial processes of nitrification, denitrification, nitrifier denitrification and others:\n* aerobic autotrophic nitrification, the stepwise oxidation of ammonia () to nitrite () and to nitrate () (e.g., Kowalchuk and Stephen, 2001),\n* anaerobic heterotrophic denitrification, the stepwise reduction of to , nitric oxide (NO), and ultimately , where facultative anaerobe bacteria use as an electron acceptor in the respiration of organic material in the condition of insufficient oxygen () (e.g. Knowles, 1982), and\n* nitrifier denitrification, which is carried out by autotrophic −oxidizing bacteria and the pathway whereby ammonia () is oxidised to nitrite (), followed by the reduction of to nitric oxide (NO), and molecular nitrogen () (e.g., Webster and Hopkins, 1996; Wrage et al., 2001).\n* Other production mechanisms include heterotrophic nitrification (Robertson and Kuenen, 1990), aerobic denitrification by the same heterotrophic nitrifiers (Robertson and Kuenen, 1990), fungal denitrification (Laughlin and Stevens, 2002), and non-biological process chemodenitrification (e.g. Chalk and Smith, 1983; Van Cleemput and Baert, 1984; Martikainen and De Boer, 1993; Daum and Schenk, 1998; Mørkved et al., 2007).\nSoil emissions are reported to be controlled by soil chemical and physical properties such as the availability of mineral N, soil pH, organic matter availability, and soil type, and climate related soil properties such as soil temperature and soil water content (e.g., Mosier, 1994; Bouwman, 1996; Beauchamp, 1997; Yamulki et al. 1997; Dobbie and Smith, 2003; Smith et al. 2003; Dalal et al. 2003).\n\nProperties and reactions\n\nNitrous oxide is a colourless, non-toxic gas with a faint, sweet odour.\n\nNitrous oxide supports combustion by releasing the dipolar bonded oxygen radical, thus it can relight a glowing splint.\n\n is inert at room temperature and has few reactions. At elevated temperatures, its reactivity increases. For example, nitrous oxide reacts with at 460 K to give :\n2 + → + NaOH + \nThe above reaction is the route adopted by the commercial chemical industry to produce azide salts, which are used as detonators. \n\nOccurrence\n\nNitrous oxide is emitted by bacteria in soils and oceans, and is thus a part of Earth's atmosphere. Agriculture is the main source of human-produced nitrous oxide: cultivating soil, the use of nitrogen fertilisers, and animal waste handling can all stimulate naturally occurring bacteria to produce more nitrous oxide. The livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide. Industrial sources make up only about 20% of all anthropogenic sources, and include the production of nylon, and the burning of fossil fuel in internal combustion engines. Human activity is thought to account for 40%; tropical soils and oceanic release account for the rest. \n\nNitrous oxide reacts with ozone in the stratosphere. Nitrous oxide is the main naturally occurring regulator of stratospheric ozone. Nitrous oxide is a major greenhouse gas. Considered over a 100-year period, it has 298 times more impact per unit weight than carbon dioxide. Thus, despite its low concentration, nitrous oxide is the fourth largest contributor to these greenhouse gases. It ranks behind water vapour, carbon dioxide, and methane. Control of nitrous oxide is part of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. \n\nHistory\n\nThe gas was first synthesised by English natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley in 1772, who called it phlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston). Priestley published his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), where he described how to produce the preparation of \"nitrous air diminished\", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid. \n\nEarly use\n\nThe first important use of nitrous oxide was made possible by Thomas Beddoes and James Watt, who worked together to publish the book Considerations on the Medical Use and on the Production of Factitious Airs (1794). This book was important for two reasons. First, James Watt had invented a novel machine to produce \"Factitious Airs\" (i.e. nitrous oxide) and a novel \"breathing apparatus\" to inhale the gas. Second, the book also presented the new medical theories by Thomas Beddoes, that tuberculosis and other lung diseases could be treated by inhalation of \"Factitious Airs\".\n\nThe machine to produce \"Factitious Airs\" had three parts: A furnace to burn the needed material, a vessel with water where the produced gas passed through in a spiral pipe (for impurities to be \"washed off\"), and finally the gas cylinder with a gasometer where the gas produced, \"air\", could be tapped into portable air bags (made of airtight oily silk). The breathing apparatus consisted of one of the portable air bags connected with a tube to a mouthpiece. With this new equipment being engineered and produced by 1794, the way was paved for clinical trials, which began when Thomas Beddoes in 1798 established the \"Pneumatic Institution for Relieving Diseases by Medical Airs\" in Hotwells (Bristol). In the basement of the building, a large-scale machine was producing the gases under the supervision of a young Humphry Davy, who was encouraged to experiment with new gases for patients to inhale. The first important work of Davy was examination of the nitrous oxide, and the publication of his results in the book: Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1800). In that publication, Davy notes the analgesic effect of nitrous oxide at page 465 and its potential to be used for surgical operations at page 556. \n\nDespite Davy's discovery that inhalation of nitrous oxide could relieve a conscious person from pain, another 44 years elapsed before doctors attempted to use it for anaesthesia. The use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug at \"laughing gas parties\", primarily arranged for the British upper class, became an immediate success beginning in 1799. While the effects of the gas generally make the user appear stuporous, dreamy and sedated, some people also \"get the giggles\" in a state of euphoria, and frequently erupt in laughter. \n\nAnaesthetic use\n\nThe first time nitrous oxide was used as an anaesthetic drug in the treatment of a patient was when dentist Horace Wells, with assistance by Gardner Quincy Colton and John Mankey Riggs, demonstrated insensitivity to pain from a dental extraction on 11 December 1844. In the following weeks, Wells treated the first 12–15 patients with nitrous oxide in Hartford, and according to his own record only failed in two cases. In spite of these convincing results being reported by Wells to the medical society in Boston already in December 1844, this new method was not immediately adopted by other dentists. The reason for this was most likely that Wells, in January 1845 at his first public demonstration to the medical faculty in Boston, had been partly unsuccessful, leaving his colleagues doubtful regarding its efficacy and safety. The method did not come into general use until 1863, when Gardner Quincy Colton successfully started to use it in all his \"Colton Dental Association\" clinics, that he had just established in New Haven and New York City. Over the following three years, Colton and his associates successfully administered nitrous oxide to more than 25,000 patients. Today, nitrous oxide is used in dentistry as an anxiolytic, as an adjunct to local anaesthetic.\n\nHowever, nitrous oxide was not found to be a strong enough anaesthetic for use in major surgery in hospital settings. Being a stronger and more potent anaesthetic, sulfuric ether was instead demonstrated and accepted for use in October 1846, along with chloroform in 1847. When Joseph Thomas Clover invented the \"gas-ether inhaler\" in 1876, it however became a common practice at hospitals to initiate all anaesthetic treatments with a mild flow of nitrous oxide, and then gradually increase the anaesthesia with the stronger ether/chloroform. Clover's gas-ether inhaler was designed to supply the patient with nitrous oxide and ether at the same time, with the exact mixture being controlled by the operator of the device. It remained in use by many hospitals until the 1930s. Although hospitals today are using a more advanced anaesthetic machine, these machines still use the same principle launched with Clover's gas-ether inhaler, to initiate the anaesthesia with nitrous oxide, before the administration of a more powerful anaesthetic.\n\nAs a patent medicine\n\nColton's popularization of nitrous oxide led to its adoption by a number of less than reputable quacksalvers, who touted it as a cure for consumption, scrofula, catarrh, and other diseases of the blood, throat, and lungs. Nitrous oxide treatment was administered and licensed as a patent medicine by the likes of C. L. Blood and Jerome Harris in Boston and Charles E. Barney of Chicago.\n\nLegality\n\nIn the United States, possession of nitrous oxide is legal under federal law and is not subject to DEA purview. It is, however, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration under the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act; prosecution is possible under its \"misbranding\" clauses, prohibiting the sale or distribution of nitrous oxide for the purpose of human consumption.\n\nMany states have laws regulating the possession, sale, and distribution of nitrous oxide. Such laws usually ban distribution to minors or limit the amount of nitrous oxide that may be sold without special license. For example, in the state of California, possession for recreational use is prohibited and qualifies as a misdemeanour. \n\nIn New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has warned that nitrous oxide is a prescription medicine, and its sale or possession without a prescription is an offence under the Medicines Act. This statement would seemingly prohibit all non-medicinal uses of the chemical, though it is implied that only recreational use will be legally targeted.\n\nIn India, for general anaesthesia purposes, nitrous oxide is available as Nitrous Oxide IP. India's gas cylinder rules (1985) permit the transfer of gas from one cylinder to another for breathing purposes. This law benefits remote hospitals, which would otherwise suffer as a result of India's geographic immensity. Nitrous Oxide IP is transferred from bulk cylinders ( capacity gas) to smaller pin-indexed valve cylinders ( of gas), which are then connected to the yoke assembly of Boyle's machines. Because India's Food & Drug Authority (FDA-India) rules state that transferring a drug from one container to another (refilling) is equivalent to manufacturing, anyone found doing so must possess a drug manufacturing license."
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What is the distance between bases on a little league baseball field?
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"A baseball field, also called a ball field or a baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term is also used as a metonym for baseball park.\n\nSpecifications\n\nUnless otherwise noted, the specifications discussed in this section refer to those described within the Official Baseball Rules, under which Major League Baseball is played\n\nThe starting point for much of the action on the field is home plate, which is a five-sided slab of whitened rubber, 17 inches square with two of the corners removed so that one edge is 17 inches long, two adjacent sides are 8½ inches and the remaining two sides are 12 inches and set at an angle to make a point. Adjacent to each of the two parallel 8½-inch sides is a batter's box. The point of home plate where the two 12-inch sides meet at right angles is at one corner of a ninety-foot square. The other three corners of the square, in counterclockwise order from home plate, are called first base, second base, and third base. Three canvas bags fifteen inches (38 cm) square mark the three bases. These three bags along with home plate form the four points at the corners of the infield.\n\nAll the bases, including home plate, lie entirely within fair territory. Thus, any batted ball that touches those bases must necessarily be in fair territory. While the first and third base bags are placed so that they lie inside the 90 foot square formed by the bases, the second base bag is placed so that its center (unlike first, third and home) coincides exactly with the \"point\" of the ninety-foot infield square. Thus, although the \"points\" of the bases are 90 feet apart, the physical distance between each successive pair of base markers is closer to 88 feet. \n\nThe lines from home plate to first and third bases extend to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction and are called the foul lines. The portion of the playing field between (and including) the foul lines is fair territory; the rest is \"foul territory.\" The area in the vicinity of the square formed by the bases is called the infield; fair territory outside the infield is known as the outfield. Most baseball fields are enclosed with a fence that marks the outer edge of the outfield. The fence is usually set at a distance ranging from 300 ft to 420 ft from home plate. Most professional and college baseball fields have a right and left foul pole. These poles are at the intersection of the foul lines and the respective ends of the outfield fence and, unless otherwise specified within the ground rules, lie in fair territory. Thus, a batted ball that passes over the outfield wall in flight and touches the foul pole is a fair ball and the batter is awarded a home run.\n\nFirst base\n\nFirst base is the first of four bases that must be touched by a player on the batting team in order to score a run. Unlike when an offensive player reaches second or third base, it is permissible for a batter-runner to overrun first base without being in jeopardy of being put out. After contact is made with the base, the batter-runner may slow down and return to first base at his leisure, so long as he makes no move or attempt to advance to second base. The runner cannot be tagged out if he is touching the base with any part of his body.\n\nThe first baseman is the defensive player responsible for the area near first base. A professional first baseman is often a slow runner and tall. A tall first baseman presents a large target to which other fielders can throw, and his height gives him a larger range in reaching and catching errant throws. Players who are left-handed are marginally preferable for first base because: first, it is easier for a left-handed fielder to catch a pick-off throw from the pitcher and tag the baserunner; and, second, it is easier for a left handed thrower to make the throw to second base to start a 3-6-3, 3-6-4, or a 3-6-1 double play. Also, a right-handed first baseman must, when setting himself up to receive a throw from an infielder, execute a half-pivot near the base; this is a move that a left-hander need not make (this advantage is very marginal, however). There are three infield positions that can only effectively be occupied by right-handed players: 2nd base, 3rd base, and shortstop. This is because of the time it takes to pivot and set to throw. It takes a left-handed thrower more time to make that pivot and in the fast-paced major league game, that time is critical. As a result, there are fewer positions a left-handed player can occupy, and if that player is not fast, the outfield may not be a good fit.\n\nIn the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the first baseman is assigned the number '3'.\n\nSecond base\n\nSecond base is the second of four stations on a baseball diamond which must be touched in succession by a base runner in order to score a run for that player's team. Second base is typically defended by the second baseman and the shortstop. Second base is also known as the keystone sack. A runner on second base is said to be in \"scoring position\", owing to the high likelihood of reaching home plate and scoring a run from second base on most base hits. Since second is the farthest base from home plate, it is the most common target of base stealing. The runner can not be tagged out if he is touching the base with any part of his body.\n\nIdeally, the second baseman and shortstop possess quick hands and feet and the ability to release the ball rapidly and with accuracy. One will usually cover second base when the other attempts to field the ball. Both players must communicate well to be able to make a double play. Particular agility is required of the second baseman in double play situations, which usually forces the player to throw towards first while his momentum carries him in the opposite direction. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the second baseman is assigned the number 4, and the shortstop 6.\n\nThird base\n\nThird base is the third of four bases a base runner must touch in a counterclockwise succession in order to score a run. Many batted balls that result in the batter being put out (such as a sacrifice fly) may nevertheless allow a runner to reach home plate and score a run from third base, provided that the third and final out is not recorded before he can do so. A runner on third base is therefore particularly valuable to the batting team when fewer than two outs have been recorded. The runner cannot be tagged out if he is touching the base with any part of his body.\n\nThe third baseman is the defensive player whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base. A third baseman ideally possesses quick reaction to batted balls and a strong arm to make the long throw to first base. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the third baseman is assigned the number 5.\n\nHome plate\n\nHome plate, formally designated home base in the rules, is the final base that a player must touch to score. Unlike the other bases, home plate is a five-sided slab of whitened rubber that is set at ground level. The use of rubber was developed by Robert Keating, who pitched one game for the 1887 Baltimore Orioles. Previously—and more dangerously—the plate was made of stone, iron, or wood. \n\nThe dimensions of home plate are 17\" across the front, 8.5\" down each side, with a triangular rear of two sides of 12\". The rear edges are at 45 degrees to the sides, making a point at the back. The plate is white and surrounded by a black strip 3/4\" in width. The plate sits entirely in \"fair\" territory, with the two rear edges aligned with the right and left field foul lines. The length and angle requirements for home plate mandate that it is not a regular pentagon; it is a 17\" by 8.5\" rectangle with an isosceles triangle of base 17\" and equal sides of 12\" attached to the back.\n\n50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 meters) behind home plate is the backstop, which is a wall/fence that will stop wild pitches, passed balls, and foul balls. In enclosed stadiums, the backstop is often composed of a lower part, which is like any other part of the wall, and an upper netting to protect spectators seated behind it; in recreational baseball fields, there is usually a tall chain-link fence, including an angled top section, composing the entire backstop.\n\nBatter's box and catcher's box\n\nThe batter's box is the place where the batter stands when ready to receive a pitch from the pitcher. It is usually drawn in chalk on the dirt surrounding home plate, and the insides of the boxes are watered down before each game.\n\nThe chalk lines delineating the two Foul Lines are rarely extended through the batter's boxes. However, those lines exist conceptually for the purpose of judging a batted ball fair or foul. In addition, inside edges of the Batter's Boxes are often not laid-in with chalk. Similarly, though not marked, those lines continue to exist for the purpose of the rules pertaining to the batter's box and the batter's position relative thereto.\n\nThere are two batter's boxes, one on each side of home plate. The batter's boxes are 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. The batter's boxes are centered lengthwise at the center of home plate with the inside line of each batter's box 6 inches from the near edge of home plate. A right-handed batter would stand in the batter's box on the left side of home plate from the perspective of the catcher and umpire. A left-handed batter would stand in the batter's box to their right. A batter may only occupy one batter's box at a time and may not legally leave the batter's box after the pitcher has come set or has started his windup. Should the batter wish to leave the batter's box once the pitcher has engaged the rubber, he must first ask the umpire for time-out. Time will not be granted if the pitcher has already started his pitching motion. For playing rules relating to the batter's box, see Rules 6.05 and 6.06 of the Official Baseball Rules.\n\nFoul poles\n\nFoul poles, if present, help umpires judge whether a fly ball hit above the fence line is foul (out of play) or fair (a home run). The poles are a vertical extension of the foul lines at the edge of the field of play. The outer edge of the foul lines and foul poles define foul territory. Both the lines and the poles are in fair territory, in contrast to football and basketball, where the lines marking the playing boundaries are out of bounds.\n\nPrior to 1920, the foul lines extended indefinitely; a batter was awarded a home run only if a fly ball out of the field was fair where it landed, or \"when last seen\" by the umpire. Now, a batted ball that leaves the field in flight is judged fair or foul at the point it leaves the field. Thus, such a fly ball passing on the fair side of a foul pole, or hitting a foul pole, is a home run regardless of where the ball goes thereafter.\n\nFoul poles are typically much higher than the top of the outfield fence or wall, and often have a narrow screen running along the fair side of the pole. This further aids the umpires' judgment, as a ball that bounces off this screen is a home run. It can still be a difficult call, especially in ballparks with no outfield stands behind the poles to provide perspective. Wrigley Field is notorious for arguments over long, curving flies down a foul line (most notably in left field) that sail higher than the foul pole.\n\nAt Major League Baseball fields, foul poles are usually yellow. Those at Citi Field are orange. At the Rogers Centre, there are no foul poles, but large nets suspended from the roof that serve the same purpose. At Petco Park, there is no foul pole in left field; the pole's function is served by a yellow metal strip along the corner of the Western Metal Supply Co. building.\n\nPitcher's mound\n\nIn roughly the middle of the square, equidistant between first and third base, and a few feet closer to home plate than to second base, is a low artificial hill called the pitcher's mound. This is where the pitcher stands when throwing the pitch. Atop the mound is a white rubber slab, called the pitcher's plate or pitcher's rubber. It measures 6 inches (15 cm) front-to-back and 2 feet (61 cm) across, the front of which is exactly 60 feet, 6 inches (18.4 m) from the rear point of home plate. This peculiar distance was set by the rule makers in 1893, not due to a clerical or surveying error as popular myth has it, but intentionally (further details in History section).\n\nIn Major League Baseball, a regulation mound is 18 feet (5.5 m) in diameter, with the center 59 feet (18.0 m) from the rear point of home plate, on the line between home plate and second base. The front edge of the pitcher's plate or rubber is 18 inches (45.7 cm) behind the center of the mound, making the front edge's midpoint 60 feet 6 inches (18.4 m) from the rear point of home plate. Six inches (15.2 cm) in front of the pitcher's rubber the mound begins to slope downward. The top of the rubber is to be no higher than ten inches (25.4 cm) above home plate. From 1903 through 1968, this height limit was set at 15 inches, but was often slightly higher, sometimes as high as 20 inches (50.8 cm), especially for teams that emphasized pitching, such as the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were reputed to have the highest mound in the majors.\n\nA pitcher will push off the rubber with his foot in order to gain velocity toward home plate when pitching. In addition, a higher mound generally favors the pitcher. With the height advantage, the pitcher gains more leverage and can put more downward velocity on the ball, making it more difficult for the batter to strike the ball squarely with the bat. The lowering of the mound in 1969 was intended to \"increase the batting\" once again, as pitching had become increasingly dominant, reaching its peak the prior year; 1968 is known among baseball historians as \"The Year of the Pitcher\". This restrictive rule apparently did its job, contributing to the hitting surge of modern baseball.\n\nA pitcher's mound is difficult for groundskeepers to maintain. Usually before every game it is watered down to keep the dust from spreading. On youth and amateur baseball fields, the mound may be much different from the rule book definition due to erosion and repair attempts. Even in the major leagues, each mound gains its own character, as pitchers are allowed to kick away pieces of dirt in their way, thereby sculpting the mound a bit to their preference.\n\nThe pitcher may keep a rosin bag on the rear of the mound to dry off his hands. Major League Baseball teams are also permitted cleat cleaners on the back of the mound. This may be a flat grate-style plate, or simply a hand tool such as a piece of wood used to remove mud and dirt from cleats. These items are allowed to remain on the backside of the mound at the discretion of the umpire, thus reducing the probability that they will affect a live play. \n\nBaseline\n\nA baseline is the straight line between two adjacent bases. Baselines are not drawn on the field, although the foul lines serve to mark the baseline between home plate and first base, and between third base and home.\n\nRunning baseline\n\nGenerally, base runners are not required to follow the baseline. A base runner seeking to advance more than one base typically \"rounds\" the base, following a more circular path. However, a base runner's left-right motion is constrained when the defense tries to tag him. At the moment the defense begins the attempt, the baserunner's running baseline is established as a direct line from his current position to the base he is trying for. A runner straying more than three feet (0.9 m) away from this baseline to avoid a tag may be called out.\n\nRunning lane\n\nBeginning halfway between home and first base, and ending at first base, there is a second chalk line to the right of the foul line. This second line and the part of the foul line it runs parallel to, form the running lane that defines the path in which a batter must run as he is advancing to first base. Rule 6.05(k) of the Official Baseball Rules states that, if a batter running to first base runs outside the running lane, and \"in doing so\" interferes with the fielder taking the throw at first, then the batter is automatically out. First base itself is not located in the running lane, but Rule 6.05 lets the runner leave the running lane \"by means of a step, stride or slide in the immediate vicinity of first base\" to step on first base. \n\nGrass line\n\n The grass line, where the dirt of the infield ends and the grass of the outfield begins, has no special significance to the rules of the game, but it can influence the outcome of a game. Dirt running paths between the bases (and, at one time and still in some parks, between the pitcher and the catcher) have existed since the beginning of the game, although they were not mentioned in the rule books until around 1950, and their specifications are flexible. In addition to providing a running path, the grass lines act as a visual aid so that players, umpires and fans may better judge distance from the center of the diamond. Occasionally the ball may take a tricky bounce off the dirt area or the edge between the dirt and the grass. Multiple World Series championships (including 1924, 1960 and 1986) have been decided or heavily influenced by erratic hops of ground balls.\n\nIn artificial turf stadiums, infield dirt was originally only placed around the bases and around the pitcher's and batting areas, which are referred to as \"sliding pits.\" In this configuration, the \"grass line\" is usually designated with a white arc. Among Major League Baseball fields, Rogers Centre was the last stadium to maintain this type of configuration and will have a full dirt infield starting in the 2016 MLB season. \n\nOutfield\n\nThe outfield is made from thick grass or artificial turf. It is where the outfielders play. The positions to play in the outfield are right, center, and left field (named in relation to the batter's position; thus left field is beyond third base and right field is beyond first base). Outfields vary in size and shape depending on the overall size and shape of the playing field.\n\nWarning track\n\nThe warning track is the strip of dirt at the edges of the baseball field (especially in front of the home run fence and along the left and right sides of a field). Because the warning track's color and feel differ from the grass field, a fielder can remain focused on a fly ball near the fence and measure his proximity to the fence while attempting to catch the ball safely.\n\nA warning track's width is not specified in the rules. It is generally designed to give about three steps of warning to the highest-level players using the field. Typical widths run from about six feet for Little League fields to about 10–15 feet for college- or professional-level play. A warning track this wide also lets groundskeepers avoid driving maintenance vehicles on the grass.\n\nThe track can be composed of finely ground rock particles such as cinders, which is why announcer Bob Wolff called it the \"cinder path\" rather than the \"warning track\".\n\nThe idea of a warning track originated in Yankee Stadium, where an actual running track was built for use in track and field events. When ballpark designers saw how the track helped fielders, it soon became a feature of every ballpark.\n\nSingle-minded fielders often crash into a wall trying to make a catch despite the warning track. For this reason, outfield walls are typically padded for extra safety. Wrigley Field's brick wall is covered only by ivy, which is not especially soft. However, there are pads on the walls of the tight left and right field corners in foul ground.\n\nWarning-track power is a derogatory term for a batter who seems to have just enough power to hit the ball to the warning track for an out, but not enough to hit a home run. The term more generally refers to someone or something that is almost but not quite good enough for something.\n\nOutfield wall\n\nThe outfield wall or outfield fence is the wall or fence that marks the outer boundary of the outfield. A ball passing over the wall is dead; if it passes over the wall in fair territory while in flight, it is a home run. The official rules do not specify the shape, height, or composition of the wall, or a specific mandatory distance from home plate (though Major League Baseball mandates a minimum distance of 250 ft and recommends a minimum distance of 320 ft at the foul poles and 400 ft at center field). As a result, baseball fields can vary greatly along those lines. The wall has numbers affixed or painted on it that denote the distance in feet from that point on the wall to home plate. In most modern major league ballparks, the wall is made of some hard material (e.g., concrete) with padding on the field side to protect players who may collide with the wall at high speed while trying to make a play. Chain link fencing may also be incorporated into the wall in areas where the wall needs to be transparent, e.g., an outfield bullpen, a spectator area behind the wall, or to protect a scoreboard incorporated into the wall. Many ballparks feature a yellow line denoting the top of the wall to aid umpires in judging whether the ball passed over the wall or if the ball is fair or foul.\n\nBullpen\n\nThe bullpen (sometimes referred to as simply \"the pen\") is the area where pitchers warm up before entering a game. Depending on the ballpark, it may be situated in foul territory along the baselines or just beyond the outfield fence. Relief pitchers usually wait in the bullpen when they have yet to play in a game, rather than in the dugout with the rest of the team. The starting pitcher also makes his final pregame warmups in the bullpen. Managers can call coaches in the bullpen on an in-house telephone from the dugout to tell a certain pitcher to begin his warmup tosses.\n\"Bullpen\" is also used metaphorically to describe a team's collection of relief pitchers.\n\nOn-deck circles\n\nThere are two on-deck circles in the field, one for each team, positioned in foul ground between home plate and the respective teams' benches. They are technically known as next-batter's boxes. The on-deck circle is where the next scheduled batter, or \"on-deck\" batter, warms up while waiting for the current batter to finish his turn. The on-deck circle is either an area composed of bare dirt; a plain circle painted onto artificial turf; or often, especially at the professional level, a mat made from artificial material, with the team or league logo painted onto it.\n\nCoach's boxes\n\nThe coach's boxes, located behind first and third base, are where the first and third base coaches are supposed to stand, although coaches often stand outside the box. This is permissible as long as the coach does not interfere with play and the opposing team does not object (in which case the umpire shall ensure that all coaches on both teams must abide by the boundaries of the coach's boxes). The coach's boxes are marked with chalk or paint. In the early days of baseball, the term \"coacher's box\" was used, as \"coach\" was taken to be a verb. As the term \"coach\" evolved into a noun, the name of the box also changed.\n\nHistory\n\nThe basic layout of the diamond has been little changed since the original Knickerbocker Rules of the 1840s. The distance between bases was already established as 90 feet, which it remains to this day. Through trial and error, 90 feet had been settled upon as the optimal distance. 100 feet would have given too much advantage to the defense, and 80 feet too much to the offense.\n\nThe original Knickerbocker Rules did not specify the pitching distance explicitly. By the time major league baseball began in the 1870s, the pitcher was compelled to pitch from within a \"box\" whose front edge was 45 feet from the \"point\" of home plate. Although he had to release the ball before crossing the line, as with bowlers in cricket, he also had to start his delivery from within the box; he could not run in from the field as bowlers do. Furthermore, the pitcher had to throw underhand. By the 1880s, pitchers had mastered the underhand delivery—in fact, in 1880, there were two perfect games within a week of each other. \n\nIn an attempt to \"increase the batting\", the front edge of the pitcher's box was moved back 5 feet in 1881, to 50 feet from home plate. The size of the box was altered over the following few years. Pitchers were allowed to throw overhand starting in 1884, and that tilted the balance of power again. In 1887, the box was set at 4 feet wide and 5½ feet deep, with the front edge still 50 feet from the plate. However, the pitcher was compelled to deliver the ball with his back foot at the 55½ foot line of the box, thus somewhat restricting his ability to \"power\" the ball with his overhand delivery.\n\nIn 1893, the box was replaced by the pitcher's plate, although \"the box\" is still used today as a slang term for the pitcher's location on the field. Exactly 5 feet was added to the point the pitcher had to toe, again \"to increase the batting\" (and hopefully to increase attendance, as fan interest had flagged somewhat), resulting in the seemingly peculiar pitching distance of 60½ feet.\n\nMany sources suggest that the pitching distance evolved from 45 to 50 to 60½ feet. However, the first two were the \"release point\" and the third is the \"pushoff point\", so the 1893 increase was not quite as dramatic as is often implied; that is, the 1893 rule change added only 5 feet to the release point, not 10½ feet.\n\nOriginally the pitcher threw from flat ground, but over time the raised mound was developed, somewhat returning the advantage to the pitchers. Prior to the mid-20th century, it was common for baseball fields to include a dirt pathway between the pitcher's mound and home plate. This feature is sometimes known as the \"keyhole\" due to the shape that it makes together with the mound. The keyhole was once as wide as the pitcher's box and resembled the \"pitch\" area used in the game of cricket. Sometimes this path extended through the batting area and all the way to the backstop. Once the rounded pitcher's mound was developed, the path became more ornamental than practical, and was gradually thinned before being largely abandoned by the late 1940s. In recent years some ballparks, such as Comerica Park and Chase Field in the major leagues, have revived the feature for nostalgic reasons.\n\nMaintenance\n\nSee: Turf management, Sports turf, and Sand-based athletic fields\n\nHonors and awards\n\nThe Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA) presents various awards each year. Starting in 2001, its Sports Turf Manager of the Year Awards have been presented annually in the Triple-A, Double-A, Class A, and Short-Season/Rookie divisions of Minor League Baseball and are chosen from the 16 league winners. STMA also presents the Baseball Field of the Year Award, which includes Schools and Parks, College/University and Professional categories.",
"Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League International) is a non-profit organization based in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States, which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world.\n\nFounded by Carl Stotz in 1939 as a three-team league in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Little League Baseball encourages local volunteers to organize and operate Little League programs that are annually chartered through Little League International. Each league can structure itself to best serve the children in the area in which the league operates. Several specific divisions of Little League baseball and softball are available to children ages 4 to 18. The organization holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. \n\nThe organization's administrative office is located in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The first Little League Baseball World Series was played in Williamsport in 1947. The Little League International Complex hosts the annual Little League Baseball World Series at Howard J. Lamade Stadium and Little League Volunteer Stadium, and is also the site of the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum, which provides a history of Little League Baseball and Softball through interactive exhibits for children. Some MLB players played in Little League.\n\nHistory\n\nCarl Stotz, a resident of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, founded Little League Baseball in 1939. He began experimenting with his idea in the summer of 1938 when he gathered his nephews, Jimmy and Major Gehron and their neighborhood friends. They tried different field dimensions over the course of the summer and played several informal games. The following summer Stotz felt that he was ready to establish what later became Little League Baseball. The first league in Williamsport had just three teams, each sponsored by a different business. The first teams, Jumbo Pretzel, Lycoming Dairy, and Lundy Lumber, were managed by Carl Stotz and two of his friends, George and Bert Bebble. The men, joined by their wives and another couple, formed the first-ever Little League Board of Directors. Stotz' dream of establishing a baseball league for boys to teach fair play and teamwork had come true.\n\nThe first League game took place on June 6, 1939. Lardy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy, 23-8. Lycoming Dairy came back to claim the league championship. They, the first-half-season champions, defeated Lundy Lumber, the second-half champs, in a best-of-three season-ending series. The following year a second league was formed in Williamsport, and from there Little League Baseball grew to become an international organization of nearly 200,000 teams in every U.S. state and over 80 countries around the world.\n\nFrom 1951 through 1973, Little League was for boys only. In 1974, Little League rules were revised to allow participation by girls in the baseball program following the result of a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women on behalf of Maria Pepe. \n\nAccording to the Little League Baseball and Softball participation statistics following the 2008 season, there were nearly 2.6 million players in Little League Baseball worldwide, including both boys and girls, including 400,000 registered in Softball (also including both boys and girls). For tournament purposes, Little League Baseball is divided into 16 geographic regions; eight National and eight international. Each summer, Little League operates seven World Series tournaments at various locations throughout the U.S. (Little League softball and Junior, Senior, and Big League baseball and softball).\n\nTimeline\n\nEarly years\n\n1939: Little League is established by Carl E. Stotz. The first season is played in a lot close to Bowman Field. Lycoming Dairy is the first season champion.\n\n1946: Little League has expanded to 12 leagues, all in Pennsylvania.\n\n1947: The first league outside of Pennsylvania is founded in Hammonton, New Jersey. Maynard League of Williamsport defeats a team from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to win the first Little League World Series. Allen Yearick is the first Little League graduate to play professional baseball when he is signed by the Boston Braves.\n\n1948: Little League has grown to include 94 leagues. Lock Haven returns to the Little League World Series and defeats a league from St. Petersburg, Florida. The first corporate sponsor, U.S. Rubber, is announced, who donate Pro-Keds shoes to teams at the Little League World Series. \n\n1949: Little League is featured in the Saturday Evening Post and on newsreels. Carl Stotz gets hundreds of requests for information on how to form leagues at the local level from all over the United States. Little League incorporates in New York.\n\n1950: Kathryn Johnston became the first girl to play Little League baseball in 1950, when she tucked her hair under her hat, adopted the nickname \"Tubby\", and joined the Kings Dairy Little League team in Corning, N.Y., posing as a boy. After a few weeks, she told her coach she was a girl, but he said \"That's O.K., you're a darned good player.\" Kathryn played at first base for the season, but then had to stop because of her age (she turned 13.) After that, a rule known as the Tubby Rule prohibited girls from playing in Little League; this was in force until 1974. \n\n1951: Leagues are formed in British Columbia, Canada and near the Panama Canal making them the first leagues outside the United States.\n\n1953: The Little League World Series is televised for the first time. Jim McKay provides the play by play for CBS. Howard Cosell provides play by play for ABC Radio. Joey Jay of Middletown, Connecticut and the Milwaukee Braves is the first Little League graduate to play in the Major Leagues.\n\n1954: Boog Powell, who later played for the Baltimore Orioles plays in the Little League World Series for Lakeland, Florida. Ken Hubbs, who later played for the Chicago Cubs, plays in the Little League World Series for Colton, California. Little League has expanded to more than 3,300 leagues. Jim Barberi who later played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and in a Major League World Series was also a member of the Schenectady, New York team who won the 1954 Series.\n\n1955: There is a Little League organization in each of the 48 U.S. States. George W. Bush begins playing Little League as a catcher for the Cubs of the Central Little League in Midland, Texas. He is the first Little League graduate to be elected President of the United States. The all-black Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars in Charleston, South Carolina created an uproar that every other Little League organization in South Carolina refused to play Cannon Street. Little League sent an ultimatum that the team be able to play, which the other leagues refused, where the other 61 organizations returned their charters and formed their own league in response. No team from the state had made the tournament until 2015.\n\n1956: Carl Stotz severs his ties with Little League Baseball in a dispute over the direction and control of Little League. Stotz believed the league was becoming over-commercialized by Little League president, Peter J. McGovern. Stotz remains active in youth baseball with the \"Original League\" in Williamsport. Little League records its first on-field death in Garland, Texas as 12-year-old Richard \"Rick\" Oden is hit in the head by a pitch thrown by Jerry Armstrong. The city park location of the incident is renamed \"Rick Oden Field.\" As batting helmets are yet to be developed, Garland teams finish the season wearing youth football helmets over their baseball caps when batting. Later that year, Fred Shapiro throws a perfect game in the Little League World Series.\n\nInternational era\n\n1957: Angel Macias throws a perfect game and Monterrey, Mexico, becomes the first team from outside the United States to win the Little League World Series. (Portrayed in 2010 film \"The Perfect Game\".)\n\n1959: The Little League World Series moves from Williamsport to the newly built Little League Headquarters in South Williamsport. The protective baseball helmet is developed by Dr. Creighton J. Hale.\n\n1960: A team from West Berlin, West Germany, is the first team from Europe to play in the Little League World Series. The series is broadcast live for the first time on ABC. Little League has grown to 27,400 teams in more than 5,500 leagues.\n\n1961: Brian Sipe, future quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, plays for the series champions from El Cajon, California.\n\n1962: Jackie Robinson attends the Little League World Series. President John F. Kennedy proclaims National Little League Week.\n\n1967: A team from West Tokyo, Japan, is the first team from Asia to win the Little League World Series.\n\n1969: Taiwan begins a dominant era that would see them win 17 Little League World Series titles.\n\n1971: The aluminum baseball bat is first used. It was partly developed by Little League Baseball. Lloyd McClendon of Gary, Indiana, dominates the Little League World Series, hitting five home runs in five at-bats. He later played in the Major Leagues and become the first Little League graduate to manage an MLB club with the Pittsburgh Pirates.\n\n1973: Ed Vosberg plays in the Little League World Series for Tucson, Arizona. He later played in the College World Series for the University of Arizona in 1980 and the World Series in 1997 for the Florida Marlins. Vosberg is the first person to have played in all three world series.\n\n1974: Girls are formally permitted to play in the Little League Baseball program as result of lawsuit brought on behalf of Frances Pescatore and Jenny Fulle, and a Little League Softball program for both boys and girls is created. Bunny Taylor becomes the first girl to pitch a no-hitter. \n\n1975: In a controversial decision, all foreign teams are banned from the Little League World Series. International play is restored the following year.\n\n1980: A team from Tampa, Florida, representing Belmont Heights Little League, is led by two future major leaguers Derek Bell and Gary Sheffield. Bell returns the following year and Belmont Heights again loses in the finals to a team from Taiwan.\n\n1982: The Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum opens. Cody Webster leads a team from Kirkland, Washington, in an upset victory of a powerful team from Taiwan. It was Taiwan's first loss in 31 games. This game was later featured on ESPN's 30 for 30 series Little Big Men.\n\n1984: Seoul, South Korea, wins the first title for a South Korean team. They defeat a team from Altamonte Springs, Florida, led by future Boston Red Sox catcher, Jason Varitek.\n\n1984:: Victoria Roche, a 12-year-old from Belgium, becomes the first girl to play in the Little League World Series. \n\n1988: Tom Seaver is the first former Little Leaguer to be enshrined in the Peter J. McGovern Museum Hall of Excellence.\n\n1989: Poland becomes the first former Warsaw Pact nation to receive a Little League charter. Trumbull, Connecticut, led by future NHL star Chris Drury, wins the Little League World Series.\n\n1991: Future NL All Star Jason Marquis pitches the Staten Island South Shore Little League team to third place in the Little League World Series over Canada, throwing a no-hitter. \n\n1992: Carl Stotz, the founder of Little League, dies. Lights are installed at Lamade Stadium allowing for the first night games to be played. The series is expanded from single elimination to round-robin format. Long Beach, California, managed by former Major Leaguer Jeff Burroughs and led by his son, future Major Leaguer Sean Burroughs, is named series champion after Zamboanga City, Philippines, is forced to forfeit for playing with ineligible players.\n\n1993: Long Beach repeats as champions, defeating Coquivacoa Little League of Maracaibo, Venezuela. It is the first U.S. team to successfully defend its title.\n\n1997: ESPN2 broadcasts regional play for the first time. Taiwan's baseball association withdraws from Little League Baseball (they would rejoin in 2003) over newly established rules on zoning. Bradenton, Florida, and Pottsville, Pennsylvania, play at Lamade Stadium before the largest crowd ever to attend a non-championship game. The crowd was estimated at over 35,000 fans.\n\n1999: Burkina-Faso becomes the 100th nation with a Little League organization. Hirkata Little League of Osaka, Japan, becomes the first Japanese team to win a title since 1976.\n\n2000: An expansion project begins at Little League International. Volunteer Stadium is built. This allows the pool of participants to be doubled from 8 to 16 the following year.\n\n2001: The LLWS expands from 8 to 16 teams, with the following changes to regional lineups (post-2000 regions in bold):\n* US regions:\n** The East Region splits into the New England and Mid-Atlantic Regions.\n** The Central Region splits into the Great Lakes and Midwest Regions.\n** The South Region splits into the Southeast and Southwest Regions.\n** The West Region spins off the Northwest Region.\n* International regions:\n** Canada remains intact as a region.\n** The Latin America Region spins off new regions for the Caribbean and Mexico.\n** The Far East Region splits into the Asia and Pacific Regions.\n** The Europe Region spins off the TransAtlantic Region.\n*** These two regions were geographically identical, differing in the required composition of playing rosters. Transatlantic teams were required to consist of a majority of players who were nationals of the U.S.A., Canada, or Japan. Europe teams could have no more than three nationals of those countries.\n\nIn other news, Volunteer Stadium is opened. George W. Bush becomes the first U.S. president to visit the Little League World Series. Led by phenom Danny Almonte, pitching the first perfect game since 1957, the Rolando Paulino All Stars (Bronx, New York) finish third in the series. The team's entire postseason, however, is wiped from the books when it is found that Almonte was 14 years old.\n\n2002: Austin Dillon plays for Southwest Forsyth (County) Little League in Clemmons, North Carolina. The grandson of Richard Childress, he would win NASCAR championships in the Camping World Truck Series in 2011 and Nationwide Series in 2013, and made his Sprint Cup debut in 2014.\n\n2004: Effective with the 2004 LLWS, the Europe Region is renamed EMEA, for Europe, Middle East, Africa.\n\n2007: Little League expands into Australia for the first time. Effective with the 2007 LLWS, the Asia and Pacific regions are merged to form the Asia-Pacific Region, with Japan being split into its own region.\n\n2007: Little League expands into Kyrgyzstan for the first time\n\n2008: Effective with this year's LLWS, the Transatlantic and EMEA regions are reorganized into the Europe and Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions. The previous nationality restrictions for players from these regions are abolished. Hawai'i wins the 2008 Little League World Series beating Mexico in the Final.\n\n2008: Little League International relocates the Southeast Region Headquarters From Gulfport, Florida, to Warner Robins, Ga. Little League International completes renovation of its administration building in South Williamsport, Pa.\n\n2010: The World Series tournament is reorganized, eliminating pool play and adopting double-elimination until the bracket winners are determined. Little League announces plans to add a pilot division in baseball for ages 12–13 to help baseball Little Leaguers make the transition to regulation-size fields in Junior League Baseball. Bartlett, Illinois, becomes biggest little league. \n\n2011: The World Series officially eliminates the two four-team brackets and puts all eight teams in the United States bracket and all eight teams in the International bracket, with a SEC Baseball Tournament style flipped bracket on the loser's bracket to prevent rematches, but does not require the loser to defeat the winner's bracket team twice in either Saturday championship game where the winner advances to the Sunday final.\n\n2012:\nThe Middle East and Africa Region produces the first team from the African continent in the Little League World Series. Youngsters from Lugazi Little League of Uganda.\nOn August 29, Little League announces a major reorganization of the international brackets, effective with the 2013 LLWS: \n* Australia spun off from the Asia–Pacific Region and receive its own berth in the LLWS. This reflects Australia's rise to become the fourth-largest country, and largest outside North America, in Little League participation.\n* The Middle East and Africa Region is disbanded.\n* Middle Eastern countries, except for Israel and Turkey (which had been in the Europe Region—see below), are placed in the Asia–Pacific Region.\n* African countries will be placed in the former Europe Region, which is renamed the Europe and Africa Region. Israel and Turkey, members of the European zone of the International Baseball Federation, remains in the renamed region.\nThe Intermediate (50/70) Division, which had operated on a pilot basis since the 2011 season, was announced as an official Little League division, the first new division since 1999. The division, which launched fully in the 2013 season, has the same age limits as standard Little League but extends the pitching rubber to 50 feet from home plate and features bases 70 feet apart. The field is also larger than in standard Little League, and the rules are closer to those of standard baseball.\n\n2013:\nDavie Jane Gilmour became the first woman to lead the board of directors for Little League. \nThe first Intermediate Little League World Series is held in Livermore, California.\n\n2014:\nOn August 15, 2014, Mo'ne Davis was the first girl in Little League World Series history to pitch a winning game for the Taney Dragons and earned the win, and she was also the first girl to pitch a shutout in Little League postseason history. Davis also became the first Little Leaguer to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated (which she was for the issue dated August 25, 2014.) ESPN's coverage of the semifinals game in which Davis played August 20 brought a 3.4 overnight rating, which is an all-time high for Little League on ESPN. \n\nJackie Robinson West became the first all-African-American Little League team to win the U.S. championship, but it was later vacated due to violations of the 1997 region regulations. \n\nRegions\n\nThe national regions represented in the annual Little League Baseball World Series are:\n* New England\n* Great Lakes\n* Mid-Atlantic\n* Midwest\n* Southeast\n* Southwest\n* Northwest (including Alaska)\n* West (including Hawaii)\nThe international regions are:\n* Canada\n* Mexico\n* Asia-Pacific\n* Japan\n* Europe and Africa\n* Australia\n* Latin America\n* Caribbean\n\nLittle League World Series\n\nThe best-known event in the Little League calendar is the annual Little League Baseball World Series, which is held every August in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Tournaments leading up to the World Series are held in the U.S. insular areas of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and throughout the world. In 2003, for example, there were tournaments in Canada, Latin America (Mexico, Aruba, Curaçao, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela), Europe (Germany and Poland), and Asia (Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan).\n\nLittle, Junior, Senior, and Big League baseball & softball World Series\n\nThe Little League Baseball World Series is just one of twelve World Series every year, each one held in a different location.\n* Little League World Series (baseball)\n* Intermediate Little League World Series (baseball)\n* Junior League World Series (baseball)\n* Senior League World Series (baseball)\n* Big League World Series (baseball)\n* Girls Little League Softball World Series (or the Major Division)[http://www.littleleague.org/media/softball/sbworldseries.htm Softball World Series]. Little League. Retrieved 2011-08-24.\n* Girls Junior League Softball World Series\n* Girls Senior League Softball World Series\n* Girls Big League Softball World Series\n* Boys Little League Softball World Series \n* Boys Senior League Softball World Series \n* Boys Big League Softball World Series \n\nMuseum\n\nAwards\n\nFor winners (by year), see footnote \n\n* Good Sport of the Year Award \n* Challenger Award \n* ASAP (A Safety Awareness Program) Award \n* Bill Shea Distinguished Little League Graduate Award \n* Mom of the Year Award \n* George and Barbara Bush Little League Parents of the Year Award \n* Volunteer of the Year Award \n* Howard and Gail Paster Little League Urban Initiative Volunteer of the Year Award \n* Howard Hartman Little League Friendship Award \n\nBaseball divisions\n\nLittle League Baseball has several baseball divisions for boys and girls, based on age.\n\nSummary chart of major divisions in Little League Baseball\n\nThe major divisions of Little League Baseball has their own World Series format as follows:\n\nTee-Ball\n\nTee Ball is for boys and girls ages 4–5, with local leagues given the option to allow 6–7-year-olds to play. In Tee Ball, players hit the ball off of a tee located atop home plate; live pitching is not allowed. The purpose of the division is to teach young children the basic fundamentals of hitting and fielding.\n\nMinor Leagues\n\nThe Minor League Baseball division is generally for children ages 7–11, with local leagues given the option to allow 6-year-old children to try out. Local leagues are permitted to further divide the Minor League division based on player age and/or experience, and often consist of coach-pitch (i.e., the batter's coach lightly pitching the ball) or machine-pitch at lower levels, with defensive players pitching at higher levels.\n\n9–10 Year Olds\n\n\"The 9–10 Year Old Baseball Division for boys and girls was established as a tournament program in 1994. It gives children of this age the opportunity to experience tournament competition, up to state level. Players on these teams can be chosen from among Major Division and/or Minor Division teams. The diamond used is a 60-foot diamond and the pitching distance is 46 feet.\"\n\nLittle League (or the Major Division)\n\n\"The Little League Baseball Division (sometimes known as the Major Division) is for boys and girls ages 9–12. A local league may choose to limit its Major Division to 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds, or 11–12-year-olds. The diamond used is a 60-foot diamond and the pitching distance is 46 feet. The local league has an option to choose a Tournament Team (or \"All Stars\") of 11–12-year-olds from within this division, and the team may enter the International Tournament. The culmination of the International Tournament is the Little League Baseball World Series, featuring teams from around the globe. All expenses for the teams advancing to the World Series (travel, meals, and housing) are paid by Little League Baseball.\"\n\nLittle League Intermediate (50/70) Division\n\nIn 2012, Little League announced plans to add a new division of play for the 2013 season, the Little League Intermediate Division. This Division is played on a field with a 50 ft pitching distance and 70 ft base paths. It is open to players ages 11–13, but may be limited to ages 11–12 or 12–13 by a local league. Players in this division will be able to lead off and steal. Rules will follow rules similar to those of the Junior, Senior, and Big League Divisions of play.\n\nLittle League holds a World Series in this level of play, officially called the Intermediate Little League World Series, in Livermore, California. \n\nJunior League\n\n\"The Junior League Baseball Division is a program for boys and girls ages 13–14, using a conventional 90 ft diamond with a pitching distance of 60 ft. (A modified diamond is available during the regular season.) The local league has an option to choose a Tournament Team (or \"All Stars\") of 13-14-year-olds from within this division (and/or from within the Senior League Division), and the team may enter the International Tournament. The culmination of the International Tournament is the Junior League Baseball World Series, featuring teams from around the globe. All expenses for the teams advancing to the World Series (travel, meals, and housing) are paid by Little League Baseball.\"\n\nSenior League\n\n\"The Senior League Baseball Division is for boys and girls 14–16 years old, using a conventional 90 ft diamond with a pitching distance of 60 ft. The local league has an option to choose a Tournament Team (or \"All Stars\") of 14- to 16-year-olds from within this division (and/or from within the Junior League or Big League divisions), and the team may enter the International Tournament. The culmination of the International Tournament is the Senior League Baseball World Series, featuring teams from around the globe. All expenses for the teams advancing to the World Series (travel, meals, and housing) are paid by Little League Baseball.\"\n\nBig League\n\n\"The Big League Baseball Division is for boys and girls ages 16–18, using a conventional 90 ft diamond with a pitching distance of 60 ft. The local league has an option to choose a Tournament Team (or \"All Stars\") of 16–18-year-olds from within this division (and/or from within the Senior League Division), and the team may enter the International Tournament. The culmination of the International Tournament is the Big League Baseball World Series, featuring teams from around the globe. All expenses for the teams advancing to the World Series (travel, meals, and housing) are paid by Little League Baseball.\"\n\nChallenger Program\n\nLittle League introduced the Challenger Division in 1989 to provide opportunities for children with physical and intellectual challenges to participate in the Little League program. The Challenger Division utilizes a \"buddy system\" in which Little Leaguers assist Challenger participants in the areas of batting, running and fielding. Challenger Division games are typically non-competitive in nature.\n \n\nLittle League Challenger Division\n\nIntroduced in 1989, the Little League Challenger Division is for participants ages 4–18. Games are played on a 46/60 field and are non-competitive.\n\nSenior League Challenger Division\n\nApproved at the 2014 Little League International Congress the Senior League Challenger Division launched in 2015. This division is for participants ages 15 and above (no maximum age). Games are played on a 60/90 field and are non-competitive. Leagues may request permission to play games on a smaller field as well.\n\nParticipation\n\nAs of 2014, nearly 1,000 Little Leagues in 10 countries around the world offered the Challenger Program providing an opportunity for more than 30,000 individuals with physical or intellectual challenges to participate in the Little League program.\n\nSoftball divisions\n\nLittle League Baseball has several softball divisions for girls and boys, based on age.\n\nBoys softball\n\nSee footnote \n* Tee Ball Softball for Boys\n* Minor League Softball for Boys\n* Little League Softball (or the Major Division) for Boys\n* Senior League Softball for Boys\n* Big League Softball for Boys\n\nGirls softball\n\nSee footnotes \n* Girls Tee Ball Softball\n* Girls Minor League Softball\n* Girls Little League Softball (or the Major Division)\n* Girls Junior League Softball\n\n* Girls Senior League Softball\n* Girls Big League Softball\n\nRules\n\nThe playing rules for the baseball divisions essentially follow the \"Official Baseball Rules\" (as defined by and used by Major League Baseball and published at [http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/foreword.jsp Official Baseball Rules at MLB.com]), especially with respect to the upper divisions (Junior, Senior, and Big League). Some major exceptions are outlined in the following sections, and these apply to Little League (Minor and Major, ages 7–12) except as otherwise noted.\n\nRulebooks and fees\n\nUnlike Major League Baseball and most other sports such as football, soccer, and basketball, the official rules of Little League Baseball are available to the general public only by online subscription ($20)\n or as a printed edition ($7 plus $3 for \"shipping and handling\" within the US via UPS\n ). In Canada, rulebook orders requested through LittleLeague.ca are routed to the US website at the same prices, except that \"shipping and handling\" to Canada via UPS is US$15.51, for a total of US$22.51 for a single printed copy.\n\nRulebooks are not available in sporting goods or other stores and must be ordered directly from Little League Baseball, Incorporated or one of its \"Regional Centers\". One paper copy is provided to each team that has sent in an \"Application for Charter and Insurance\", although previously two copies were provided.\n\nLittle League has been criticized for requiring payment to view its rules. However, the organization counters by claiming it has been exposed to lawsuits in the past in cases involving organizations not officially affiliated with Little League but which nonetheless use its rules.\n\nLength of Game\n\nA regulation game is 6 innings. If the game is called prior to the completion of six innings, it is considered an official game if four innings have been completed (three and a half, if the home team leads); otherwise, if at least one inning has been completed, it is a suspended game.\n\nIn Intermediate Little League, as well as the Junior, Senior, and Big League levels (ages 13–18), a game is seven innings and is official if five innings have been completed.\n\nMandatory Play Rule\n\nIn all divisions except Senior and Big League, every player on the team roster must have at least one plate appearance and play six consecutive outs on defense in each game. The penalty for a manager violating the rule is a two-game suspension. This rule is waived if the game is completed prior to the usual duration of the game (six innings in Little League and below, seven innings in Intermediate Little League and Junior League). This rule is modified during tournament play. During tournament play, teams that have 13 or more players dressed at the field for a game are mandated to have one (1) \"At Bat\" during the game per player with no defensive requirement. Teams that have 12 or fewer players dressed at the field for a tournament game require each player to receive one (1) \"At Bat\" plus six consecutive outs played in the field on defense.\n\nPlaying Field\n\nThe size of the field is dependent on the division of play. \n\nTee Ball\nThe distance between the bases is generally 50 feet.\n\nMinor League and Little League\nThe distance between the bases is 60 feet and the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate is 46 feet. Outfield fences must be at least 165 feet from home plate, but are usually 200 feet or more (the fields at the Williamsport complex have fences 225 feet away). The bases and pitching rubber are also slightly smaller than in standard baseball. Also, unlike fields at almost all levels of competitive baseball for teenagers and adults, the distance between home plate and the outfield fence is constant throughout fair territory.\n\nIntermediate Little League\nThe distance between the bases is 70 feet and the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate is 50 feet. The recommended distance between home plate and the outfield fence ranges from 200 to 275 feet; unlike regular Little League, the distances can vary within fair territory. As in regular Little League, the bases and pitching rubber are also slightly smaller than in standard baseball.\n\nJunior League, Senior League, and Big League\nThe distance between the bases is 90 feet, the same as for regulation Major League Baseball fields. The distance between the pitcher's mound to home plate is 60.5 feet, also identical to that of MLB. The minimum outfield distance in the upper divisions is 300 feet (compare with MLB's official but not strictly enforced minimum of 325 feet at the foul lines), while the maximum for Big League is 425 feet. (Base paths of 80 feet are optional for Junior League regular season play.)\n\nEquipment\n\nBats (all levels) may be made from wood or other materials (such as aluminum) and must be approved for use in Little League Baseball. For the Majors Division and below, the maximum bat length is thirty-three (33) inches and barrel diameter may not exceed 2 inches. Beginning in 2009 all Little League bats must be labeled with a Bat Performance Factor (BPF) of 1.15 or lower.\n\nBats for the Junior League level may have a maximum length of thirty-four (34) inches and a maximum barrel diameter of 2 inches. Bats for the Big and Senior League levels may have a maximum length of thirty-six (36) inches and a maximum barrel diameter of 2 inches. Non-wood Big and Senior League bats must meet the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) testing standards that are currently used in the NCAA and NFHS (high school). Intermediate Little League bats must meet Junior League specifications.\n\nBase running\n\nWhen the pitcher is ready to pitch, a baserunner may not leave the bag until the pitch reaches the batter in Minor League and standard Little League. In the upper levels, including Intermediate Little League, the runner can leave the bag at any time while the ball is in play.\n\nIf a fielder is waiting at the base with the ball, an advancing runner must attempt to avoid contact. A runner may not slide head-first except when retreating to a previously held base.\n\nIn the upper levels, runners must still make an attempt to avoid contact if possible, and may not maliciously initiate contact with a fielder.\n\nBatting\n\nThe upper limit of the strike zone extends to the batter's armpits. \n\nIn Tee-Ball, Minor League, and Little League (if 'uncaught third strike' rule is waived by the local league), the batter is out after the third strike regardless of whether the pitched ball is held by the catcher. In Little League (both standard and Intermediate), Junior, Senior, and Big League, a batter may attempt to advance to first base on a dropped third strike if first base is unoccupied with less than two outs or if first base is unoccupied or occupied with two outs.\n\nIf the batter is hit by a pitch, the batter gets walked automatically. However, if the batter does not make an attempt to get out of the way of the pitched ball, the home-plate umpire may continue the at-bat.\n\nSubstitution\n\nPlayers who have been substituted for may return to the game under certain conditions, though a player who is removed as pitcher may not return to pitch.\n\nPitchers\n\nPitchers in all divisions are limited to a specific pitch count per game and a mandatory rest period between outings. These vary with age and the rest period also depends on the number of pitches thrown. \n\nAlso, prior to 2008 a pitcher could intentionally walk a batter by simply announcing his intent to do so and not have to actually throw any pitches; however, beginning in 2008 the pitcher must now actually pitch the required four balls (which are counted against the pitch count).If the pitcher hits too many batters with the ball, or intentionally hit him, he is ejected from the pitching spot.\n\nLocal options\n\nLocal leagues have a certain amount of flexibility. For example, a league may opt to use the \"continuous batting order\" rule (4.04), under which each player on the team's roster bats, even when not in the defensive lineup. Leagues may also waive the \"ten-run rule\" (4.10(e)) which ends the game if one team is ahead by ten or more runs after four innings. \n\nMLB Players \n\n* Todd Frazier\n* Jason Varitek\n* Lance Lynn\n* Jurickson Profar\n* Hawell Blanks\n* Jason Bay\n* Derek Bell\n* Gary Sheffield\n* Mike Trout\n* Jason Marquis\n* Roberto Alomar\n* Nolan Ryan\n* Cal Ripken, Jr.\n* Dan Wilson\n* Colby Rasmus\n* Lloyd McClendon\n\nTrivia \n\nPablo Sanchez from Backyard Baseball was a real Little League player in the Caribbean."
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How many home runs did baseball great Ty Cobb hit in the three world series in which he played?
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tc_154
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding.\n\nThe batting team attempts to score runs by hitting a ball that is thrown by the pitcher with a bat swung by the batter, then running counter-clockwise around a series of four bases: first, second, third, and home plate. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases and returns to home plate.\n\nPlayers on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates' turns batting, such as on a hit or by other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the visiting team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no game clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning.\n\nBaseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia.\n\nIn the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. The top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League.\n\nHistory \n\nOrigins \n\nThe evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. A French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, and la balle empoisonnée also appear to be related. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (2005), by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and \"tut-ball.\" It has long been believed that cricket also descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009 suggests that cricket may have been imported to England from Flanders.\n\nThe earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of \"base-ball\" and a woodcut that shows a field set-up somewhat similar to the modern game—though in a triangular rather than diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level bases. David Block discovered that the first recorded game of \"Bass-Ball\" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey. This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants. Rounders was also brought to the USA by Canadians of both British and Irish ancestry. The first known American reference to baseball appears in a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, town bylaw prohibiting the playing of the game near the town's new meeting house. By 1796, a version of the game was well-known enough to earn a mention in a German scholar's book on popular pastimes. As described by Johann Gutsmuths, \"englische Base-ball\" involved a contest between two teams, in which \"the batter has three attempts to hit the ball while at the home plate.\" Only one out was required to retire a side. \n\nBy the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America. These games were often referred to locally as \"town ball\", though other names such as \"round-ball\" and \"base-ball\" were also used. Among the earliest examples to receive a detailed description—albeit five decades after the fact, in a letter from an attendee to Sporting Life magazine—took place in Beachville, Ontario, in 1838. There were many similarities to modern baseball, and some crucial differences: five bases (or byes); first bye just 18 ft from the home bye; batter out if a hit ball was caught after the first bounce. The once widely accepted story that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 has been conclusively debunked by sports historians. \n\nIn 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, led the codification of the so-called Knickerbocker Rules. The practice, common to bat-and-ball games of the day, of \"soaking\" or \"plugging\"—effecting a putout by hitting a runner with a thrown ball—was barred. The rules thus facilitated the use of a smaller, harder ball than had been common. Several other rules also brought the Knickerbockers' game close to the modern one, though a ball caught on the first bounce was, again, an out and only underhand pitching was allowed. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the \"New York Nine\" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings (three earlier games have recently been discovered). With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century. \n\nHistory of baseball in the United States \n\nThe game turns professional \n\nIn the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area. By 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the \"national pastime\" or \"national game.\" A year later, sixteen area clubs formed the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1858 in Corona, Queens New York, at the Fashion Race Course, the first games of baseball to charge admission took place. The games, which took place between the all stars of Brooklyn, including players from the Brooklyn Atlantics, Excelsior of Brooklyn, Putnams and Eckford of Brooklyn, and the All Stars of New York (Manhattan), including players from the New York Knickerbockers, Gothams (predecessors of the San Francisco Giants), Eagles and Empire, are commonly believed to be the first all-star baseball games. In 1863, the organization disallowed putouts made by catching a fair ball on the first bounce. Four years later, it barred participation by African Americans. The game's commercial potential was developing: in 1869 the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. The first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, lasted from 1871 to 1875; scholars dispute its status as a major league. \n\nThe more formally structured National League was founded in 1876. As the oldest surviving major league, the National League is sometimes referred to as the \"senior circuit.\" Several other major leagues formed and failed. In 1884, African American Moses Walker (and, briefly, his brother Welday) played in one of these, the American Association. An injury ended Walker's major league career, and by the early 1890s, a gentlemen's agreement in the form of the baseball color line effectively barred black players from the white-owned professional leagues, major and minor. Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded. Several independent African American teams succeeded as barnstormers. Also in 1884, overhand pitching was legalized.Rader (2008), p. 71. In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game. Virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by 1893; the last major change—counting foul balls as strikes—was instituted in 1901. The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established that year. The two leagues, each with eight teams, were rivals that fought for the best players, often disregarding each other's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes. \n\nA modicum of peace was eventually established, leading to the National Agreement of 1903. The pact formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues. The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall, albeit without express major league sanction: The Boston Americans of the American League defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. The next year, the series was not held, as the National League champion New York Giants, under manager John McGraw, refused to recognize the major league status of the American League and its champion. In 1905, the Giants were National League champions again and team management relented, leading to the establishment of the World Series as the major leagues' annual championship event. \n\nAs professional baseball became increasingly profitable, players frequently raised grievances against owners over issues of control and equitable income distribution. During the major leagues' early decades, players on various teams occasionally attempted strikes, which routinely failed when their jobs were sufficiently threatened. In general, the strict rules of baseball contracts and the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams even when their contracts had ended, tended to keep the players in check. Motivated by dislike for particularly stingy owner Charles Comiskey and gamblers' payoffs, real and promised, members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. The Black Sox Scandal led to the formation of a new National Commission of baseball that drew the two major leagues closer together. The first major league baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League. \n\nProfessional baseball was played in northeastern cities with a large immigrant-ethnic population; they gave strong support to the new sport. The Irish Catholics dominated in the late 19th century, comprising a third or more of the players and many of the top stars and managers. Historian Jerrold Casway argues that:\nBaseball for Irish kids was a shortcut to the American dream and to self-indulgent glory and fortune. By the mid-1880s these young Irish men dominated the sport and popularized a style of play that was termed heady, daring, and spontaneous.... Ed Delahanty personified the flamboyant, exciting spectator-favorite, the Casey-at-the-bat, Irish slugger. The handsome masculine athlete who is expected to live as large as he played. \n\nRise of Ruth and racial integration \n\nCompared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring and pitchers, the likes of Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson, were more dominant. The \"inside game,\" which demanded that players \"scratch for runs\", was played much more aggressively than it is today: the brilliant and often violent Ty Cobb epitomized this style. The so-called dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governing the ball's size, shape and composition along with a new rule officially banning the spitball, along with other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances after the death of Ray Chapman who was hit by a pitch in August 1920, coupled with superior materials available after World War I, resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit. The construction of additional seating to accommodate the rising popularity of the game often had the effect of bringing the outfield fences closer in, making home runs more common. The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game. The club with which Ruth set most of his slugging records, the New York Yankees, built a reputation as the majors' premier team. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern \"farm system\". A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939 Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania. By the late 1940s, it was the organizing body for children's baseball leagues across the United States.\n\nWith America's entry into World War II, many professional players had left to serve in the armed forces. A large number of minor league teams disbanded as a result and the major league game seemed under threat as well. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of a new professional league with women players to help keep the game in the public eye – the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League existed from 1943 to 1954. The inaugural College World Series was held in 1947, and the Babe Ruth League youth program was founded. This program soon became another important organizing body for children's baseball. The first crack in the unwritten agreement barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred the previous year: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers—where Branch Rickey had become general manager—and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal. In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers. Larry Doby debuted with the American League's Cleveland Indians the same year. Latin American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars. \n\nFacing competition as varied as television and football, baseball attendance at all levels declined. While the majors rebounded by the mid-1950s, the minor leagues were gutted and hundreds of semipro and amateur teams dissolved. Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster. That year, the Major League Baseball Players Association was founded. It was the first professional baseball union to survive more than briefly, but it remained largely ineffective for years. No major league team had been located west of St. Louis until 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The majors' final all-white bastion, the Boston Red Sox, added a black player in 1959. With the integration of the majors drying up the available pool of players, the last Negro league folded the following year. In 1961, the American League reached the West Coast with the |Los Angeles Angels expansion team, and the major league season was extended from 154 games to 162. This coincidentally helped Roger Maris break Babe Ruth's long-standing single-season home run record, one of the most celebrated marks in baseball. Along with the Angels, three other new franchises were launched during 1961–62. With this, the first major league expansion in 60 years, each league now had ten teams.\n\nAttendance records and the age of steroids \n\nThe players' union became bolder under the leadership of former United Steelworkers chief economist and negotiator Marvin Miller, who was elected executive director in 1966. On the playing field, major league pitchers were becoming increasingly dominant again. After the 1968 season, in an effort to restore balance, the strike zone was reduced and the height of the pitcher's mound was lowered from 15 to 10 inches. In 1969, both the National and American leagues added two more expansion teams, the leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, and a post-season playoff system leading to the World Series was instituted. Also that same year, Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals made the first serious legal challenge to the reserve clause. The major leagues' first general players' strike took place in 1972. In another effort to add more offense to the game, the American League adopted the designated hitter rule the following year. In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system. In 1977, two more expansion teams joined the American League. Significant work stoppages occurred again in 1981 and 1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance. \n\nThe addition of two more expansion teams after the 1993 season had facilitated another restructuring of the major leagues, this time into three divisions each. Offensive production—the number of home runs in particular—had surged that year, and again in the abbreviated 1994 season. After play resumed in 1995, this trend continued and non-division-winning wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set. The next year, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both surpassed Maris's decades-old single season home run record and two more expansion franchises were added. In 2000, the National and American leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of Major League Baseball (MLB). \n\nIn 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004. In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs. Even though McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds—as well as many other players, including storied pitcher Roger Clemens—have been implicated in the steroid abuse scandal, their feats and those of other sluggers had become the major leagues' defining attraction. In contrast to the professional game's resurgence in popularity after the 1994 interruption, Little League enrollment was in decline: after peaking in 1996, it dropped 1 percent a year over the following decade. With more rigorous testing and penalties for performance-enhancing drug use a possible factor, the balance between bat and ball swung markedly in 2010, which became known as the \"Year of the Pitcher\". Runs per game fell to their lowest level in 18 years, and the strikeout rate was higher than it had been in half a century.\n\nBefore the start of the 2012 season, MLB altered its rules to double the number of wild card teams admitted into the playoffs to two per league. The playoff expansion resulted in the addition of annual one-game playoffs between the wild card teams in each league. \n\nBaseball around the world \n\nBaseball, widely known as America's pastime, is well established in several other countries as well. The history of baseball in Canada has remained closely linked with that of the sport in the United States. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both countries. While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League. The Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, the first and still the only club from outside the United States to do so. After the 2004 season, Major League Baseball relocated the Expos to Washington, D.C., where the team is now known as the Nationals.\n\nIn 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz. A few days after the Battle of Cerro Gordo, they used the \"wooden leg captured (by the Fourth Illinois regiment) from General Santa Anna\". The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition and whose national team has been one of the world's strongest since international play began in the late 1930s (all organized baseball in the country has officially been amateur since the Cuban Revolution). The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912. Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938). The Japanese major leagues—the Central League and Pacific League—have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States. Japan has a professional minor league system as well, though it is much smaller than the American version—each team has only one farm club in contrast to MLB teams' four or five.\n\nAfter World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American nations, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955). Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990), and China (2003) all have professional leagues. \n\nMany European countries have professional leagues as well, the most successful, other than the Dutch league, being the Italian league founded in 1948. Compared to those in Asia and Latin America, the various European leagues and the one in Australia historically have had no more than niche appeal. In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the Olympic Games. The Israel Baseball League, launched in 2007, folded after one season. The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries, as well as national squads. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). By 2009, the IBAF had 117 member countries. Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in many of the countries where it is a leading men's sport. Since 2004, the IBAF and now WBSC have sanctioned the Women's Baseball World Cup, featuring national teams.\n\nAfter being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning with the 1992 Games, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Games. The elimination of baseball, along with softball, from the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two different sports, but none received the votes required for inclusion. While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor, more important was Major League Baseball's reluctance to have a break during the Games to allow its players to participate, as the National Hockey League now does during the Winter Olympic Games. Such a break is more difficult for MLB to accommodate because it would force the playoffs deeper into cold weather. Seeking reinstatement for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the IBAF proposed an abbreviated competition designed to facilitate the participation of top players, but the effort failed. Major League Baseball initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede the major league season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants. The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic. \n\nRules and gameplay \n\nA game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense (batting and baserunning) and defense (pitching and fielding). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings (seven innings at the high school level and in doubleheaders in college and minor leagues). One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning. The other team—customarily the home team—bats in the bottom, or second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points (runs) than the other team. The players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling or completing a tour of the four bases set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must proceed counterclockwise to first base, second base, third base, and back home in order to score a run. The team in the field attempts both to prevent runs from scoring and to record outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in their team's batting order comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games, particularly unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings.Thurston (2000), p. 15; \n\nThe game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the 270-degree area outside them is foul territory. The part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield; the area farther beyond the infield is the outfield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate (the rubber) at its center. The outer boundary of the outfield is typically demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height (many amateur games are played on unfenced fields). Fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well. \n\nThere are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, and the glove or mitt:\n* The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches (23 centimeters) in circumference. It has a rubber or cork center, wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching.Porterfield (2007), p. 23; \n* The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a single, solid piece of wood. Other materials are now commonly used for nonprofessional games. It is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are typically around 34 inches (86 centimeters) long, and not longer than 42 inches (106 centimeters). \n* The glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of different fielding positions.\nProtective helmets are also standard equipment for all batters.Thurston (2000), pp. 21, 30, 31; \n\nAt the beginning of each half-inning, the nine players on the fielding team arrange themselves around the field. One of them, the pitcher, stands on the pitcher's mound. The pitcher begins the pitching delivery with one foot on the rubber, pushing off it to gain velocity when throwing toward home plate. Another player, the catcher, squats on the far side of home plate, facing the pitcher. The rest of the team faces home plate, typically arranged as four infielders—who set up along or within a few yards outside the imaginary lines between first, second, and third base—and three outfielders. In the standard arrangement, there is a first baseman positioned several steps to the left of first base, a second baseman to the right of second base, a shortstop to the left of second base, and a third baseman to the right of third base. The basic outfield positions are left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. A neutral umpire sets up behind the catcher.Porterfield (2007), pp. 16–18, 25, 34, 35; Other umpires will be distributed around the field as well, though the number will vary depending on the level of play, amateur or children's games may only have an umpire behind the plate, while as many as six umpires can be used for important Major League Baseball games.\n\nPlay starts with a batter standing at home plate, holding a bat. The batter waits for the pitcher to throw a pitch (the ball) toward home plate, and attempts to hit the ball with the bat. The catcher catches pitches that the batter does not hit—as a result of either electing not to swing or failing to connect—and returns them to the pitcher. A batter who hits the ball into the field of play must drop the bat and begin running toward first base, at which point the player is referred to as a runner (or, until the play is over, a batter-runner). A batter-runner who reaches first base without being put out (see below) is said to be safe and is now on base. A batter-runner may choose to remain at first base or attempt to advance to second base or even beyond—however far the player believes can be reached safely. A player who reaches base despite proper play by the fielders has recorded a hit. A player who reaches first base safely on a hit is credited with a single. If a player makes it to second base safely as a direct result of a hit, it is a double; third base, a triple. If the ball is hit in the air within the foul lines over the entire outfield (and outfield fence, if there is one), it is a home run: the batter and any runners on base may all freely circle the bases, each scoring a run. This is the most desirable result for the batter. A player who reaches base due to a fielding mistake is not credited with a hit—instead, the responsible fielder is charged with an error.\n\nAny runners already on base may attempt to advance on batted balls that land, or contact the ground, in fair territory, before or after the ball lands. A runner on first base must attempt to advance if a ball lands in play. If a ball hit into play rolls foul before passing through the infield, it becomes dead and any runners must return to the base they were at when the play began. If the ball is hit in the air and caught before it lands, the batter has flied out and any runners on base may attempt to advance only if they tag up or touch the base they were at when the play began, as or after the ball is caught. Runners may also attempt to advance to the next base while the pitcher is in the process of delivering the ball to home plate—a successful effort is a stolen base. \n\nA pitch that is not hit into the field of play is called either a strike or a ball. A batter against whom three strikes are recorded strikes out. A batter against whom four balls are recorded is awarded a base on balls or walk, a free advance to first base. (A batter may also freely advance to first base if the batter's body or uniform is struck by a pitch outside the strike zone, provided the batter does not swing and attempts to avoid being hit.) Crucial to determining balls and strikes is the umpire's judgment as to whether a pitch has passed through the strike zone, a conceptual area above home plate extending from the midpoint between the batter's shoulders and belt down to the hollow of the knee.\n\nA strike is called when one of the following happens:\n* The batter lets a well-pitched ball (one within the strike zone) go through to the catcher.\n* The batter swings at any ball (even one outside the strike zone) and misses, or foul tips it directly into the catcher's hands.\n* The batter hits a foul ball—one that either initially lands in foul territory or initially lands within the diamond but moves into foul territory before passing first or third base. If there are already two strikes on the batter, a foul ball is not counted as a third strike; thus, a foul ball cannot result in the immediate strikeout of the batter. (There is an exception to this exception: a two-strike foul bunt is recorded as a third strike.)\nA ball is called when the pitcher throws a pitch that is outside the strike zone, provided the batter has not swung at it. \n\nWhile the team at bat is trying to score runs, the team in the field is attempting to record outs. Among the various ways a member of the batting team may be put out, five are most common:\n* The strikeout: as described above, recorded against a batter who makes three strikes before putting the ball into play or being awarded a free advance to first base (see also uncaught third strike).\n* The flyout: as described above, recorded against a batter who hits a ball in the air that is caught by a fielder, whether in fair territory or foul territory, before it lands, whether or not the batter has run.\n* The ground out: recorded against a batter (in this case, batter-runner) who hits a ball that lands in fair territory which, before the batter-runner can reach first base, is retrieved by a fielder who touches first base while holding the ball or relays it to another fielder who touches first base while holding the ball.\n* The force out: recorded against a runner who is required to attempt to advance—either because the runner is on first base and a batted ball lands in fair territory, or because the runner immediately behind on the basepath is thus required to attempt to advance—but fails to reach the next base before a fielder touches the base while holding the ball. The ground out is technically a special case of the force out.\n* The tag out: recorded against a runner who is touched by a fielder with the ball or a glove holding the ball, while the runner is not touching a base.\nIt is possible to record two outs in the course of the same play—a double play. Even three—a triple play—is possible, though this is very rare. Players put out or retired must leave the field, returning to their team's dugout or bench. A runner may be stranded on base when a third out is recorded against another player on the team. Stranded runners do not benefit the team in its next turn at bat—every half-inning begins with the bases empty of runners. \n\nAn individual player's turn batting or plate appearance is complete when the player reaches base, hits a home run, makes an out, or hits a ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is recorded against a teammate—for instance, a runner getting caught stealing (tagged out attempting to steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased. A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again until the eight other members of the player's team have all taken their turn at bat. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may not be altered except for substitutions. Once a player has been removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game. Children's games often have more liberal substitution rules.Thurston (2000), p. 100; \n\nIf the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of another player—almost invariably the pitcher—in the batting order, but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine players.Porterfield (2007), p. 19; Thurston (2000), p. 153; \n\nPersonnel \n\nPlayer rosters \n\nRoster, or squad, sizes differ between different leagues and different levels of organized play. Major League Baseball teams maintain 25-player active rosters. A typical 25-man roster in a league without the DH rule, such as MLB's National League, features: \n* eight position players—catcher, four infielders, three outfielders—who play on a regular basis\n* five starting pitchers who constitute the team's pitching rotation or starting rotation\n* six relief pitchers, including one specialist closer, who constitute the team's bullpen (named for the off-field area where pitchers warm up)\n* one backup, or substitute, catcher\n* two backup infielders\n* two backup outfielders\n* one specialist pinch hitter, or a second backup catcher, or a seventh reliever\n\nIn the American League and others with the DH rule, there will usually be nine offensive regulars (including the DH), five starting pitchers, seven or eight relievers, a backup catcher and two or three other reserves; the need for late inning pinch-hitters (usually in the pitcher's spot) is reduced by the DH.\n\nOther personnel \n\nThe manager, or head coach of a team, oversees the team's major strategic decisions, such as establishing the starting rotation, setting the lineup, or batting order, before each game, and making substitutions during games—in particular, bringing in relief pitchers. Managers are typically assisted by two or more coaches; they may have specialized responsibilities, such as working with players on hitting, fielding, pitching, or strength and conditioning. At most levels of organized play, two coaches are stationed on the field when the team is at bat: the first base coach and third base coach, occupying designated coaches' boxes just outside the foul lines, assist in the direction of baserunners when the ball is in play, and relay tactical signals from the manager to batters and runners during pauses in play. In contrast to many other team sports, baseball managers and coaches generally wear their team's uniforms; coaches must be in uniform in order to be allowed on the playing field during a game.\"The Fans Speak Out\" [Baseball Digest staff], Baseball Digest, August 1999, pp. 9–10; \n\nAny baseball game involves one or more umpires, who make rulings on the outcome of each play. At a minimum, one umpire will stand behind the catcher, to have a good view of the strike zone, and call balls and strikes. Additional umpires may be stationed near the other bases, thus making it easier to judge plays such as attempted force outs and tag outs. In Major League Baseball, four umpires are used for each game, one near each base. In the playoffs, six umpires are used: one at each base and two in the outfield along the foul lines.Zoss (2004), p. 293; \n\nStrategy and tactics \n\nMany of the pre-game and in-game strategic decisions in baseball revolve around a fundamental fact: in general, right-handed batters tend to be more successful against left-handed pitchers and, to an even greater degree, left-handed batters tend to be more successful against right-handed pitchers. A manager with several left-handed batters in the regular lineup who knows the team will be facing a left-handed starting pitcher may respond by starting one or more of the right-handed backups on the team's roster. During the late innings of a game, as relief pitchers and pinch hitters are brought in, the opposing managers will often go back and forth trying to create favorable matchups with their substitutions: the manager of the fielding team trying to arrange same-handed pitcher-batter matchups, the manager of the batting team trying to arrange opposite-handed matchups. With a team that has the lead in the late innings, a manager may remove a starting position player—especially one whose turn at bat is not likely to come up again—for a more skillful fielder. \n\nPitching and fielding tactics \n\nThe tactical decision that precedes almost every play in a baseball game involves pitch selection. By gripping and then releasing the baseball in a certain manner, and by throwing it at a certain speed, pitchers can cause the baseball to break to either side, or downward, as it approaches the batter. Among the resulting wide variety of pitches that may be thrown, the four basic types are the fastball, the changeup (or off-speed pitch), and two breaking balls—the curveball and the slider. Pitchers have different repertoires of pitches they are skillful at throwing. Conventionally, before each pitch, the catcher signals the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, as well as its general vertical and/or horizontal location. If there is disagreement on the selection, the pitcher may shake off the sign and the catcher will call for a different pitch. With a runner on base and taking a lead, the pitcher may attempt a pickoff, a quick throw to a fielder covering the base to keep the runner's lead in check or, optimally, effect a tag out. Pickoff attempts, however, are subject to rules that severely restrict the pitcher's movements before and during the pickoff attempt. Violation of any one of these rules could result in the umpire calling a balk against the pitcher, with the result being runners on base, if any, advance one base with impunity. If an attempted stolen base is anticipated, the catcher may call for a pitchout, a ball thrown deliberately off the plate, allowing the catcher to catch it while standing and throw quickly to a base. Facing a batter with a strong tendency to hit to one side of the field, the fielding team may employ a shift, with most or all of the fielders moving to the left or right of their usual positions. With a runner on third base, the infielders may play in, moving closer to home plate to improve the odds of throwing out the runner on a ground ball, though a sharply hit grounder is more likely to carry through a drawn-in infield.Stallings and Bennett (2003), p. 45.\n\nBatting and baserunning tactics \n\nSeveral basic offensive tactics come into play with a runner on first base, including the fundamental choice of whether to attempt a steal of second base. The hit and run is sometimes employed with a skillful contact hitter: the runner takes off with the pitch drawing the shortstop or second baseman over to second base, creating a gap in the infield for the batter to poke the ball through. The sacrifice bunt calls for the batter to focus on making contact with the ball so that it rolls a short distance into the infield, allowing the runner to advance into scoring position even at the expense of the batter being thrown out at first—a batter who succeeds is credited with a sacrifice. (A batter, particularly one who is a fast runner, may also attempt to bunt for a hit.) A sacrifice bunt employed with a runner on third base, aimed at bringing that runner home, is known as a squeeze play. With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, a batter may instead concentrate on hitting a fly ball that, even if it is caught, will be deep enough to allow the runner to tag up and score—a successful batter in this case gets credit for a sacrifice fly. The manager will sometimes signal a batter who is ahead in the count (i.e., has more balls than strikes) to take, or not swing at, the next pitch. \n\nDistinctive elements \n\nBaseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other popular team sports in the countries where it has a following, including American and Canadian football, basketball, ice hockey, and soccer. All of these sports use a clock; in all of them, play is less individual and more collective; and in none of them is the variation between playing fields nearly as substantial or important. The comparison between cricket and baseball demonstrates that many of baseball's distinctive elements are shared in various ways with its cousin sports.\n\nNo clock to kill \n\nIn clock-limited sports, games often end with a team that holds the lead killing the clock rather than competing aggressively against the opposing team. In contrast, baseball has no clock; a team cannot win without getting the last batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. At almost any turn in any baseball game, the most advantageous strategy is some form of aggressive strategy. In contrast, again, the clock comes into play even in the case of multi-day Test and first-class cricket: the possibility of a draw often encourages a team that is batting last and well behind to bat defensively, giving up any faint chance at a win to avoid a loss. Baseball offers no such reward for conservative batting.\n\nWhile nine innings has been the standard since the beginning of professional baseball, the duration of the average major league game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the 20th century, games typically took an hour and a half to play. In the 1920s, they averaged just less than two hours, which eventually ballooned to 2:38 in 1960. By 1997, the average American League game lasted 2:57 (National League games were about 10 minutes shorter—pitchers at the plate making for quicker outs than designated hitters). In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that its goal was an average game of merely 2:45. By 2014, though, the average MLB game took over three hours to complete. The lengthening of games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes, and a slower pace of play with pitchers taking more time between each delivery, and batters stepping out of the box more frequently. Other leagues have experienced similar issues. In 2008, Nippon Professional Baseball took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the preceding decade's average of 3:18. \n\nIndividual focus \n\nAlthough baseball is a team sport, individual players are often placed under scrutiny and pressure. In 1915, a baseball instructional manual pointed out that every single pitch, of which there are often more than two hundred in a game, involves an individual, one-on-one contest: \"the pitcher and the batter in a battle of wits\". Contrasting the game with both football and basketball, scholar Michael Mandelbaum argues that \"baseball is the one closest in evolutionary descent to the older individual sports\". Pitcher, batter, and fielder all act essentially independent of each other. While coaching staffs can signal pitcher or batter to pursue certain tactics, the execution of the play itself is a series of solitary acts. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder is solely responsible for deciding to try to catch it or play it on the bounce and for succeeding or failing. The statistical precision of baseball is both facilitated by this isolation and reinforces it. As described by Mandelbaum,\n\nIt is impossible to isolate and objectively assess the contribution each [football] team member makes to the outcome of the play ... [E]very basketball player is interacting with all of his teammates all the time. In baseball, by contrast, every player is more or less on his own ... Baseball is therefore a realm of complete transparency and total responsibility. A baseball player lives in a glass house, and in a stark moral universe ... Everything that every player does is accounted for and everything accounted for is either good or bad, right or wrong. \n\nCricket is more similar to baseball than many other team sports in this regard: while the individual focus in cricket is mitigated by the importance of the batting partnership and the practicalities of tandem running, it is enhanced by the fact that a batsman may occupy the wicket for an hour or much more. There is no statistical equivalent in cricket for the fielding error and thus less emphasis on personal responsibility in this area of play. \n\nUniqueness of each baseball park \n\nUnlike those of most sports, baseball playing fields can vary significantly in size and shape. While the dimensions of the infield are specifically regulated, the only constraint on outfield size and shape for professional teams following the rules of Major League and Minor League Baseball is that fields built or remodeled since June 1, 1958, must have a minimum distance of 325 ft from home plate to the fences in left and right field and 400 ft to center. Major league teams often skirt even this rule. For example, at Minute Maid Park, which became the home of the Houston Astros in 2000, the Crawford Boxes in left field are only 315 ft from home plate. There are no rules at all that address the height of fences or other structures at the edge of the outfield. The most famously idiosyncratic outfield boundary is the left-field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, in use since 1912: the Green Monster is 310 ft from home plate down the line and 37 ft tall. \n\nSimilarly, there are no regulations at all concerning the dimensions of foul territory. Thus a foul fly ball may be entirely out of play in a park with little space between the foul lines and the stands, but a foulout in a park with more expansive foul ground. A fence in foul territory that is close to the outfield line will tend to direct balls that strike it back toward the fielders, while one that is farther away may actually prompt more collisions, as outfielders run full speed to field balls deep in the corner. These variations can make the difference between a double and a triple or inside-the-park home run. The surface of the field is also unregulated. While the image to the left shows a traditional field surfacing arrangement (and the one used by virtually all MLB teams with naturally surfaced fields), teams are free to decide what areas will be grassed or bare. Some fields—including several in MLB—use an artificial surface, such as AstroTurf. Surface variations can have a significant effect on how ground balls behave and are fielded as well as on baserunning. Similarly, the presence of a roof (seven major league teams play in stadiums with permanent or retractable roofs) can greatly affect how fly balls are played. While football and soccer players deal with similar variations of field surface and stadium covering, the size and shape of their fields are much more standardized. The area out-of-bounds on a football or soccer field does not affect play the way foul territory in baseball does, so variations in that regard are largely insignificant. \n\nThese physical variations create a distinctive set of playing conditions at each ballpark. Other local factors, such as altitude and climate, can also significantly affect play. A given stadium may acquire a reputation as a pitcher's park or a hitter's park, if one or the other discipline notably benefits from its unique mix of elements. The most exceptional park in this regard is Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. Its high altitude—5282 ft above sea level—is responsible for giving it the strongest hitter's park effect in the major leagues. Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, is known for its fickle disposition: a hitter's park when the strong winds off Lake Michigan are blowing out, it becomes more of a pitcher's park when they are blowing in. The absence of a standardized field affects not only how particular games play out, but the nature of team rosters and players' statistical records. For example, hitting a fly ball 330 ft into right field might result in an easy catch on the warning track at one park, and a home run at another. A team that plays in a park with a relatively short right field, such as the New York Yankees, will tend to stock its roster with left-handed pull hitters, who can best exploit it. On the individual level, a player who spends most of his career with a team that plays in a hitter's park will gain an advantage in batting statistics over time—even more so if his talents are especially suited to the park. \n\nStatistics \n\nOrganized baseball lends itself to statistics to a greater degree than many other sports. Each play is discrete and has a relatively small number of possible outcomes. In the late 19th century, a former cricket player, English-born Henry Chadwick of Brooklyn, New York, was responsible for the \"development of the box score, tabular standings, the annual baseball guide, the batting average, and most of the common statistics and tables used to describe baseball.\"Tygiel (2000), p. 16. The statistical record is so central to the game's \"historical essence\" that Chadwick came to be known as Father Baseball. In the 1920s, American newspapers began devoting more and more attention to baseball statistics, initiating what journalist and historian Alan Schwarz describes as a \"tectonic shift in sports, as intrigue that once focused mostly on teams began to go to individual players and their statistics lines.\" \n\nThe Official Baseball Rules administered by Major League Baseball require the official scorer to categorize each baseball play unambiguously. The rules provide detailed criteria to promote consistency. The score report is the official basis for both the box score of the game and the relevant statistical records. General managers, managers, and baseball scouts use statistics to evaluate players and make strategic decisions.\n\nCertain traditional statistics are familiar to most baseball fans. The basic batting statistics include:\n* At bats: plate appearances, excluding walks and hit by pitches—where the batter's ability is not fully tested—and sacrifices and sacrifice flies—where the batter intentionally makes an out in order to advance one or more baserunners\n* Hits: times reached base because of a batted, fair ball without fielding error or fielder's choice\n* Runs: times circling the bases and reaching home safely\n* Runs batted in (RBIs): number of runners who scored due to a batter's action (including the batter, in the case of a home run), except when batter grounded into double play or reached on an error\n* Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error\n* Batting average: hits divided by at bats—the traditional measure of batting ability\nThe basic baserunning statistics include:\n* Stolen bases: times advancing to the next base entirely due to the runner's own efforts, generally while the pitcher is preparing to deliver or delivering the ball\n* Caught stealing: times tagged out while attempting to steal a base\n\nThe basic pitching statistics include:\n* Wins: credited to pitcher on winning team who last pitched before the team took a lead that it never relinquished (a starting pitcher must pitch at least five innings to qualify for a win)\n* Losses: charged to pitcher on losing team who was pitching when the opposing team took a lead that it never relinquished\n* Saves: games where the pitcher enters a game led by the pitcher's team, finishes the game without surrendering the lead, is not the winning pitcher, and either (a) the lead was three runs or less when the pitcher entered the game; (b) the potential tying run was on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) the pitcher pitched three or more innings\n* Innings pitched: outs recorded while pitching divided by three (partial innings are conventionally recorded as, e.g., \"5.2\" or \"7.1\", the last digit actually representing thirds, not tenths, of an inning)\n* Strikeouts: times pitching three strikes to a batter\n* Winning percentage: wins divided by decisions (wins plus losses)\n* Earned run average (ERA): runs allowed, excluding those resulting from fielding errors, per nine innings pitched\nThe basic fielding statistics include:\n* Putouts: times the fielder catches a fly ball, tags or forces out a runner, or otherwise directly effects an out\n* Assists: times a putout by another fielder was recorded following the fielder touching the ball\n* Errors: times the fielder fails to make a play that should have been made with common effort, and the batting team benefits as a result\n* Total chances: putouts plus assists plus errors\n* Fielding average: successful chances (putouts plus assists) divided by total chances\n\nAmong the many other statistics that are kept are those collectively known as situational statistics. For example, statistics can indicate which specific pitchers a certain batter performs best against. If a given situation statistically favors a certain batter, the manager of the fielding team may be more likely to change pitchers or have the pitcher intentionally walk the batter in order to face one who is less likely to succeed. \n\nSabermetrics \n\nSabermetrics refers to the field of baseball statistical study and the development of new statistics and analytical tools. The term is also used to refer directly to new statistics themselves. The term was coined around 1980 by one of the field's leading proponents, Bill James, and derives from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). \n\nThe growing popularity of sabermetrics since the early 1980s has brought more attention to two batting statistics that sabermetricians argue are much better gauges of a batter's skill than batting average: \n* On-base percentage measures a batter's ability to get on base. It is calculated by taking the sum of the batter's successes in getting on base (hits plus walks plus hit by pitches) and dividing that by the batter's total plate appearances (at bats plus walks plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies), except for sacrifice bunts.\n* Slugging percentage measures a batter's ability to hit for power. It is calculated by taking the batter's total bases (one per each single, two per double, three per triple, and four per home run) and dividing that by the batter's at bats.\n\nSome of the new statistics devised by sabermetricians have gained wide use:\n* On-base plus slugging (OPS) measures a batter's overall ability. It is calculated by adding the batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage. \n* Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) measures a pitcher's ability at preventing hitters from reaching base. It is calculated exactly as its name suggests. \n\nPopularity and cultural impact \n\nWriting in 1919, philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as America's national religion. In the words of sports columnist Jayson Stark, baseball has long been \"a unique paragon of American culture\"—a status he sees as devastated by the steroid abuse scandal. Baseball has an important place in other national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes \"how deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped and nativized in Japan.\" Since the early 1980s, the Dominican Republic, in particular the city of San Pedro de Macorís, has been the major leagues' primary source of foreign talent. Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente remains one of the greatest national heroes in Puerto Rico's history. While baseball has long been the island's primary athletic pastime, its once well-attended professional winter league has declined in popularity since 1990, when young Puerto Rican players began to be included in the major leagues' annual first-year player draft. In the Western Hemisphere, baseball is also one of the leading sports in Canada, Colombia, Mexico, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela. In Asia, it is among the most popular sports in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.\n\nThe major league game in the United States was originally targeted toward a middle-class, white-collar audience: relative to other spectator pastimes, the National League's set ticket price of 50 cents in 1876 was high, while the location of playing fields outside the inner city and the workweek daytime scheduling of games were also obstacles to a blue-collar audience. A century later, the situation was very different. With the rise in popularity of other team sports with much higher average ticket prices—football, basketball, and hockey—professional baseball had become among the most blue-collar-oriented of leading American spectator sports. \n\nIn the late 1900s and early 2000s, baseball's position compared to football in the United States moved in contradictory directions. In 2008, Major League Baseball set a revenue record of $6.5 billion, matching the NFL's revenue for the first time in decades. A new MLB revenue record of $6.6 billion was set in 2009. On the other hand, the percentage of American sports fans polled who named baseball as their favorite sport was 16%, compared to pro football at 31%. In 1985, the respective figures were pro football 24%, baseball 23%. Because there are so many more major league baseball games played, there is no comparison in overall attendance. In 2008, total attendance at major league games was the second-highest in history: 78.6 million, 0.7% off the record set the previous year. The following year, amid the U.S. recession, attendance fell by 6.6% to 73.4 million. Attendance at games held under the Minor League Baseball umbrella also set a record in 2007, with 42.8 million; this figure does not include attendance at games of the several independent minor leagues.\n\nIn Japan, where baseball is inarguably the leading spectator team sport, combined revenue for the twelve teams in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the body that oversees both the Central and Pacific leagues, was estimated at $1 billion in 2007. Total NPB attendance for the year was approximately 20 million. While in the preceding two decades, MLB attendance grew by 50 percent and revenue nearly tripled, the comparable NPB figures were stagnant. There are concerns that MLB's growing interest in acquiring star Japanese players will hurt the game in their home country. In Cuba, where baseball is by every reckoning the national sport, the national team overshadows the city and provincial teams that play in the top-level domestic leagues. Revenue figures are not released for the country's amateur system. Similarly, according to one official pronouncement, the sport's governing authority \"has never taken into account attendance ... because its greatest interest has always been the development of athletes\". \n\nAs of 2007, Little League Baseball oversees more than 7,000 children's baseball leagues with more than 2.2 million participants–2.1 million in the United States and 123,000 in other countries. Babe Ruth League teams have over 1 million participants. According to the president of the International Baseball Federation, between 300,000 and 500,000 women and girls play baseball around the world, including Little League and the introductory game of Tee Ball. \n\nA varsity baseball team is an established part of physical education departments at most high schools and colleges in the United States. In 2008, nearly half a million high schoolers and over 35,000 collegians played on their schools' baseball teams. The number of Americans participating in baseball has declined since the late 1980s, falling well behind the number of soccer participants. By early in the 20th century, intercollegiate baseball was Japan's leading sport. Today, high school baseball in particular is immensely popular there. The final rounds of the two annual tournaments—the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring, and the even more important National High School Baseball Championship in the summer—are broadcast around the country. The tournaments are known, respectively, as Spring Koshien and Summer Koshien after the 55,000-capacity stadium where they are played. In Cuba, baseball is a mandatory part of the state system of physical education, which begins at age six. Talented children as young as seven are sent to special district schools for more intensive training—the first step on a ladder whose acme is the national baseball team.\n\nBaseball in popular culture \n\nBaseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere. Dozens of English-language idioms have been derived from baseball; in particular, the game is the source of a number of widely used sexual euphemisms. The first networked radio broadcasts in North America were of the 1922 World Series: famed sportswriter Grantland Rice announced play-by-play from New York City's Polo Grounds on WJZ–Newark, New Jersey, which was connected by wire to WGY–Schenectady, New York, and WBZ–Springfield, Massachusetts. The baseball cap has become a ubiquitous fashion item not only in the United States and Japan, but also in countries where the sport itself is not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom. \n\nBaseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of the first major examples, Ernest Thayer's poem \"Casey at the Bat\", appeared in 1888. A wry description of the failure of a star player in what would now be called a \"clutch situation\", the poem became the source of vaudeville and other staged performances, audio recordings, film adaptations, and an opera, as well as a host of sequels and parodies in various media. There have been many baseball movies, including the Academy Award–winning The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and the Oscar nominees The Natural (1984) and Field of Dreams (1989). The American Film Institute's selection of the ten best sports movies includes The Pride of the Yankees at number 3 and Bull Durham (1988) at number 5. Baseball has provided thematic material for hits on both stage—the Adler–Ross musical Damn Yankees—and record—George J. Gaskin's \"Slide, Kelly, Slide\", Simon and Garfunkel's \"Mrs. Robinson\", and John Fogerty's \"Centerfield\". The baseball-founded comedic sketch \"Who's on First\", popularized by Abbott and Costello in 1938, quickly became famous. Six decades later, Time named it the best comedy routine of the 20th century. Baseball is also featured in various video games including MLB: The Show, Wii Sports, Kinect Sports: Season 2 and Mario Baseball.\n\nLiterary works connected to the game include the short fiction of Ring Lardner and novels such as Bernard Malamud's The Natural (the source for the movie), Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., and W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the source for Field of Dreams). Baseball's literary canon also includes the beat reportage of Damon Runyon; the columns of Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Dick Young, and Peter Gammons; and the essays of Roger Angell. Among the celebrated nonfiction books in the field are Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, and Michael Lewis's Moneyball. The 1970 publication of major league pitcher Jim Bouton's tell-all chronicle Ball Four is considered a turning point in the reporting of professional sports. \n\nBaseball has also inspired the creation of new cultural forms. Baseball cards were introduced in the late 19th century as trade cards. A typical example would feature an image of a baseball player on one side and advertising for a business on the other. In the early 1900s they were produced widely as promotional items by tobacco and confectionery companies. The 1930s saw the popularization of the modern style of baseball card, with a player photograph accompanied on the rear by statistics and biographical data. Baseball cards—many of which are now prized collectibles—are the source of the much broader trading card industry, involving similar products for different sports and non-sports-related fields. \n\nModern fantasy sports began in 1980 with the invention of Rotisserie League Baseball by New York writer Daniel Okrent and several friends. Participants in a Rotisserie league draft notional teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and play out an entire imaginary season with game outcomes based on the players' latest real-world statistics. Rotisserie-style play quickly became a phenomenon. Now known more generically as fantasy baseball, it has inspired similar games based on an array of different sports. The field boomed with increasing Internet access and new fantasy sports–related websites. By 2008, 29.9 million people in the United States and Canada were playing fantasy sports, spending $800 million on the hobby. The burgeoning popularity of fantasy baseball is also credited with the increasing attention paid to sabermetrics—first among fans, only later among baseball professionals.",
"Tyrus Raymond \"Ty\" Cobb (December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961), nicknamed \"The Georgia Peach\", was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder. He was born in rural Narrows, Georgia. Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1936 Cobb received the most votes of any player on the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes (98.2%); no other player received a higher percentage of votes until 1992. In 1999, editors at the Sporting News ranked Ty Cobb 3rd on their list of \"Baseball's 100 Greatest Players\". \n\nCobb is widely credited with setting 90 MLB records during his career. He still holds several records as of the end of the 2014 season, including the highest career batting average (.366 or .367, depending on source) and most career batting titles with 11 (or 12, depending on source). He retained many other records for almost a half century or more, including most career hits until 1985 (4,189 or 4,191, depending on source), most career runs (2,245 or 2,246 depending on source) until 2001, most career games played (3,035) and at bats (11,429 or 11,434 depending on source) until 1974, and the modern record for most career stolen bases (892) until 1977. He still holds the career record for stealing home (54 times) and for stealing second base, third base, and home in succession (5 times), and as the youngest player ever to compile 4,000 hits and score 2,000 runs. Cobb ranks fifth all-time in number of games played and committed 271 errors, the most by any American League (AL) outfielder.\n\nCobb's legacy as an athlete has sometimes been overshadowed by his surly temperament and aggressive playing style, which was described by the Detroit Free Press as \"daring to the point of dementia.\" Cobb himself wrote shortly before his death, \"In legend I am a sadistic, slashing, swashbuckling despot who waged war in the guise of sport.\" Cobb was notorious for sliding into bases feet first, with his spikes high. \n\nCobb's legacy, which includes a large college scholarship fund for Georgia residents financed by his early investments in Coca-Cola and General Motors, has been tarnished by allegations of racism and violence, largely stemming from a couple of biographies that were released following his death. Cobb's reputation as an extremely violent man was fanned by his first biographer, sportswriter Al Stump, whose stories about Cobb have been discredited as sensationalized, and in some part proven to be entirely fictional, while Cobb's views on race evolved and mellowed after his retirement from baseball.\n\nEarly life\n\nCobb was born in 1886 in Narrows, Georgia, a small rural community of farmers that was not an official city or village at the time. He was the first of three children born to William Herschel Cobb (1863–1905) and Amanda Chitwood Cobb (1871–1936). Cobb's father was a state senator. \n\nWhen he was still an infant, his parents moved to nearby Royston, where he was raised. By most accounts, he became fascinated with baseball as a child, and decided he wanted to play professional ball one day; his father was vehemently opposed to this idea, but by his teen years, he was trying out for area teams. He played his first years in organized baseball for the Royston Rompers, the semi-pro Royston Reds, and the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League who released him after only two days.Stump (1994), page 57 He then tried out for the Anniston Steelers of the semipro Tennessee–Alabama League, with his father's stern admonition ringing in his ears: \"Don't come home a failure!\"Stump (1994), p. 63 After joining the Steelers for a monthly salary of $50,Stump (1994), p. 64 Cobb promoted himself by sending several postcards written about his talents under different aliases to Grantland Rice, the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal. Eventually, Rice wrote a small note in the Journal that a \"young fellow named Cobb seems to be showing an unusual lot of talent.\"Cobb & Stump, page 48 After about three months, Cobb returned to the Tourists and finished the season hitting .237 in 35 games.Stump (1994), p. 69 In August 1905, the management of the Tourists sold Cobb to the American League's Detroit Tigers for US$750 (equivalent to approximately $ in today's funds). \n\nOn August 8, 1905, Cobb's mother fatally shot his father with a pistol that his father had purchased for her. Court records indicate that Mr. Cobb had suspected his wife of infidelity and was sneaking past his own bedroom window to catch her in the act. She saw the silhouette of what she presumed to be an intruder and, acting in self-defense, shot and killed her husband. Mrs. Cobb was charged with murder and then released on a $7,000 recognizance bond. She was acquitted on March 31, 1906. Cobb later attributed his ferocious play to his late father, saying, \"I did it for my father. He never got to see me play... but I knew he was watching me, and I never let him down.\"Stump (1994), p. 27\n\nIn 1911, Cobb moved to Detroit's architecturally significant and now historically protected Woodbridge neighborhood, from which he would walk with his dogs to the ballpark prior to games. The Victorian duplex in which Cobb lived still stands. \n\nMajor league career\n\nThe early years\n\nThree weeks after his mother killed his father, Cobb debuted in center field for the Detroit Tigers. On August 30, 1905, in his first major league at bat, he doubled off of Jack Chesbro of the New York Highlanders. Chesbro had won a record 41 games the previous season. Cobb was 18 years old at the time, the youngest player in the league by almost a year. Although he hit .240 in 41 games, he signed a lucrative $1,500 contract from the Tigers for 1906.\n\nAlthough rookie hazing was customary, Cobb could not endure it in good humor and soon became alienated from his teammates. He later attributed his hostile temperament to this experience: \"These old-timers turned me into a snarling wildcat.\" Tigers manager Hughie Jennings later acknowledged that Cobb was targeted for abuse by veteran players, some of whom sought to force him off the team. \"I let this go for a while because I wanted to satisfy myself that Cobb has as much guts as I thought in the very beginning\", Jennings recalled. \"Well, he proved it to me, and I told the other players to let him alone. He is going to be a great baseball player and I won't allow him to be driven off this club.\" \n\nThe following year, 1906, Cobb became the Tigers' full-time center fielder and hit .316 in 98 games, setting a record for the highest batting average (minimum 310 plate appearances) for a 19-year-old (later bested by Mel Ott's .322 average in 124 games for the 1928 New York Giants). He never hit below that mark again. After being moved to right field, he led the Tigers to three consecutive American League pennants in 1907, 1908 & 1909. Detroit would lose each World Series (to the Cubs twice and then the Pirates), however, with Cobb's postseason numbers much below his career standard. Cobb did not get another opportunity to play on a pennant-winning team.\n\nIn 1907, Cobb reached first and then stole second, third and home. He accomplished the feat four more times during his career. He finished the 1907 season with a league-leading .350 batting average, 212 hits, 49 steals and 119 runs batted in (RBI). At age 20, he was the youngest player to win a batting championship and held this record until 1955, when fellow Detroit Tiger Al Kaline won the batting title twelve days younger than Cobb when he did it. Reflecting on his career in 1930, two years after retiring, he told Grantland Rice, \"The biggest thrill I ever got came in a game against the Athletics in 1907 [on September 30]... The Athletics had us beaten, with Rube Waddell pitching. They were two runs ahead in the 9th inning, when I happened to hit a home run that tied the score. This game went 17 innings to a tie, and a few days later, we clinched our first pennant. You can understand what it meant for a 20-year-old country boy to hit a home run off the great Rube, in a pennant-winning game with two outs in the ninth.\" \n\nDespite great success on the field, Cobb was no stranger to controversy off it. As described in Smithsonian Magazine, \"In 1907 during spring training in Augusta, Georgia, a black groundskeeper named Bungy Cummings, whom Cobb had known for years, attempted to shake Cobb's hand or pat him on the shoulder.\" The \"overly familiar greeting infuriated\" Cobb, who attacked Cummings. When Cummings' wife tried to defend him, Cobb allegedly choked her. The assault was only stopped when catcher Charles \"Boss\" Schmidt knocked Cobb out. However, aside from Schmidt's statement to the press, no other corroborating witnesses to the assault on Cummings ever came forward and Cummings himself never made a public comment about it. Author Charles Leerhsen speculates that the assault on Cummings and his wife never occurred and that Schmidt likely made it up completely. Cobb had spent the previous year defending himself on several occasions from assaults by Schmidt, with Schmidt often coming out of nowhere to blindside Cobb. On that day, several reporters did see Cummings, who appeared to be \"partially under the influence of liquor\", approach Cobb and shout \"Hello, Carrie!\" (the meaning of which is unknown) and go in for a hug. Cobb then pushed him away, which was the last interaction that anyone saw between Cobb and Cummings. Shortly thereafter, hearing a fight, several reporters came running and found Cobb and Schmidt wrestling on the ground. When the fight was broken up and Cobb had walked away, Schmidt remained behind and told the reporters that he saw Cobb assaulting Cummings and his wife and had intervened. Leerhsen speculates that this was just another one of Schmidt's assaults on Cobb and that once discovered, Schmidt made up a story that made him sound like he had assaulted Cobb for a noble purpose. In 1908, Cobb attacked a black laborer in Detroit who complained when Cobb stepped into freshly poured asphalt; Cobb was found guilty of battery but the sentence was suspended.\n\nIn September 1907, Cobb began a relationship with The Coca-Cola Company that lasted the remainder of his life. By the time he died, he held over 20,000 shares of stock and owned bottling plants in Santa Maria, California, Twin Falls, Idaho, and Bend, Oregon. He was also a celebrity spokesman for the product. In the offseason between 1907 and 1908, Cobb negotiated with Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, offering to coach baseball there \"for $250 a month, provided that he did not sign with Detroit that season.\" This did not come to pass, however. \n\nThe following season, the Tigers finished ahead of the Chicago White Sox for the pennant. Cobb again won the batting title with a .324 average, but Detroit suffered another loss in the World Series. In August 1908, Cobb married Charlotte (\"Charlie\") Marion Lombard, the daughter of prominent Augustan Roswell Lombard.Stump (1994), pp. 158-160 In the offseason, the couple lived on her father's Augusta estate, The Oaks, until they moved into their own house on Williams Street in November 1913.\n\nThe Tigers won the AL pennant again in 1909. During that World Series, Cobb's last, he stole home in the second game, igniting a three-run rally, but that was the high point for him, finishing with a lowly .231, as the Tigers lost to Honus Wagner and the powerful Pirates in seven games. Although he performed poorly in the postseason, he won the Triple Crown by hitting .377 with 107 RBI and nine home runs, all inside the park, thus becoming the only player of the modern era to lead his league in home runs in a season without hitting a ball over the fence. \n\nIn the same season, Charles M. Conlon snapped the famous photograph of a grimacing Cobb sliding into third base amid a cloud of dirt, which visually captured the grit and ferocity of his playing style.\n\n1910: Chalmers Award controversy\n\nGoing into the final days of the 1910 season, Cobb had a .004 lead on Nap Lajoie for the American League batting title. The prize for the winner of the title was a Chalmers automobile. Cobb sat out the final games to preserve his average. Lajoie hit safely eight times in a doubleheader, but six of those hits were bunt singles. Later it was rumored that the opposing manager had instructed his third baseman to play extra deep to allow Lajoie to win the batting race over the generally disliked Cobb. Although Cobb was credited with a higher batting average, it was later discovered that one game had been counted twice so that Cobb actually lost to Lajoie.\n\nAs a result of the incident, AL president Ban Johnson was forced to arbitrate the situation. He declared Cobb the rightful owner of the title, but car company president Hugh Chalmers chose to award one to both Cobb and Lajoie. \n\n1911 season and onward\n\nCobb regarded baseball as \"something like a war\", future Tiger second baseman Charlie Gehringer said. \"Every time at bat for him was a crusade.\" Baseball historian John Thorn said, \"He is testament to how far you can get simply through will... Cobb was pursued by demons.\"\n\nCobb was having a tremendous year in 1911, which included a 40-game hitting streak. Still, \"Shoeless\" Joe Jackson led him by .009 points in the batting race late in the season. Near the end of the season, Cobb's Tigers had a long series against Jackson's Cleveland Naps. Fellow Southerners Cobb and Jackson were personally friendly both on and off the field. Cobb used that friendship to his advantage. Cobb ignored Jackson when Jackson tried to say anything to him. When Jackson persisted, Cobb snapped angrily back at him, making him wonder what he could have done to enrage Cobb. Cobb felt that it was these mind games that caused Jackson to \"fall off\" to a final average of .408, twelve points lower than Cobb's .420, a twentieth-century record which stood until George Sisler tied it and Rogers Hornsby surpassed it with .424, the record since then except for Hugh Duffy's .438 in the nineteenth century.\n\nCobb led the AL that year in numerous other categories, including 248 hits, 147 runs scored, 127 RBI, 83 stolen bases, 47 doubles, 24 triples and a .621 slugging percentage. Cobb hit eight home runs but finished second in that category to Frank Baker, who hit eleven. He was awarded another Chalmers car, this time for being voted the AL MVP by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.\n\nOn May 12, 1911, Cobb's play illustrated his combination of skill and cunning. Playing against the New York Highlanders, he scored from first base on a single to right field, then scored another run from second base on a wild pitch. In the seventh inning, he tied the game with a two-run double. The Highlanders catcher vehemently argued the safe call at second base with the umpire in question, going on at such length that the other Highlanders infielders gathered nearby to watch. Realizing that no one on the Highlanders had called time, Cobb strolled unobserved to third base, and then casually walked towards home plate as if to get a better view of the argument. He then suddenly broke into a run and slid into home plate for the eventual winning run. It was performances like this that led Branch Rickey to say later that Cobb \"had brains in his feet.\"\n\nDescribing his gameplay strategy in 1930, he said, \"My system was all offense. I believed in putting up a mental hazard for the other fellow. If we were five or six runs ahead, I'd try some wild play, such as going from first to home on a single. This helped to make the other side hurry the play in a close game later on. I worked out all the angles I could think of, to keep them guessing and hurrying.\" In the same interview, Cobb talked about having noticed a throwing tendency of first baseman Hal Chase, but having to wait two full years until the opportunity came to exploit it. By unexpectedly altering his own baserunning tendencies, he was able to surprise Chase and score the winning run of the game in question.\n\nOn May 15, 1912, Cobb assaulted a heckler, Claude Lucker (often misspelled as Lueker), in the stands in New York's Hilltop Park where his Tigers were playing the Highlanders (now the Yankees). Lucker and Cobb had traded insults with each other through the first couple of innings. Cobb at one point went to the Highlander dugout to look for the Highlander's owner to try to have Lucker ejected from the game, but his search was in vain. The situation finally climaxed when Lucker allegedly called Cobb a \"half-nigger.\" Cobb, in his discussion of the incident in the Holmes biography,Cobb & Stump, pp.131-135 avoided such explicit words but alluded to Lucker's epithet by saying he was \"reflecting on my mother's color and morals.\" He went on to state that he warned Highlander manager Harry Wolverton that if something wasn't done about that man, there would be trouble. No action was taken. At the end of the sixth inning, after being challenged by teammates Sam Crawford and Jim Delahanty to do something about it, Cobb climbed into the stands and attacked Lucker, who it turned out was handicapped (he had lost all of one hand and three fingers on his other hand in an industrial accident). When onlookers shouted at him to stop because the man had no hands, he reportedly retorted, \"I don't care if he got no feet!\" Though such an incident seems outrageous in the 21st century, attacking fans was not so unusual an activity in the early years of baseball. Other notable baseball stars who assaulted heckling fans include Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Rube Waddell, Kid Gleason, Sherry Magee, and Fred Clarke. \n\nThe league suspended him, and his teammates, though not fond of Cobb, went on strike to protest the suspension, and the lack of protection of players from abusive fans, before the May 18 game in Philadelphia.Stump (1994), pp. 208-209 For that one game, Detroit fielded a replacement team made up of hastily recruited college and sandlot players plus two Tiger coaches and (not surprisingly) lost, 24–2, thereby setting some of Major League Baseball's modern-era (post-1900) negative records, notably the 26 hits in a nine-inning game allowed by Allan Travers, who pitched one of the sport's most unlikely complete games. The pre-1901 record for the most hits and runs given up in a game is held by the Cleveland Blues' Dave Rowe. Primarily an outfielder, Rowe pitched a complete game on July 24, 1882, giving up 35 runs on 29 hits. The current post-1900 record for most hits in a nine-inning game is 31, set in 1992 by the Milwaukee Brewers against Toronto; however, the Blue Jays used six pitchers. \n\nThe strike ended when Cobb urged his teammates to return to the field. According to him, this incident led to the formation of a players' union, the \"Ballplayers' Fraternity\" (formally, the Fraternity of Professional Baseball Players of America), an early version of what is now called the Major League Baseball Players Association, which garnered some concessions from the owners. Stump (1994), pp. 209-210\n\nCobb, during his career, was involved in numerous other fights, both on and off the field, and several profanity-laced shouting matches. For example, Cobb and umpire Billy Evans arranged to settle their in-game differences through fisticuffs under the grandstand after the game. Members of both teams were spectators, and broke up the scuffle after Cobb had knocked Evans down, pinned him and began choking him. In 1909, Cobb was arrested for assault for an incident that occurred in a Cleveland hotel. Cobb got into an argument with the elevator operator around 2:15 a.m. when the man refused to take him to the floor where some of his teammates were having a card game. The elevator operator stated that he could only take Cobb to the floor where his room was. As the argument escalated, a night watchman approached and he and Cobb eventually got into a physical confrontation. During the fight, Cobb produced a pen knife and slashed the watchman across the hand. Cobb later claimed that the watchman, who had the upper hand in the fight, had his finger in Cobb's left eye and that Cobb was worried he was going to have his sight ruined. The fight finally ended when the watchman produced a gun and struck Cobb several times in the head, knocking him out. Cobb would later plead guilty to simple assault and pay a $100 fine. This incident has often been retold with the elevator operator and the watchman both being black. However, recent scholarship has shown that all parties involved were white. \n\n1915–21\n\nIn 1915, Cobb set the single-season record for stolen bases with 96, which stood until Dodger Maury Wills broke it in 1962.\n That year, he also won his ninth consecutive batting title, hitting .369.\nIn 1917, Cobb hit in 35 consecutive games, still the only player with two 35-game hitting streaks (including his 40-game streak in 1911). He had six hitting streaks of at least 20 games in his career, second only to Pete Rose's seven. \n\nAlso in 1917, Cobb starred in the motion picture Somewhere in Georgia for a sum of $25,000 plus expenses (equivalent to approximately $ today ).Stump (1994), pp 254-255 Based on a story by sports columnist Grantland Rice, the film casts Cobb as \"himself\", a small-town Georgian bank clerk with a talent for baseball. Broadway critic Ward Morehouse called the movie \"absolutely the worst flicker I ever saw, pure hokum.\"\n\nIn October 1918, Cobb enlisted in the Chemical Corps branch of the United States Army and was sent to the Allied Expeditionary Forces headquarters in Chaumont, France. He served approximately 67 days overseas before receiving an honorable discharge and returning to the United States. He was given the rank of captain underneath the command of Major Branch Rickey, the president of the St. Louis Cardinals. Other baseball players serving in this unit included Captain Christy Mathewson and Lieutenant George Sisler. All of these men were assigned to the Gas and Flame Division, where they trained soldiers in preparation for chemical attacks by exposing them to gas chambers in a controlled environment, which was eventually responsible for Mathewson's contracting tuberculosis which led to his premature death on the eve of the 1925 World Series.\n\nOn August 19, 1921, in the second game of a doubleheader against Elmer Myers of the Boston Red Sox, Cobb collected his 3,000th hit. Aged 34 at the time, he is still the youngest ballplayer to reach that milestone, and in the fewest at-bats (8,093).\n\nBy 1920, Babe Ruth, newly sold to the newly named New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox, had established himself as a power hitter, something Cobb was not considered to be. When his Tigers showed up in New York to play the Yankees for the first time that season, writers billed it as a showdown between two stars of competing styles of play. Ruth hit two homers and a triple during the series, compared to Cobb's one single.\n\nAs Ruth's popularity grew, Cobb became increasingly hostile toward him. He saw the Babe not only as a threat to his style of play, but also to his style of life. While Cobb preached ascetic self-denial, Ruth gorged on hot dogs, beer and women. Perhaps what angered him the most about Ruth was that despite Babe's total disregard for his physical condition and traditional baseball, he was still an overwhelming success and brought fans to the ballparks in record numbers to see him challenge his own slugging records.\n\nAfter enduring several years of seeing his fame and notoriety usurped by Ruth, Cobb decided that he was going to show that swinging for the fences was no challenge for a top hitter. On May 5, 1925, he began a two-game hitting spree better than any even Ruth had unleashed. Sitting in the Tiger dugout, he told a reporter that, for the first time in his career, he was going to swing for the fences. That day, he went 6 for 6, with two singles, a double and three home runs. The 16 total bases set a new AL record, which stood until May 8, 2012 when Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers hit four home runs and a double for a total of 18 bases. The next day he had three more hits, two of which were home runs. The single his first time up gave him nine consecutive hits over three games. His five homers in two games tied the record set by Cap Anson of the old Chicago NL team in 1884. Cobb wanted to show that he could hit home runs when he wanted, but simply chose not to do so. At the end of the series, the 38-year-old veteran superstar had gone 12 for 19 with 29 total bases and then went happily back to his usual bunting and hitting-and-running. For his part, Ruth's attitude was that \"I could have had a lifetime .600 average, but I would have had to hit them singles. The people were paying to see me hit home runs.\" Even so, when asked in 1930 by Grantland Rice to name the best hitter he'd ever seen, Cobb answered, \"You can't beat the Babe. Ruth is one of the few who can take a terrific swing and still meet the ball solidly. His timing is perfect. [No one has] the combined power and eye of Ruth.\"\n\nCobb as player/manager\n\nTiger owner Frank Navin tapped Cobb to take over for Hughie Jennings as manager for the 1921 season, a deal he signed on his 34th birthday for $32,500 (equivalent to approximately $ in today's funds). The signing surprised the baseball world. Although Cobb was a legendary player, he was disliked throughout the baseball community, even by his own teammates; and he expected as much from his players since he set a standard most players couldn't meet.\n\nThe closest Cobb came to winning another pennant was in 1924, when the Tigers finished in third place, six games behind the pennant-winning Washington Senators. The Tigers had also finished third in 1922, but 16 games behind the Yankees. Cobb blamed his lackluster managerial record (479 wins against 444 losses) on Navin, who was arguably even more frugal than he was, passing up a number of quality players Cobb wanted to add to the team. In fact, he had saved money by hiring Cobb to both play and manage.\n\nIn 1922, Cobb tied a batting record set by Wee Willie Keeler, with four five-hit games in a season. This has since been matched by Stan Musial, Tony Gwynn and Ichiro Suzuki. On May 10, 1924, Cobb was honored at ceremonies before a game in Washington, D.C., by more than 100 dignitaries and legislators. He received 21 books, one for each year in professional baseball. \n\nAt the end of 1925 Cobb was once again embroiled in a batting title race, this time with one of his teammates and players, Harry Heilmann. In a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns on October 4, 1925, Heilmann got six hits to lead the Tigers to a sweep of the doubleheader and beat Cobb for the batting crown, .393 to .389. Cobb and Brownie player-manager George Sisler each pitched in the final game, Cobb pitching a perfect inning.\n\nMove to Philadelphia\n\nCobb announced his retirement after a 22-year career as a Tiger in November 1926, and headed home to Augusta, Georgia. Shortly thereafter, Tris Speaker also retired as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. The retirement of two great players at the same time sparked some interest, and it turned out that the two were coerced into retirement because of allegations of game-fixing brought about by Dutch Leonard, a former pitcher managed by Cobb.\n\nLeonard accused former pitcher and outfielder Smoky Joe Wood and Cobb of betting on a Tiger-Indian game played in Detroit on September 25, 1919, in which they allegedly orchestrated a Tiger victory to win the bet. Leonard claimed proof existed in letters written to him by Cobb and Wood. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis held a secret hearing with Cobb, Speaker and Wood. A second secret meeting among the AL directors led to the unpublicized resignations of Cobb and Speaker; however, rumors of the scandal led Judge Landis to hold additional hearings in which Leonard subsequently refused to participate. Cobb and Wood admitted to writing the letters, but claimed that a horse-racing bet was involved and that Leonard's accusations were in retaliation for Cobb's having released him from the Tigers, thereby demoting him to the minor leagues. Speaker denied any wrongdoing.\n\nOn January 27, 1927, Judge Landis cleared Cobb and Speaker of any wrongdoing because of Leonard's refusal to appear at the hearings. Landis allowed both Cobb and Speaker to return to their original teams, but each team let them know that they were free agents and could sign with any club they wanted. Speaker signed with the Washington Senators for 1927, and Cobb with the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker then joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the 1928 season. Cobb said he had come back only to seek vindication and say he left baseball on his own terms.\n\nCobb played regularly in 1927 for a young and talented team that finished second to one of the greatest teams of all time, the 110–44 1927 Yankees, returning to Detroit to a tumultuous welcome on May 11 and doubling his time up to the cheers of Tiger fans. On July 18, Cobb became the first member of the 4000 hit club when he doubled off former teammate Sam Gibson, still pitching for the Tigers, at Navin Field.\n\n1927 was also the final season of Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson's career. With their careers largely overlapping, Cobb faced Johnson more times than any other batter-pitcher matchup in baseball history. Cobb also got the first hit ever allowed by Johnson. After Johnson hit Detroit's Ossie Vitt with a pitch in August 1915, seriously injuring him, Cobb realized that Johnson was fearful of hitting opponents. He used this knowledge to his advantage by standing closer to the plate.\n\nCobb returned for the 1928 season, but played less frequently due to his age and the blossoming abilities of the young A's, who were again in a pennant race with the Yankees. On September 3, Ty Cobb pinch-hit in the ninth inning of the first game of a doubleheader against the Senators and doubled off Bump Hadley for his last career hit although his last at-bat wasn't until September 11 against the Yankees, popping out off Hank Johnson and grounding out to shortstop Mark Koenig. He then announced his retirement, effective the end of the season, after batting .300 or higher in 23 consecutive seasons (the only season under .300 being his rookie season), a major league record not likely to be broken.\n\nHe also ended his career with a rather dubious record. When Cobb retired, he led AL outfielders for most errors all-time with 271, which still stands today. Nineteenth-century player Tom Brown holds the major league record with 490 errors committed as an outfielder, while the National League record is held by nineteenth-century player George Gore with 346 errors. Cobb ranks 14th on the all-time list for errors committed by an outfielder.\n\nPost professional career\n\nCobb retired a very rich and successful man. He toured Europe with his family, went to Scotland for some time and then returned to his farm in Georgia. He spent his retirement pursuing his off-season avocations of hunting, golfing, polo and fishing. His other pastime was trading stocks and bonds, increasing his immense personal wealth. He was a major stockholder in the Coca-Cola Corporation, which by itself would have made him wealthy.\n\nIn the winter of 1930, Cobb moved into a Spanish ranch estate on Spencer Lane in the millionaires' community of Atherton outside San Francisco, California. At the same time, his wife Charlie filed the first of several divorce suits; but withdrew the suit shortly thereafter. The couple eventually divorced in 1947 after 39 years of marriage; the last few of years of which Mrs. Cobb lived in nearby Menlo Park. The couple had three sons and two daughters: Tyrus Raymond Jr, Shirley Marion, Herschel Roswell, James Howell and Beverly.\n\nCobb never had an easy time as husband and father. His children found him to be demanding, yet also capable of kindness and extreme warmth. He expected his sons to be exceptional athletes in general and baseball players in particular. Tyrus Raymond, Jr. flunked out of Princeton (where he had played on the varsity tennis team), much to his father's dismay.Stump (1994), p. 405 The elder Cobb subsequently traveled to the Princeton campus and beat his son with a whip to ensure against future academic failure. Tyrus Raymond, Jr. then entered Yale University and became captain of the tennis team while improving his academics, but was then arrested twice in 1930 for drunkenness and left Yale without graduating. Cobb helped his son deal with his pending legal problems, but then permanently broke off with him. Even though Tyrus Raymond, Jr. finally reformed and eventually earned an M.D. from the Medical College of South Carolina and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Dublin, Georgia until his premature death at 42 on September 9, 1952 from a brain tumor, his father remained distant.Stump (1994), pp 405-406, 412\n\nIn February 1936, when the first Hall of Fame election results were announced, Cobb had been named on 222 of 226 ballots, outdistancing Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson, the only others to earn the necessary 75% of votes to be elected that first year. His 98.2 percentage stood as the record until Tom Seaver received 98.8% of the vote in 1992. Those incredible results show that although many people disliked him personally, they respected the way he had played and what he had accomplished. In 1998, Sporting News ranked him as third on the list of 100 Greatest Baseball Players. \n\nBy the time he was elected to the Hall of Fame, Cobb had become a heavy smoker and drinker, and spent a great deal of time complaining about modern-day players' lack of fundamental skills. He had positive things to say about Stan Musial, Phil Rizzuto and Jackie Robinson, but few others. Even so, he was known to help out young players. He was instrumental in helping Joe DiMaggio negotiate his rookie contract with the New York Yankees.\n\nCobb's competitive fires continued to burn after retirement. In 1941, he faced Babe Ruth in a series of charity golf matches at courses outside New York, Boston and Detroit and won two out of three. At the 1947 Old-Timers' Day game in Yankee Stadium, he warned catcher Benny Bengough to move back, claiming he was rusty and hadn't swung a bat in almost 20 years. Bengough accordingly stepped back to avoid being struck by Cobb's backswing. Having repositioned the catcher, Cobb cannily laid down a perfect bunt in front of the plate and easily beat the throw from a surprised Bengough.\n\nAnother bittersweet moment in Cobb's life reportedly came in the late 1940s, when he and sportswriter Grantland Rice were returning from the Masters golf tournament. Stopping at a Greenville, South Carolina liquor store, Cobb noticed that the man behind the counter was none other than \"Shoeless\" Joe Jackson, who had been banned from baseball almost 30 years earlier following the Black Sox scandal. But Jackson did not appear to recognize him, and after making his purchase an incredulous Cobb asked, \"Don't you know me, Joe?\" \"I know you\", replied Jackson, \"but I wasn't sure you wanted to speak to me. A lot of them don't.\"\n\nCobb was mentioned in the poem \"Line-Up for Yesterday\" by Ogden Nash:\n\nLater life\n\nAt 62, Cobb married a second time in 1949. His new wife was 40-year-old Frances Fairbairn Cass, a divorcee from Buffalo, New York.Stump (1994), p. 412 Their childless marriage also failed, ending with a divorce in 1956. At this time, Cobb became generous with his wealth, donating $100,000 in his parents' name for his hometown to build a modern 24-bed hospital, Cobb Memorial Hospital, which is now part of the Ty Cobb Healthcare System. He also established the Cobb Educational Fund, which awarded scholarships to needy Georgia students bound for college, by endowing it with a $100,000 donation in 1953 (equivalent to approximately $ in current year dollars ).\n\nHe knew that another way he could share his wealth was by having biographies written that would both set the record straight on him and teach young players how to play. John McCallum spent some time with Cobb to write a combination how-to and biography titled The Tiger Wore Spikes: An Informal Biography of Ty Cobb that was published in 1956. In December 1959, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and Bright's disease. He did not trust his initial diagnosis and went to Georgia to seek a second opinion who confirmed that his prostate was indeed cancerous. They removed it at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, but it did not check the spread of the disease.\n\nIt was also during his final years that Cobb began work on his autobiography, My Life in Baseball: The True Record, with writer Al Stump. Later Stump would claim the collaboration was contentious and after Cobb's death Stump published two more books and a short story giving what he claimed was the \"true story\". One of these later books was used as the basis for the 1994 film Cobb (a box office flop, starring Tommy Lee Jones as Cobb and directed by Ron Shelton). In 2010, an article by William R. \"Ron\" Cobb (no relation to Ty) in the peer-reviewed The National Pastime (the official publication of the Society for American Baseball Research) accused Stump of extensive forgeries of Cobb-related documents and diaries. The article further accused Stump of numerous false statements about Cobb in his last years, most of which were sensationalistic in nature and intended to cast Cobb in an unflattering light.\n\nDeath\n\nIn his last days, Cobb spent some time with the old movie comedian Joe E. Brown, talking about the choices he had made in his life. He told Brown that he felt that he had made mistakes, and that he would do things differently if he could. He had played hard and lived hard all his life, had no friends to show for it at the end, and regretted it. Publicly, however, he claimed to have no regrets: \"I've been lucky. I have no right to be regretful of what I did.\"\n\nHe checked into Emory Hospital for the last time in June 1961. His first wife, Charlie, his son Jimmy and other family members came to be with him for his final days. He died a month later, on July 17, 1961, at Emory University Hospital.\n\nApproximately 150 friends and relatives attended a brief service in Cornelia, Georgia, and drove to the Cobb family mausoleum in Royston for the burial. Baseball's only representatives at his funeral were three old-time players, Ray Schalk, Mickey Cochrane and Nap Rucker, along with Sid Keener, the director of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but messages of condolences numbered in the hundreds. Family in attendance included Cobb's former wife Charlie, his two daughters, his surviving son Jimmy, his two sons-in-law, his daughter-in-law Mary Dunn Cobb and her two children.\n\nAt the time of his death, Cobb's estate was reported to be worth at least $11.78 million (equivalent to $ today), including $10 million worth of General Motors stock and $1.78 million in The Coca-Cola Company stock. His will left a quarter of his estate to the Cobb Educational Fund, and distributed the rest among his children and grandchildren. Cobb is interred in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Royston, Georgia. As of July 2014, the Ty Cobb Educational Foundation has distributed $15.2 million in college scholarships to needy Georgians.\n\nLegacy\n\nHe is regarded by some historians and journalists as the best player of the dead-ball era, and is generally seen as one of the greatest players of all time. \n\nEfforts to create a Ty Cobb Memorial in Royston initially failed, primarily because most of the artifacts from his life were sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York and the Georgia town was viewed as too remote to make a memorial worthwhile. But ultimately, on July 17, 1998, the 37th anniversary of Cobb's death, the Ty Cobb Museum and the Franklin County Sports Hall of Fame opened its doors in Royston. On that day, Cobb was one of the first members to be inducted into the Franklin County Sports Hall of Fame.\n\nOn August 30, 2005, his hometown hosted a 1905 baseball game to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Cobb's first major league game. Players in the game included many of Cobb's descendants as well as many citizens from his hometown of Royston. Another early-20th-century baseball game was played in his hometown at Cobb Field on September 30, 2006, with Cobb's descendants and Roystonians again playing. Cobb's personal batboy from his major league years was also in attendance, and threw out the first pitch.\n\nIn addition to the aforementioned film, Ty Cobb's legacy also includes legions of collectors of his early tobacco card issues, as well as game used memorabilia and autographs. Perhaps the most curious item is a 1909 Ty Cobb Cigarettes pack, leaving some to believe Cobb either had, or attempted to have, his own brand of cigarettes. Very little about the card is known other than its similarity to the 1909 T206 Red Portrait card published by the American Tobacco Company, and until 2005 only a handful were known to exist. That year, a sizable cache of the cards was brought to auction by the family of a Royston, Georgia man who had stored them in a book for almost 100 years. .\n\nThe new baseball stadium at Hampden-Sydney College is named Ty Cobb Ballpark.\n\nRivalry with Sam Crawford\n\nSam Crawford and Ty Cobb were teammates for parts of thirteen seasons. They played beside each other in right and center field, and Crawford followed Cobb in the batting order year after year. Despite the physical closeness, the two had a complicated relationship.\n\nInitially, they had a student-teacher relationship. Crawford was an established star when Cobb arrived, and Cobb eagerly sought his advice. In interviews with Al Stump, Cobb told of studying Crawford's base stealing technique and of how Crawford would teach him about pursuing fly balls and throwing out base runners. Cobb told Stump he would always remember Crawford's kindness. \n\nThe student-teacher relationship gradually changed to one of jealous rivals. Cobb was not popular with his teammates, and as Cobb became the biggest star in baseball, Crawford was unhappy with the preferential treatment given to Cobb. Cobb was allowed to show up late for spring training and was given private quarters on the road – perks not offered to Crawford. The competition between the two was intense. Crawford recalled that, if he went three for four on a day when Cobb went hitless, Cobb would turn red and sometimes walk out of the park with the game still on. When it was reported that Nap Lajoie had won the batting title, Crawford was alleged to have been one of several Tigers who sent a telegram to Lajoie congratulating him on beating Cobb. \n\nIn retirement, Cobb wrote a letter to a writer for The Sporting News accusing Crawford of not helping in the outfield and of intentionally fouling off balls when Cobb was stealing a base. Crawford learned about the letter in 1946 and accused Cobb of being a \"cheapskate\" who never helped his teammates. He said that Cobb had not been a very good fielder, \"so he blamed me.\" Crawford denied intentionally trying to deprive Cobb of stolen bases, insisting that Cobb had \"dreamed that up.\" \n\nWhen asked about the feud, Cobb attributed it to jealousy. He felt that Crawford was \"a hell of a good player\", but he was \"second best\" on the Tigers and \"hated to be an also ran.\" Cobb biographer Richard Bak noted that the two \"only barely tolerated each other\" and agreed with Cobb that Crawford's attitude was driven by Cobb's having stolen Crawford's thunder. \n\nAlthough they may not have spoken to each other, Cobb and Crawford developed an uncanny ability to communicate non-verbally with looks and nods on the base paths. They became one of the most successful double steal pairings in baseball history. \n\nAfter Cobb died, a reporter found hundreds of letters in Cobb's home that Cobb had written to influential people lobbying for Crawford's induction into the Hall of Fame. Crawford was reportedly unaware of Cobb's efforts until after Cobb had died. Crawford was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1957, four years before Cobb's death.\n\nReported violence and bigotry\n\nAs Smithsonian magazine stated, \"Violent confrontations were a recurring theme in Cobb's life.\" He is thought to have committed several violent assaults during his playing time. Reported victims of his sudden uncontrollable rages through the years included a black groundskeeper who attempted to shake Cobb's hand, along with his wife, though this story (see above) is now considered dubious at best; as well as a handicapped fan. As he attacked the handicapped man, \"someone screamed for Cobb to stop, pointing out that the man had no hands. 'I don't care if he has no feet!' Cobb yelled back, stomping Leuker until park police pulled him off.\" Cobb reported in his autobiography that the handicapped man incurred Cobb's ire by \"reflecting on my mother’s color and morals.\"\n\nWhile there exist many stories of Cobb's alleged racial intolerance during his playing years, there are scant documented incidents of racially motivated acts.\n\nFive years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, Cobb publicly supported blacks and whites playing baseball together, adding, \"Certainly it is okay for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man; in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.\" Using even stronger language, Cobb told the Sporting News in 1952 that \"the Negro should be accepted and not grudgingly but wholeheartedly.\" In 1953, black newspapers cited his praise for Brooklyn Dodgers' catcher Roy Campanella, who Cobb said was \"among the all-time best catchers\" in baseball. Following Campanella's accident that left him paralyzed, the Dodgers staged a tribute game where tens of thousands of spectators silently held lit matches above their heads. Cobb wrote the Dodgers owner to show appreciation \"for what you did for this fine man.\" Cobb also stated that Willie Mays was the \"only player I'd pay money to see.\" In the obituaries that ran in the black press following Cobb's death, he was praised for \"[speaking] in favor of racial freedom in baseball.\" \n\nSome historians, including Wesley Fricks, Dan Holmes, and Charles Leerhsen have defended Cobb against unfair portrayals of him in popular culture since his death. A noted case is the book written by sportswriter Al Stump in the months after Cobb died in 1961. Stump was later discredited when it became known that he had stolen items belonging to Cobb and also betrayed the access Cobb gave him in his final months. As a result of the movie Cobb which starred Tommy Lee Jones, there are many myths surrounding Cobb's life, including one that he sharpened his spikes to inflict wounds to opposing players. Leerhsen's book Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty presents primary evidence in contradiction to some of the more negative charges against Cobb.\n\nRegular season statistics\n\nBoth official sources, such as Total Baseball, and a number of independent researchers, including John Thorn, have raised questions about Cobb's exact career totals. Hits have been re-estimated at between 4,189 and 4,191, due to a possible double-counted game in 1910. At-bats estimates have ranged as high as 11,437. The numbers shown below are the figures officially recognized on MLB.com. \n\nThe figures on Baseball-Reference.com are as follows. Other private research sites may have different figures. Caught Stealing is not shown comprehensively for Cobb's MLB.com totals, because the stat was not regularly recorded until 1920.",
"The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in North America, contested since 1903 between the American League (AL) champion team and the National League (NL) champion team. Prior to 1969, the team with the best regular season win-loss record in each league automatically advanced to the World Series; since then each league has conducted a championship series (ALCS and NLCS) preceding the World Series to determine which teams will advance. As of 2015, the World Series has been contested 111 times, with the AL winning 64 and the NL winning 47. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff, and the winning team is awarded the Commissioner's Trophy. As the series is played in October (and occasionally November), during the autumn season in North America, it is often referred to as the Fall Classic. \n\nThe 2015 World Series took place between the New York Mets and the victorious Kansas City Royals. Five games were played, with the Royals victorious after game five, played in New York. The final score was 7-2; the game went into extra innings after a tied score of 2-2. This was the second World Series won by the franchise and the first in 30 years.\n\nIn the American League, the New York Yankees have played in 40 World Series and won 27, the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics have played in 14 and won 9, and the Boston Red Sox have played in 12 and won 8, including the first World Series. In the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals have appeared in 19 and won 11, the New York/San Francisco Giants have played in 20 and won 8, the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers have appeared in 18 and won 6, and the Cincinnati Reds have appeared in 9 and won 5.\n\nAs of 2015, no team has won consecutive World Series championships since the New York Yankees in 1999 and 2000, the longest such duration in Major League Baseball history.\n\nPrecursors to the modern World Series (1857–1902)\n\nThe original World Series\n\nUntil the formation of the American Association in 1882 as a second major league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (1871–1875) and then the National League (founded 1876) represented the top level of organized baseball in the United States. All championships were awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season, without a postseason series being played. From 1884 to 1890, the National League and the American Association faced each other in a series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. These series were disorganized in comparison to the modern Series: games played ranged from as few as three in 1884 (Providence defeated New York three games to zero), to a high of fifteen in 1887 (Detroit beat St. Louis ten games to five), and both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game.\n\nThe series was promoted and referred to as \"The Championship of the United States\", \"World's Championship Series\", or \"World's Series\" for short.\nIn his book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, Simon Winchester mentions in passing that the World Series was named for the New York World newspaper, but this view is disputed. \n\nThe 19th-century competitions are, however, not officially recognized as part of World Series history by Major League Baseball, as it considers 19th-century baseball to be a prologue to the modern baseball era. Until about 1960, some sources treated the 19th-century Series on an equal basis with the post-19th-century series. After about 1930, however, many authorities list the start of the World Series in 1903 and discuss the earlier contests separately. \n(For example, the 1929 World Almanac and Book of Facts lists \"Baseball's World Championships 1884–1928\" in a single table, but the 1943 edition lists \"Baseball World Championships 1903–1942\". )\n\n1892–1900: \"The Monopoly Years\"\n\nFollowing the collapse of the American Association after the 1891 season, the National League was again the only major league. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between half-season champions. This scheme was abandoned after one season. Beginning in 1893—and continuing until divisional play was introduced in 1969—the pennant was awarded to the first-place club in the standings at the end of the season. For four seasons, 1894–1897, the league champions played the runners-up in the post season championship series called the Temple Cup. A second attempt at this format was the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup series, which was played only once, in 1900. \n\nIn 1901, the American League was formed as a second major league. No championship series were played in 1901 or 1902 as the National and American Leagues fought each other for business supremacy.\n\nModern World Series (1903–present)\n\nFirst attempt\n\nAfter two years of bitter competition and player raiding (in 1902, the AL and NL champions even went so far as to challenge each other to a tournament in football after the end of the baseball season), the National and American Leagues made peace and, as part of the accord, several pairs of teams squared off for interleague exhibition games after the 1903 season. These series were arranged by the participating clubs, as the 1880s World's Series matches had been. One of them matched the two pennant winners, Pittsburg Pirates of the NL and Boston Americans (later known as the Red Sox) of the AL; that one is known as the 1903 World Series. It had been arranged well in advance by the two owners, as both teams were league leaders by large margins. Boston upset Pittsburg by five games to three, winning with pitching depth behind Cy Young and Bill Dinneen and with the support of the band of Royal Rooters. The Series brought much civic pride to Boston and proved the new American League could beat the Nationals.\n\nBoycott of 1904\n\nThe 1904 Series, if it had been held, would have been between the AL's Boston Americans (Boston Red Sox) and the NL's New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants). At that point there was no governing body for the World Series nor any requirement that a Series be played. Thus the Giants' owner, John T. Brush, refused to allow his team to participate in such an event, citing the \"inferiority\" of the upstart American League. John McGraw, the Giants' manager, even went so far as to say that his Giants were already \"world champions\" since they were the champions of the \"only real major league\". At the time of the announcement, their new cross-town rivals, the New York Highlanders (now the New York Yankees), were leading the AL, and the prospect of facing the Highlanders did not please Giants management. Boston won on the last day of the season, and the leagues had previously agreed to hold a World's Championship Series in 1904, but it was not binding, and Brush stuck to his original decision. In addition to political reasons, Brush also factually cited the lack of rules under which money would be split, where games would be played, and how they would be operated and staffed.\n\nDuring the winter of 1904–1905, however, feeling the sting of press criticism, Brush had a change of heart and proposed what came to be known as the \"Brush Rules\", under which the series were played subsequently. One rule was that player shares would come from a portion of the gate receipts for the first four games only. This was to discourage teams from \"fixing\" early games in order to prolong the series and make more money. Receipts for later games would be split among the two clubs and the National Commission, the governing body for the sport, which was able to cover much of its annual operating expense from World Series revenue. Most importantly, the now-official and compulsory World's Series matches were operated strictly by the National Commission itself, not by the participating clubs.\n\nWith the new rules in place and the National Commission in control, McGraw's Giants made it to the 1905 Series, and beat the Philadelphia A's four games to one. The Series was subsequently held annually, until 1994, when it was canceled due to a players' strike.\n\nThe list of postseason rules evolved over time. In 1925, Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets persuaded others to adopt as a permanent rule the 2–3–2 pattern used in 1924. Prior to 1924, the pattern had been to alternate by game or to make another arrangement convenient to both clubs. The 2–3–2 pattern has been used ever since save for the 1943 and 1945 World Series, which followed a 3–4 pattern due to World War II travel restrictions. (The 2–3–2 pattern was used in 1944 because both teams were based in the same home stadium.)\n\n1919 Black Sox Scandal\n\nGambling and game-fixing had been a problem in professional baseball from the beginning; star pitcher Jim Devlin was banned for life in 1877, when the National League was just two years old. Baseball's gambling problems came to a head in 1919, when eight players of the Chicago White Sox were alleged to have conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.\n\nThe Sox had won the Series in 1917 and were heavy favorites to beat the Cincinnati Reds in 1919, but first baseman Chick Gandil had other plans. Gandil, in collaboration with gambler Joseph \"Sport\" Sullivan, approached his teammates and got six of them to agree to throw the Series: starting pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams, shortstop Swede Risberg, left fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson, center fielder Happy Felsch, and utility infielder Fred McMullin. Third baseman Buck Weaver knew of the fix but declined to participate, hitting .324 for the series from 11 hits and committing no errors in the field. The Sox, who were promised $100,000 for cooperating, proceeded to lose the Series in eight games, pitching poorly, hitting poorly and making many errors. Though he took the money, Jackson insisted to his death that he played to the best of his ability in the series (he was the best hitter in the series, including having hit the series' only home run, but had markedly worse numbers in the games the White Sox lost).\n\nDuring the Series, writer and humorist Ring Lardner had facetiously called the event the \"World's Serious\". The Series turned out to indeed have serious consequences for the sport. After rumors circulated for nearly a year, the players were suspended in September 1920.\n\nThe \"Black Sox\" were acquitted in a criminal conspiracy trial. However, baseball in the meantime had established the office of Commissioner in an effort to protect the game's integrity, and the first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all of the players involved, including Weaver, for life. The White Sox would not win a World Series again until 2005.\n\nThe events of the 1919 Series, segueing into the \"live ball\" era, marked a point in time of change of the fortunes of several teams. The two most prolific World Series winners to date, the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals, did not win their first championship until the 1920s; and three of the teams that were highly successful prior to 1920 (the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs) went the rest of the 20th century without another World Series win. The Red Sox and White Sox finally won again in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The Cubs are still waiting for their next trophy, and have not appeared in the Fall Classic since 1945, the longest drought of any MLB club.\n\nNew York Yankees dynasty (1920–1964)\n\nThe New York Yankees purchased Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox after the 1919 season, appeared in their first World Series two years later in 1921, and became frequent participants thereafter. Over a period of 45 years from 1920 to 1964, the Yankees played in 29 World Series championships, winning 20. The team's dynasty reached its apex between 1947 and 1964, when the Yankees reached the World Series 15 times in eighteen years, helped by an agreement with the Kansas City Athletics (after that team moved from Philadelphia during 1954–1955 offseason) whereby the teams made several deals advantageous to the Yankees (until ended by new Athletics' owner Charles O. Finley). During that span, the Yankees played in all World Series except 1948, 1954, and 1959, winning ten. From 1949 to 1953, the Yankees won the World Series five years in a row; from 1936–1939 the Yankees won four World Series Championships in a row. There are only two other occasions when a team has won at least three consecutive World Series: 1972 to 1974 by the Oakland Athletics, and 1998 to 2000 by the New York Yankees.\n\n1947–1964: New York City teams dominate World Series play\n\nIn an 18-year span from 1947 to 1964, except for 1948 and 1959, the World Series was played in New York City, featuring at least one of the three teams located in New York at the time. The Dodgers and Giants moved to California after the 1957 season, leaving the Yankees as the lone team in the city until the Mets were enfranchised in 1962. During this period, other than 1948, 1954, and 1959, the Yankees represented the American League in the World Series.\n\nIn the years 1947, 1949, 1951–1953, and 1955–1956, both teams in the World Series were from New York, with the Yankees playing against either the Dodgers or Giants.\n\nThe World Series in California\n\nIn 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants took their long-time rivalry to the west coast, moving to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, bringing Major League Baseball west of St. Louis and Kansas City.\n\nThe Dodgers were the first of the two clubs to contest a World Series on the west coast, defeating the Chicago White Sox in 1959. The 1962 Giants made the first California World Series appearance of that franchise, losing to the Yankees. The Dodgers made three World Series appearances in the 1960s: a 1963 win over the Yankees, a 1965 win over the Minnesota Twins and a 1966 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.\n\nIn 1968, the Kansas City Athletics relocated to Oakland and the following year 1969, the National League granted a franchise to San Diego as the San Diego Padres. The A's became a powerful dynasty, winning three consecutive World Series from 1972–1974. In 1974, the A's played the Dodgers in the first all-California World Series. The Padres have two World Series appearances (a 1984 loss to the Detroit Tigers, and a 1998 loss to the New York Yankees).\n\nThe Dodgers won two more World Series in the 1980s (1981, 1988). The A's again went to three straight world series, from 1988–1990, winning once. 1988 and 1989 were all-California series as the A's lost to the Dodgers and beat the Giants, respectively. The Giants have been in four World Series' in the new millennium, losing in 2002 to the Anaheim Angels (the most-recent all-California series), and winning in 2010 (Rangers), 2012 (Tigers), and 2014 (Royals).\n\n1969: League Championship Series\n\nPrior to 1969, the National League and the American League each crowned its champion (the \"pennant winner\") based on the best win-loss record at the end of the regular season.\n\nA structured playoff series began in 1969, when both the National and American Leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, East and West. The two division winners within each league played each other in a best-of-five League Championship Series to determine who would advance to the World Series. In 1985, the format changed to best-of-seven.\n\nThe National League Championship Series (NLCS) and American League Championship Series (ALCS), since the expansion to best-of-seven, are always played in a 2–3–2 format: Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 are played in the stadium of the team that has home-field advantage, and Games 3, 4 and 5 are played in the stadium of the team that does not.\n\n1970s\n\n1971: World Series at night\n\nMLB night games started being held in 1935 by the Cincinnati Reds, but the World Series remained a strictly daytime event for years thereafter. In the final game of the 1949 World Series, a Series game was finished under lights for the first time. The first scheduled night World Series game was Game 4 of the 1971 World Series at Three Rivers Stadium. Afterward, World Series games were frequently scheduled at night, when television audiences were larger. Game 6 of the 1987 World Series was the last World Series game played in the daytime, indoors at the Metrodome in Minnesota. (The last World Series played outdoors during the day was the final game of the 1984 series in Detroit's Tiger Stadium.)\n\n1972–1978: Three of a kind and The Greatest Game Ever Played\n\nDuring this seven-year period, only three teams won the World Series: the Oakland Athletics from 1972 to 1974, Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and 1976, and New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978. This is the only time in World Series history in which three teams have won consecutive series in succession. This period was book-ended by World Championships for the Pittsburgh Pirates, in 1971 and 1979.\n\nHowever, the Baltimore Orioles made three consecutive World Series appearances: 1969 (losing to the \"amazing\" eight-year-old franchise New York Mets), 1970 (beating the Reds in their first World Series appearance of the decade), and 1971 (losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates, as well their 1979 appearance, when they again lost to the Pirates), and the Los Angeles Dodgers' back-to-back World Series appearances in 1977 and 1978 (both losses to the New York Yankees), as well in 1974 losing against the cross-state rival Oakland Athletics.\n\nGame 6 of the 1975 World Series is widely regarded as the greatest World Series game ever played. It found the Boston Red Sox winning in the 12th inning in Fenway Park, defeating the Cincinnati Reds to force a seventh and deciding game. The game is best remembered for its exciting lead changes, nail-biting turns of events, and a game-winning walk off home run by Carlton Fisk, resulting in a 7 to 6 Red Sox victory.\n\n1976: The Designated Hitter comes to the World Series\n\nThe National and American Leagues operated under essentially identical rules until 1973, when the American League adopted the designated hitter (DH) rule, allowing its teams to use another hitter to bat in place of the (usually) weak-hitting pitcher. The National League did not adopt the DH rule. This presented a problem for the World Series, whose two contestants would now be playing their regular-season games under different rules. From 1973 to 1975, the World Series did not include a DH. Starting in 1976, the World Series allowed for the use of a DH in even-numbered years only. (The Cincinnati Reds swept the 1976 Series in four games, using the same nine-man lineup in each contest. Dan Driessen was the Reds' DH during the series, thereby becoming the National League's first designated hitter.) Finally, in 1986, baseball adopted the current rule in which the DH is used for World Series games played in the AL champion's park but not the NL champion's. Thus, the DH rule's use or non-use can help the team that has home-field advantage.\n\n1980s\n\n1984: Anderson becomes first to win in both leagues\n\nThe 1984 Detroit Tigers gained distinction as just the third team in major league history (after the 1927 New York Yankees and 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers) to lead a season wire-to-wire, from opening day through their World Series victory. In the process, Tigers' skipper Sparky Anderson became the first manager to win a World Series title in both leagues, having previously won in 1975 and 1976 with the Cincinnati Reds.\n\n1989: Earthquake\n\nWhen the 1989 World Series began, it was notable chiefly for being the first ever World Series matchup between the two San Francisco Bay Area teams, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics. Oakland won the first two games at home, and the two teams crossed the bridge to San Francisco to play Game 3 on Tuesday, October 17. ABC's broadcast of Game 3 began at 5 pm local time, approximately 30 minutes before the first pitch was scheduled. At 5:04, while broadcasters Al Michaels and Tim McCarver were narrating highlights and the teams were warming up, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred (having a surface-wave magnitude of 7.1 with an epicenter ten miles (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz, California). The earthquake caused substantial property and economic damage in the Bay Area and killed 63 people. Television viewers saw the video signal deteriorate and heard Michaels say \"I'll tell you what, we're having an earth--\" before the feed from Candlestick Park was lost. Fans filing into the stadium saw Candlestick sway visibly during the quake. Television coverage later resumed, using backup generators, with Michaels becoming a news reporter on the unfolding disaster. Approximately 30 minutes after the earthquake, Commissioner Fay Vincent ordered the game to be postponed. Fans, workers, and the teams evacuated a blacked out (although still sunlit) Candlestick. Game 3 was finally played on October 27, and Oakland won that day and the next to complete a four-game sweep.\n\n1990s\n\n1992–1993: The World Series enters Canada\n\nWorld Series games were contested outside of the United States for the first time in 1992, with the Toronto Blue Jays defeating the Atlanta Braves in six games. The World Series returned to Canada in 1993, with the Blue Jays victorious again, this time against the Philadelphia Phillies in six games. No other Series has featured a team from outside of the United States. Toronto is the only expansion team to win successive World Series titles. The 1993 World Series was also notable for being only the second championship concluded by a home run and the first concluded by a come-from-behind homer, after Joe Carter's three-run shot in the bottom of the ninth inning sealed an 8–6 Toronto win in Game 6. The first Series to end with a homer was the 1960 World Series, when Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth-inning solo shot in Game 7 to win the championship for the Pittsburgh Pirates.\n\n1994: League Division Series\n\nIn 1994, each league was restructured into three divisions, with the three division winners and the newly introduced wild card winner advancing to a best-of-five playoff round (the \"division series\"), the National League Division Series (NLDS) and American League Division Series (ALDS). The team with the best league record is matched against the wild card team, unless they are in the same division, in which case, the team with the second-best record plays against the wild card winner. The remaining two division winners are pitted against each other. The winners of the series in the first round advance to the best-of-seven NLCS and ALCS. Due to a players' strike, however, the NLDS and ALDS were not played until 1995. Beginning in 1998, home field advantage was given to the team with the better regular season record, with the exception that the Wild Card team cannot get home-field advantage.\n\n1994–1995 strike\n\nAfter the boycott of 1904, the World Series was played every year until 1994 despite World War I, the global influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, the Great Depression of the 1930s, America's involvement in World War II, and even an earthquake in the host cities of the 1989 World Series. A breakdown in collective bargaining led to a strike in August 1994 and the eventual cancellation of the rest of the season, including the playoffs.\n\nAs the labor talks began, baseball franchise owners demanded a salary cap in order to limit payrolls, the elimination of salary arbitration, and the right to retain free agent players by matching a competitor's best offer. The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) refused to agree to limit payrolls, noting that the responsibility for high payrolls lay with those owners who were voluntarily offering contracts. One difficulty in reaching a settlement was the absence of a commissioner. When Fay Vincent was forced to resign in 1992, owners did not replace him, electing instead to make Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig acting commissioner. Thus the commissioner, responsible for ensuring the integrity and protecting the welfare of the game, was an interested party rather than a neutral arbiter, and baseball headed into the 1994 work stoppage without an independent commissioner for the first time since the office was founded in 1920.\n\nThe previous collective bargaining agreement expired on December 31, 1993, and baseball began the 1994 season without a new agreement. Owners and players negotiated as the season progressed, but owners refused to give up the idea of a salary cap and players refused to accept one. On August 12, 1994, the players went on strike. After a month passed with no progress in the labor talks, Selig canceled the rest of the 1994 season and the postseason on September 14. The World Series was not played for the first time in 90 years. The Montreal Expos, now the Washington Nationals, were the best team in baseball at the time of the stoppage, with a record of 74–40 (since their founding in 1969, the Expos have never played in a World Series.)\n\nThe labor dispute lasted into the spring of 1995, with owners beginning spring training with replacement players. However, the MLBPA returned to work on April 2, 1995 after a federal judge, future U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, ruled that the owners had engaged in unfair labor practices. The season started on April 25 and the 1995 World Series was played as scheduled, with Atlanta beating Cleveland four games to two.\n\nAll-Star Game and home-field advantage (2003–present)\n\nPrior to 2003, home-field advantage in the World Series alternated from year to year between the NL and AL. After the 2002 Major League Baseball All-Star Game ended in a tie, MLB decided to award home-field advantage in the World Series to the winner of the All-Star Game. Originally implemented as a two-year trial from 2003 to 2004, the practice has been extended indefinitely.\n\nThe American League won every All-Star Game since this change until 2010 and thus enjoyed home-field advantage from 2002, when it also had home-field advantage based on the alternating schedule, through 2009. From 2003 to 2010, the AL and NL had each won the World Series four times, but none of them had gone the full seven games. Since then, the 2011 and 2014 World Series have gone the full seven games.\n\nThis rule is subject to debate, with various writers feeling that home-field advantage should be decided based on the regular season records of the participants, not on an exhibition game played several months earlier. Some writers especially questioned the integrity of this rule after the 2014 All-Star Game, when St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright suggested that he intentionally gave Derek Jeter some easy pitches to hit in the New York Yankees' shortstop's final All-Star appearance before he retired at the end of that season. \n\nAs Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe wrote in July 2015 about the rule:\n\nWith the 2006 World Series victory by the St. Louis Cardinals, Tony La Russa became the second manager to a win a World Series in both the American and National Leagues.\n\nHowever, in four of the last six seasons, home-field advantage, in terms of deciding World Series games, has not necessarily worked for teams of said games. Four of the Series (most recently in 2015) have been won on the road.\n\nStarting with the San Francisco Giants 2010 World Series victory, which was followed by the Giants victories in the 2012 World Series and the 2014 World Series, The Giants started what many around the sport of baseball consider to be a modern baseball dynasty, as most consider winning three World Series in a 5-year span in baseball today is incredibly difficult and thusly worthy of the dynasty title.\n\nModern World Series appearances by franchise\n\nWorld Series record by team or franchise, 1903–2015\n\nNotes\n\nAmerican League (AL) teams have won 64 of the 111 World Series played (58%). The New York Yankees have won 27 titles, accounting for 24% of all series played and 42% of the wins by American League teams. The St. Louis Cardinals have won 11 World Series (10%) and 23% of the 47 National League victories.\nAt least one New York team has been in 54 World Series (49%) of Series played.\nWhen the first modern World Series was played in 1903, there were eight teams in each league. These 16 franchises, all of which are still in existence, have each won at least two World Series titles.\n\nThe number of teams was unchanged until 1961, with fourteen \"expansion teams\" joining MLB since then. Twelve have played in a World Series (the Mariners and Expos/Nationals being the two exceptions). The expansion teams have won ten of the 22 Series (45%) in which they have played, which is 9% of all 111 series played since 1903. In 2015, the first World Series featuring only expansion teams was played between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets.\n\nTeam patterns in the World Series\n\nThis information is up to date through the present time:\n\nStreaks and droughts\n\n#Since their first championship in 1923, the New York Yankees have won two or more World Series titles in every decade except the 1980s, when they won none. Additionally, they have won at least one American League pennant in every decade since the 1920s. (They have yet to win a pennant or Series in the 2010s.) The Yankees are the only team in either League to win more than three series in a row, winning in four consecutive seasons from 1936 to 1939, and a still MLB record five consecutive seasons from 1949 to 1953.\n#The New York Giants' four World Series appearances from 1921 to 1924 are the most consecutive appearances for any National League franchise. The Yankees are the only American League franchise to accomplish this.\n#The 1907–1908 Cubs, 1921–1922 Giants and the 1975–1976 Reds are the only National League teams to win back-to-back World Series.\n#The 1907–1909 Detroit Tigers and the 1911–1913 New York Giants are the only teams to lose three consecutive World Series.\n#The Chicago Cubs hold the record for the longest World Series championship drought (still active through 2015), with their last title coming in 1908 (107 years). In fact, they also hold the longest drought without a World Series appearance, not having won the NL pennant since 1945. Even had the Cubs won the 1945 Series, they would still hold the longest World Series title drought, with the second longest World Series drought belonging to the Cleveland Indians, who have not won a World Series since 1948. The team with the longest active pennant drought among AL teams that have played in a World Series at least once is the Baltimore Orioles, who have not reached a World Series since winning their last title in 1983.\n#Twenty-two of the 28 teams to play in the World Series have won it at least once. The only exceptions are: Houston Astros (formerly Colt .45s, enfranchised in 1962), Milwaukee Brewers (formerly Seattle Pilots, 1969), San Diego Padres (1969), Colorado Rockies (1993), Tampa Bay Rays (formerly Devil Rays, 1998), and Texas Rangers (formerly Washington Senators, 1961). The Padres and Rangers have both lost two World Series; the remaining teams have all lost their only Series appearance. As of the present, all teams to reach the World Series at least three times have won at least one of their appearances.\n#Two teams have never played in the World Series: the National League's Washington Nationals (formerly Montreal Expos, established in 1969), and the American League's Seattle Mariners (established in 1977). Both franchises have participated in post-season play and competed in a League Championship Series, but lost all League Championship Series appearances so far.\n#The Red Sox have the most World Series titles before their first World Series loss, winning the championship in their first five appearances—1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918—before losing in the next series they played, in 1946. The only other teams who have more than one Series victory before their first Series loss are the Cleveland Indians (in 1920 and 1948), the Toronto Blue Jays (in 1992 and 1993), and the Miami Marlins (in 1997 and 2003 as the Florida Marlins). The Blue Jays and the Marlins have never lost a World Series.\n#The American League's Toronto Blue Jays (1992 and 1993) and National League's Miami Marlins (1997 and 2003 as the Florida Marlins) hold the record for most appearances in a Series without ever losing a Series. Two other franchises have won their lone appearance: the National League's Arizona Diamondbacks (2001) and American League's Los Angeles Angels (2002).\n#The Pirates, Reds, Red Sox, and Giants are tied with the longest active streak of World Series victories (three) since the last time they lost a series. After losing the 1927 series to the Yankees, the Pirates have emerged victorious in the next three series in which they played (1960, 1971, and 1979). The Reds last series loss prior to their current active streak of three titles (1975, 1976, and 1990) was in 1972. The Red Sox are the American League leaders in this category with three consecutive titles (2004, 2007, and 2013) since their last series loss (1986). The Giants lost in 2002 before winning the next three they appeared in (2010, 2012, and 2014).\n#The Yankees have the most World Series victories (eight) between World Series losses. After losing the 1926 World Series to the Cardinals, the Yankees won their next eight appearances in the series (1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1941) before losing in 1942 to the Cardinals again. After this loss, the Yankees went on to win their next seven Series appearances (1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, and 1953) before their next Series loss in 1955 to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Cardinals are the National League leader in this category, with four titles (1944, 1946, 1964, and 1967) between series losses in 1943 and 1968.\n#The Cubs and Dodgers are tied at seven apiece for most World Series losses between World Series victories. The Dodgers lost their first seven appearances in the Fall Classics (1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953) before winning their first title in 1955. The Cubs' situation is the opposite, as their losing streak is still ongoing: since winning their last title (in 1908), they lost the World Series in 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1945. The Cleveland Indians have three World Series losses (1954, 1995, and 1997) since their last crown in 1948, more than any other team in the American League.\n#The longest duration without repeat World Series champions is fifteen years, dating back to the 2000 New York Yankees. The previous record of fourteen years (in between the 1978 New York Yankees' win and the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays' win) was broken when the San Francisco Giants, who won the 2014 World Series, did not qualify for the postseason in 2015.\n\nGame-by-game\n\n#Game 7 was won by the home team in the 9 World Series between 1980 and 2013 that went to seven games (the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals, 1985 Kansas City Royals, 1986 New York Mets, 1987 and 1991 Minnesota Twins, 1997 Florida Marlins, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, 2002 Anaheim Angels, and 2011 St. Louis Cardinals) before the Giants won game 7 on the road in 2014. This trend reverses the previous historical trend in which Game 7 had been most often won by the road team, in 1979, 1975, 1972, 1971, 1968, 1967, 1965, and 1962. During the 1960s and 1970s, the home team had won Game 7 only in 1960, 1964, and 1973. Since 2003, when home field advantage started to be awarded to the team representing the league that won the All-Star game, the first Series that reached Game 7 was in 2011. The greatest comeback in World Series history was in 1968, when the Detroit Tigers came back from a 3–1 game disadvantage to win Game 5 after being behind by 3 runs, before winning games 6 and 7 on the road at St. Louis.\n#The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers are the last team to win a World Series after losing the first two games on the road (against New York). The recent tendency of a team winning the first two games at home and then winning the Series suggests the theoretical advantage to gaining home-field advantage (and the first two games at home) by winning the All-Star Game.\n#The Pittsburgh Pirates have won all five of their World Series championships in seven games.\n#The Minnesota Twins/Washington Senators have won their three World Series championships in seven games.\n#There have been 19 World Series four-game (4–0) sweeps. Nine different teams have swept a World Series at least once, the Yankees having done so most often (8 times). The Red Sox, Reds, and Giants have all done it twice. The Braves, Orioles, White Sox, Dodgers, and Athletics have each swept one Series. Six of these teams (all but the Orioles, Red Sox and White Sox) have also been swept 0–4 in at least one World Series. The Red Sox' two World Series sweeps are the most of any team that has never been swept in one. The Reds and Yankees are the only teams to have swept each other (The Yankees swept the Reds in 1939, while the Reds swept the Yankees in 1976). The Giants are the only team to record World Series sweeps in two different cities: New York (1954) and San Francisco (2012). The 1999 Yankees are the last team to date, and the only one since 1966, to sweep a World Series it began on the road (as well as the last American League champion to date to win a World Series it began on the road). The 1963 Dodgers are the last National League team to date to sweep a World Series it began on the road.\n#The Athletics, Cardinals, Cubs, and Yankees are the only teams to be swept in two World Series. The Athletics and Yankees are the only two of these with at least one World Series sweep to their credit, the other two being among nine teams overall that have never swept a World Series, but have been swept in one (the Tigers, Astros, Indians, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, and Rockies being the others).\n#The Cubs in 1907 and the Giants in 1922 won 4 games to 0, but each of those Series' included a tied game and are not considered to be true sweeps. In 1907, the first game was the tie and the Cubs won four straight after that. In 1922, Game 2 was the tie.\n#The Cincinnati Reds were the only National League team to sweep any World Series between 1963 and 2012, sweeping their last two series appearances to date in 1976 and 1990. When added to their Game 7 victory in 1975, this means that the Reds have won their last 9 consecutive games, making this the current longest winning streak in terms of consecutive World Series games won.\n#Nine World Series have ended with \"walk-off\" hits, i.e., that game and the Series ended when the home team won with a base hit in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings: 1924*, 1929, 1935, 1953, 1960*, 1991*, 1993, 1997*, and 2001*. Five of these (marked with a *) were in a deciding Game 7. In addition, the deciding Game 8 (one game had ended in a tie) of the 1912 World Series ended in a walk-off sacrifice fly. Two men have ended a World Series with a walk-off home run: Bill Mazeroski in 1960 and Joe Carter in 1993. Mazeroski's was a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 to win a championship for the Pittsburgh Pirates, while Carter's was a three-run shot in Game 6 that won a championship for the Toronto Blue Jays.\n#One World Series game has ended with a pick-off of a runner. Kolten Wong of the St. Louis Cardinals was picked off of first base in Game 3 of the 2013 World Series by Boston Red Sox closer Koji Uehara. The score was 4-2 and rookie Wong was a pinch runner.\n#The Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays are the first teams to have an elimination game (or any game) be suspended because of weather, and not have it cancelled. Game 5 (in Philadelphia) was suspended Monday, October 27, 2008 with a 2–2 score, and resumed in the bottom of the sixth on October 29.\n#Both of the Minnesota Twins' World Series titles since relocating to the Twin Cities from Washington, D.C. (where they were the first Washington Senators) were in 7 game series where all games were won by the home team. The Twins accomplished this in 1987, when the Twins defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, then 4 years later in 1991, when the Twins defeated the Atlanta Braves. The Twins victories in both series were in games 1, 2, 6, and 7, while their National League opponents won games 3, 4, and 5. This same scenario also occurred in 2001, when the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the New York Yankees.\n#Also of note when it comes to the three series where every game was won by the home team, a pitcher was MVP. In the 1987 World Series, Frank Viola was the MVP having pitched games 1, 4, and 7, and finishing with a 2–1 record. In 1991, Jack Morris achieved the same feat pitching games 1, 4, and 7 with a 2–0 record and a no decision in game 4, and winning MVP honors. However, Morris's MVP came on the heels of pitching 10 shutout innings in game 7. Finally, in 2001, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson took MVP honors by being the reason the Arizona Diamondbacks were in position to win the series.\n#The Boston Red Sox have lost 4 World Series, all in 7 games. (1946, 1967, 1975, & 1986)\n#Four World Series ended with teams clinching the championship in the final game of the series which was not a Game 7 and went into extra innings. The title was won this way in 1939, 1992, 2012, and 2015.\n#As aforementioned, the home team has not won a deciding game of a World Series since 2013, and has been so in four of the last six seasons.\n\nLocal rivalries\n\nWhen two teams share the same state or metropolitan area, fans often develop strong loyalties to one and antipathies towards the other, sometimes building on already-existing rivalries between cities or neighborhoods. Before the introduction of interleague play in 1997, the only opportunity for two teams in different leagues to face each other in official competition would have been in a World Series.\n\nCross-town Series\n\nThe first city to host an entire World Series is Chicago in 1906, when the Chicago White Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in six games.\n\nFourteen \"Subway Series\" have been played entirely within New York City, all including the American League's New York Yankees. Thirteen of them matched the Yankees with either the New York Giants or the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. The initial instances occurred in 1921 and 1922, when the Giants beat the Yankees in consecutive World Series that were not technically \"subway series\" since the teams shared the Polo Grounds as their home ballpark. The last Subway Series involving the original New York ballclubs came in 1956, when the Yankees beat the Dodgers. The trio was separated in 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California, and an all-NY Series did not recur until 2000, when the Yankees defeated the New York Mets in five games.\n\nThe last World Series played entirely in one ballpark was the 1944 \"Streetcar Series\" between the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns. The Cardinals won in six games, all held in their shared home, Sportsman's Park.\n\nThe 1989 World Series, sometimes called the \"Bay Bridge Series\" or the \"BART Series\" (after the connecting transit line), featured the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants, teams that play just across San Francisco Bay from each other. The series is most remembered for the major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area just before game 3 was scheduled to begin. The quake caused significant damage to both communities and severed the Bay Bridge that connects them, forcing the postponement of the series. Play resumed ten days later, and the A's swept the Giants in four games.\n\nCross-state rivalries\n\nThe historic rivalry between Northern and Southern California added to the interest in the Oakland Athletics-Los Angeles Dodgers series in 1974 and 1988 and in the San Francisco Giants' series against the then-Anaheim Angels in 2002.\n\nOther than the St. Louis World Series of 1944, the only postseason tournament held entirely within Missouri was the I-70 Series in 1985 (named for the Interstate Highway connecting the two cities) between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals, who won at home in the seventh game.\n\nPennants won in different cities\n\n# The Braves are the only team to have both won and lost a World Series in three different home cities (Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta).\n# The Athletics have had three different home cities (Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Oakland), but have appeared in the World Series (both winning and losing) while based in only two of them (Philadelphia and Oakland).\n# Three other teams have both won and lost the Fall Classic in two different home cities: The Dodgers (Brooklyn and Los Angeles), the Giants (New York and San Francisco), and the Twins (the Twin Cities and Washington, D.C., as the first Senators).\n# The Orioles are the only other team to have played in the World Series in two different home cities (Baltimore and St. Louis, as the Browns), but all three of their titles (and three of their four losses) have come while based in Baltimore.\n\nThe original sixteen teams\n\nAt the time the first modern World Series began in 1903, each league had eight clubs, all of which survive today (although sometimes in a different city or with a new nickname), comprising the \"original sixteen\".\n\n#Every original team has won at least two World Series titles. The Philadelphia Phillies (National League) were the last of the original teams to win their first Series, in . They were also the last to win at least two, with their second Series victory in . The Cubs were the first team to win the series twice, in 1907 and 1908. They have not won another World Series since.\n#The last original American League team to win its first World Series was the Baltimore Orioles (former St. Louis Browns,originally the Milwaukee Brewers), winning in .\n#The Orioles were also the last original team in the majors to make their first World Series appearance, as the St. Louis Browns in . Although they never won another American League pennant while in St. Louis, they have won three World Series in six appearances since moving to Baltimore. The St. Louis Cardinals were the last original National League team to make its modern World Series debut, with its victory in . They have subsequently won more World Series than any other National League club: 11 championships through 2014.\n#The New York Yankees have defeated all eight original NL teams in a World Series. Conversely, they have lost at least one World Series to six of the original NL teams, never losing to the Chicago Cubs or the Philadelphia Phillies. The Boston Red Sox have played at least one Series against every original National League team except the (Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta) Braves, with whom they shared a home city through 1953.\n#The St. Louis Cardinals are currently the only club of the National League's original eight that holds an overall Series lead over the Yankees, 3 to 2, taking that lead in 1964. The Giants won their first two Series over the Yankees (1921 and 1922), but the Yankees have faced the Giants five times since then and have won all five, taking the overall lead over the Giants in 1937. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Yankees have faced each other twice (1927 and 1960), with the Yankees winning in 1927 and the Pirates winning in 1960, making the two teams .500 against each other.\n#Since the two leagues expanded beyond eight teams apiece in 1961, only two of the original 16 teams have not won a World Series against the larger field of competitors: the American League Cleveland Indians, who have not won a Series since 1948 (defeating the Boston Braves), and the National League Chicago Cubs, who last won a Series in 1908 (defeating the Detroit Tigers).\n#The 2015 World Series was the first ever World Series to not feature any of the original sixteen teams.\n\nExpansion teams (after 1960)\n\n#The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks won their first pennant and World Series in fewer seasons than any other expansion team (both attained in their 4th season). The 1997 World Series Champion Florida Marlins achieved these milestones in the second-fewest number of seasons (fifth season). The fastest AL expansion franchise to win a pennant was the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 (11th season) and the fastest AL expansion franchise to win a World Series was the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 (16th season).\n#While the New York Mets (NL) were the first expansion team to win or appear in the World Series (1969), the American League would have to wait until 1980 for its first expansion-team World Series appearance, and until 1985 for its first expansion-team win. Both were by the Kansas City Royals. The AL also had two expansion teams appear in the World Series (the Milwaukee Brewers being the second, in 1982) before the National League's second expansion team to appear—the San Diego Padres in 1984.\n#12 expansion teams have now contested at least one Series. Until 2015, all World Series matchups featured at least one of the 16 teams established by 1903. As of the end of the 2014 edition, expansion teams were 9–12 in the World Series, with three teams (the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins) each winning two. The Kansas City Royals, the then-Anaheim Angels and the Arizona Diamondbacks had each won one Series by the end of the 2014 season. With the New York Mets defeating the Chicago Cubs in a four-game sweep in the 2015 National League Championship Series, the 2015 World Series was guaranteed to be the first ever World Series matchup in which both teams were expansion teams, where the Mets (whose first season occurred in 1962) faced off against the Kansas City Royals (whose first season occurred in 1969). \n# Six expansion teams have appeared in the World Series without ever winning a championship: twice for the Texas Rangers (formerly the second Washington Senators) and San Diego Padres, and once each for the Houston Astros (formerly Colt .45s), Milwaukee Brewers (formerly Seattle Pilots), Colorado Rockies, and Tampa Bay Rays (formerly Devil Rays).\n# Two expansion teams have not yet won a league pennant (and therefore also have not appeared in a World Series): the American League's Seattle Mariners and the National League's Washington Nationals (formerly Montreal Expos). Both teams have competed in postseason play and appeared in their respective League Championship Series at least once, but have no League Championship Series victories.\n# The Toronto Blue Jays (1992 and 1993), Miami Marlins (1997 and 2003 as the Florida Marlins), Arizona Diamondbacks (2001) and Los Angeles Angels (2002) have never lost a World Series appearance.\n# The 2015 World Series—in which the Kansas City Royals (enfranchised by the American League in 1969) defeated the New York Mets (NL, 1962) in five games—was the first between two expansion teams.\n\nOther notes\n\n#The team with the better regular season winning percentage has won the World Series 53 times, or 48.62% (53 of 109) of the time. Three World Series featured teams with identical records (1949, 1958, 2013).\n#The Toronto Blue Jays are the only non-U.S. team ever to win a pennant or a World Series, doing both twice, in 1992 and 1993.\n#The Chicago Cubs are the only team with a World Series title to have never clinched one at home.\n#Three series have matched up the previous two World Champions, with the New York Yankees winning all three. The 1928 World Series was contested by the 1926 champion Cardinals and 1927 champion Yankees; the Yankees won the series 4-0. In 1943, the 1941 champion Yankees met the 1942 champion Cardinals, which the Yankees won 4-1. In the 1958 World Series, the 1956 champion Yankees faced the 1957 champion Milwaukee Braves; the Yankees won this series 4-3. The 2012 National League Championship Series also matched up the previous two World Champions: the 2010 champion Giants and the 2011 champion Cardinals. The Giants won this series 4-3.\n#The 2015 World Series game 1 between the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals was the longest game 1 in history at 5 hours and 9 minutes.\n\nTelevision coverage and ratings\n\nWhen the World Series was first broadcast on television in 1947, it was only televised to a few surrounding areas via coaxial inter-connected stations: New York City, New York; Philadelphia; Schenectady, New York; Washington, D.C.; and environs surrounding these cities. In , games in Boston were only seen in the Northeast. Meanwhile, games in Cleveland were only seen in the Midwest and Pittsburgh. The games were open to all channels with a network affiliation. In all, the 1948 World Series was televised to fans in seven Midwestern cities: Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Toledo. By , World Series games could now be seen east of the Mississippi River. The games were open to all channels with a network affiliation. By , World Series games could be seen in most of the country, but not all. marked the first time that the World Series was televised coast to coast. Meanwhile, marked the first time that the World Series was televised in color. \n\nInternational participation\n\nDespite its name, the World Series remains solely the championship of the major-league baseball teams in the United States and Canada, although MLB, its players, and North American media sometimes informally refer to World Series winners as \"world champions of baseball\". \n\nThe United States, Canada, and Mexico (Liga Méxicana de Béisbol, established 1925) were the only professional baseball countries until a few decades into the 20th century. The first Japanese professional baseball efforts began in 1920. The current Japanese leagues date from the late 1940s (after World War II). Various Latin American leagues also formed around that time.\n\nBy the 1990s, baseball was played at a highly skilled level in many countries. Reaching North America's high-salary major leagues is the goal of many of the best players around the world, which gives a strong international flavor to the Series. Many talented players from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific Rim, and elsewhere now play in the majors. One notable exception is Cuban citizens, because of the political tensions between the US and Cuba since 1959 (yet a number of Cuba's finest ballplayers have still managed to defect to the United States over the past half-century to play in the American professional leagues). Japanese professional players also have a difficult time coming to the North American leagues. They become free agents only after nine years playing service in the NPB, although their Japanese teams may at any time \"post\" them for bids from MLB teams, which commonly happens at the player's request.\n\nSeveral tournaments feature teams composed only of players from one country, similar to national teams in other sports. The World Baseball Classic, sponsored by Major League Baseball, uses a format similar to the FIFA World Cup to promote competition between nations every four years. The International Baseball Federation also sponsored a Baseball World Cup to crown a world champion. But as these teams do not feature the best talent from each nation, the public generally does not give much weight to the result of these tournaments. The Caribbean Series features competition among the league champions from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela but unlike the FIFA Club World Cup, there is no club competition that features champions from all professional leagues across the world.\n\nImage gallery\n\nImage:WorldSeries1903-640.jpg|Rooftop view of a 1903 World Series game in Boston\nImage:West Side Park 1906 World Series.JPG|Game action in the 1906 Series in Chicago (the only all-Chicago World Series to date)\nImage:Wamby19201010UATP.JPG|Bill Wambsganss completes his unassisted triple play in 1920\nImage:1924worldseries.jpg|Washington's Bucky Harris scores his home run in the fourth inning of Game 7 (October 10, 1924)"
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"What breakfast food gets its name from the German word for ""stirrup""?"
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tc_186
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"A bagel ( '; ), also spelled beigel, is a bread product originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. It is traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior. Bagels are often topped with seeds baked on the outer crust, with the traditional ones being poppy, sunflower or sesame seeds. Some also may have salt sprinkled on their surface, and there are also a number of different dough types, such as whole-grain or rye. \n\nThough the origins of bagels are somewhat obscure, it is known that they were widely consumed in eastern European Jewish communities from the 17th century. The first known mention of the bagel, in 1610, was in Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland.\n\nBagels are now a popular bread product in North America, especially in cities with a large Jewish population, many with different ways of making bagels. Like other bakery products, bagels are available (either fresh or frozen, and often in many flavor varieties) in many major supermarkets in those countries.\n\nThe basic roll-with-a-hole design is hundreds of years old and has other practical advantages besides providing for a more even cooking and baking of the dough: the hole could be used to thread string or dowels through groups of bagels, allowing for easier handling and transportation and more appealing seller displays. \n\nHistory \n\nContrary to some beliefs, the bagel was not created in the shape of a stirrup to commemorate the victory of Poland's King John III Sobieski over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Linguist Leo Rosten wrote in \"The Joys of Yiddish\" about the first known mention of the Polish word bajgiel derived from the Yiddish word bagel in the \"Community Regulations\" of the city of Kraków in 1610, which stated that the item was given as a gift to women in childbirth. \n\nIn the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the bajgiel became a staple of Polish cuisine, and a staple of the Slavic diet generally. Its name derives from the Yiddish word beygal from the German dialect word beugel, meaning \"ring\" or \"bracelet\".\n\nVariants of the word beugal are used in Yiddish and in Austrian German to refer to a somewhat similar form of sweet filled pastry (Mohnbeugel (with poppy seeds) and Nussbeugel (with ground nuts), or in southern German dialects (where beuge refers to a pile, e.g., holzbeuge \"woodpile\"). According to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary, 'bagel' derives from the transliteration of the Yiddish 'beygl', which came from the Middle High German 'böugel' or ring, which itself came from 'bouc' (ring) in Old High German, similar to the Old English bēag \"ring\" and būgan \"to bend, bow\". Similarly, another etymology in the Webster's New World College Dictionary says that the Middle High German form was derived from the Austrian German beugel, a kind of croissant, and was similar to the German bügel, a stirrup or ring. \n\nIn the Brick Lane district and surrounding area of London, England, bagels, or as locally spelled, \"beigels\", have been sold since the middle of the 19th century. They were often displayed in the windows of bakeries on vertical wooden dowels, up to a metre in length, on racks.\n\nBagels were brought to the United States by immigrant Polish Jews, with a thriving business developing in New York City [when? 1800? 1960?] that was controlled for decades by Bagel Bakers Local 338, which had contracts with nearly all bagel bakeries in and around the city for its workers, who prepared all their bagels by hand. The bagel came into more general use throughout North America in the last quarter of the 20th century, which was due at least partly to the efforts of bagel baker Harry Lender, his son, Murray Lender, and Florence Sender, who pioneered automated production and distribution of frozen bagels in the 1960s. Murray also invented pre-slicing the bagel. \n\nPreparation and preservation \n\nAt its most basic, traditional bagel dough contains wheat flour (without germ or bran), salt, water, and yeast leavening. Bread flour or other high gluten flours are preferred to create the firm and dense but spongy bagel shape and chewy texture. Most bagel recipes call for the addition of a sweetener to the dough, often barley malt (syrup or crystals), honey, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, with or without eggs, milk or butter. Leavening can be accomplished using either a sourdough technique or using commercially produced yeast.\n\nBagels are traditionally made by:\n* mixing and kneading the ingredients to form the dough\n* shaping the dough into the traditional bagel shape, round with a hole in the middle, from a long thin piece of dough\n* proofing the bagels for at least 12 hours at low temperature (40–50 °F = 4.5–10 °C)\n* boiling each bagel in water that may or may not contain additives such as lye, baking soda, barley malt syrup, or honey\n* baking at between 175 °C and 315 °C (about 350–600 °F)\n\nIt is this unusual production method which is said to give bagels their distinctive taste, chewy texture, and shiny appearance. In recent years, a variant of this process has emerged, producing what is sometimes called the steam bagel. To make a steam bagel, the process of boiling is skipped, and the bagels are instead baked in an oven equipped with a steam injection system. In commercial bagel production, the steam bagel process requires less labor, since bagels need only be directly handled once, at the shaping stage. Thereafter, the bagels need never be removed from their pans as they are refrigerated and then steam-baked. The steam-bagel is not considered to be a genuine bagel by purists, as it results in a fluffier, softer, less chewy product more akin to a finger roll that happens to be shaped like a bagel. Steam bagels are also considered lower quality by purists as the dough used is intentionally more basic. The increase in pH is to aid browning, since the steam injection process uses neutral water steam instead of a basic solution bath.\n\nIf not consumed immediately, there are certain storing techniques that can help to keep the bagel moist and fresh. First, cool bagels in a paper bag, then wrap the paper bag in a plastic bag (attempting to rid the bags of as much air as possible without squishing the bagels), then freeze for up to six months. \n\nBagel quality \n\nThe quality of a bagel may be evaluated by considering the experience it provides as it is eaten and its nutritional content. \n\nThe ideal bagel should have a slightly crispy crust, a distinct \"pull\" when a piece is separated from the whole by biting or pinching, a chewy inside, and the flavor of bread freshly baked. The taste of a bagel may additionally be complemented by additions cooked on the bagel, such as onion, garlic, sesame seeds, or poppy seeds. The appeal of a bagel may change upon being toasted. Toasting can have the effect of bringing or removing desirable chewiness, softening the crust, and moderating off-flavors.\n\nA typical bagel has 260–350 calories, 1.0–4.5 grams of fat, 330–660 milligrams of sodium, and 2–5 grams of fiber. Gluten-free bagels have much more fat, often 9 grams, because of the presence in the dough of ingredients that supplant wheat flour in the original.\n\nVarieties \n\nTraditional bagels in North America can be either Montreal-style bagel or New York-style bagels, although both styles reflect traditional methods used in Eastern Europe before bagels' importation to North America. The distinction is less rigid than often maintained.\n\nThe \"Montreal style bagel\" contains malt and sugar with no salt; it is boiled in honey-sweetened water before baking in a wood-fired oven; and it is predominantly of the sesame \"white\" seeds variety (while, for instance, bagels in Toronto are similar to those made in New York in that they are less sweet, generally are coated with poppy seeds and are baked in a standard oven).\n\nIn distinction, the \"New York bagel\" contains salt and malt and is boiled in water before baking in a standard oven. The resulting bagel is puffy with a moist crust, while the \"Montreal\" bagel is smaller (though with a larger hole), crunchier, and sweeter. There is also a belief that \"New York bagel\" are the best due to the quality of the local water. However, this belief is still heavily debated. For instance, Davidovich Bagels, made in NYC, are a recognized wholesale manufacturer of bagels that still use these traditional bagel making techniques (associated here with the \"Montreal-style bagel\"), including kettle boiling and plank baking in a wood fired oven. \n\nAs suggested above, other bagel styles can be found in other places, akin to the way in which families within a given culture employ a variety of methods when cooking a specific indigenous dish. Thus, Chicago-style bagels are baked or baked with steam. The traditional London bagel (or beigel as it is spelled) is harder and has a coarser texture with air bubbles. Furthermore, in Canada the distinction is made between Montreal and Toronto bagels as opposed to the one cited here between Montreal and New York bagels.\n\nPoppy seeds are sometimes referred to by their Yiddish name, spelled either mun or mon (written מאָן), which is very similar to the German word for poppy, Mohn, as used in Mohnbrötchen. American chef John Mitzewich suggests a recipe for what he calls “San Francisco-Style Bagels”. His recipe yields bagels flatter than New York-style bagels, characterized by a rough-textured crust. \n\nAround the world \n\nThe bublik in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and the obwarzanek (in particular obwarzanek krakowski) in Poland are essentially larger bagels, but having a wider hole. Similar to bagels, these breads are usually topped with sesame and poppy seeds. Other ring-shaped breads known among East Slavs are baranki (smaller and drier) and sushki (even smaller and drier). In Lithuania, similar breads are called riestainiai, and sometimes by their Slavic name baronkos.\n\nIn Finland, vesirinkeli are small rings of yeast-leavened wheat bread. They are placed in salted boiling water before being baked. They are often eaten for breakfast toasted and buttered. They are available in several different varieties (sweet or savoury) in supermarkets.\n\nGerman pretzels, (which are soft and are either formed into rings or long rectangular shapes) are somewhat similar to bagels in texture, the main exceptions being the shape and the alkaline water bath that makes the surface dark and glossy. In addition, traditional Mohnbrötchen, which are covered in poppy seeds, have a similar flavour to many bagels in that they are slightly sweet and rather dense in texture.\n\nIn Romania, covrigi are topped with poppy, sesame seeds or large salt grains, especially in the central area of the country, and the recipe does not contain any added sweetener. They are usually shaped like pretzels rathen than bagels.\n\nIn some parts of Austria, ring-shaped pastries called Beugel are sold in the weeks before Easter. Like a bagel, the yeasted wheat dough, usually flavored with caraway, is boiled before baking. However, the Beugel is crispy and can be stored for weeks. Traditionally it has to be torn apart by two individuals before eating.\n\nIn Turkey, a salty and fattier form is called açma. However, the ring-shaped simit, is sometimes marketed as Turkish bagel. Archival sources show that the simit has been produced in Istanbul since 1525. Based on Üsküdar court records (Şer’iyye Sicili) dated 1593, the weight and price of simit was standardized for the first time. Famous 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that there were 70 simit bakeries in Istanbul during the 1630s Jean Brindesi's early 19th-century oil-paintings about Istanbul daily life show simit sellers on the streets. Warwick Goble made an illustration of these simit sellers of Istanbul in 1906. Surprisingly, simit is very similar to the twisted sesame-sprinkled bagels pictured being sold in early 20th century Poland. Simit are also sold on the street in baskets or carts, like bagels were then.\n\nThe Uyghurs of Xinjiang, China, enjoy a form of bagel known as girdeh nan (from Persian, meaning round bread), which is one of several types of nan, the bread eaten in Xinjiang. \n\nIn Japan, the first kosher bagels were brought by BagelK (ベーグルK) from New York in 1989. BagelK created green tea, chocolate, maple-nut, and banana-nut flavors for the market in Japan. There are three million bagels exported from the U.S. annually, and it has a 4%-of-duty classification of Japan in 2000. Some Japanese bagels, such as those sold by BAGEL & BAGEL, are soft and/or sweet; others, such as Einstein Bro. bagels sold by Costco in Japan (コストコ), are the same as in the U.S.\n\nIn New York City, the \"bagel brunch\" became popular circa 1900. The bagel brunch consists of a bagel topped with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato and red onion. This and similar combinations of toppings have remained associated with bagels into the 21st century. Scott Rossillo, the owner and head baker of The Bagel Store located in Williamsburg, introduced The Rainbow Bagel. \n\nNon-traditional doughs and types \n\nWhile normally and traditionally made of yeasted wheat, in the late 20th century many variations on the bagel flourished. Nontraditional versions which change the dough recipe include pumpernickel, rye, sourdough, bran, whole wheat, and multigrain. Other variations change the flavor of the dough, often using blueberry, salt, onion, garlic, egg, cinnamon, raisin, chocolate chip, cheese, or some combination of the above. Green bagels are sometimes created for St. Patrick's Day.\n\nMany corporate chains now offer bagels in such flavors as chocolate chip and French toast.\nSandwich bagels have been popularized since the late 1990s by bagel specialty shops such as Bruegger's and Einstein Brothers, and fast food restaurants such as McDonald's.\nBreakfast bagels, a softer, sweeter variety usually sold in fruity or sweet flavors (e.g., cherry, strawberry, cheese, blueberry, cinnamon-raisin, chocolate chip, maple syrup, banana and nuts) are commonly sold by large supermarket chains. These are usually sold sliced and are intended to be prepared in a toaster.\n\nA flat bagel, known as a 'Flagel', can be found in a few locations in and around New York City, Long Island, and Toronto. According to a review attributed to New York's Village Voice food critic Robert Seitsema, the Flagel was first created by Brooklyn's Tasty Bagels deli in the early 1990s. \n\nThe New York Style Snacks brand has developed the baked snacks referred to as Bagel Crisps and Bagel Chips, which are marketed as a representation of the \"authentic taste\" of New York City bakery bagels. \n\nThough the original bagel has a fairly well defined recipe and method of production, there is no legal standard of identity for bagels in the United States. Bakers are thus free to call any bread torus a bagel, even those that deviate wildly from the original formulation.\n\nLarge scale commercial sales \n\nUnited States supermarket sales \n\n2008 \n\nAccording to the American Institute of Baking (AIB), year 2008 supermarket sales (52 week period ending January 27, 2009) of the top eight leading commercial fresh (not frozen) bagel brands in the United States:\n* totaled to US$430,185,378 based on 142,669,901 package unit sales. \n* the top eight leading brand names for the above were (by order of sales): Thomas', Sara Lee, (private label brands) Pepperidge Farm, Thomas Mini Squares, Lender's Bagels (Pinnacle Foods), Weight Watchers and The Alternative Bagel (Western Bagel).\n\nFurther, AIB-provided statistics for the 52 week period ending May 18, 2008, for refrigerated/frozen supermarket bagel sales for the top 10 brand names totaled US$50,737,860, based on 36,719,977 unit package sales. Price per package was $3.02 for fresh, $1.38 for frozen.\n\n2012 \n\nThe AIB reported US$626.9 million fresh bagel US supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 11 April 2012. Fresh/frozen supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 13 May 2012 was US$592.7 million. The average price for a bag of fresh bagels was $3.27, for frozen it was $1.23.\n\nCultural references \n\n\"Bagel\" is also a Yeshivish term for sleeping 12 hours straight—e.g., \"I slept a bagel last night.\" There are various opinions as to the origins of this term. It may be a reference to the fact that bagel dough has to \"rest\" for at least 12 hours between mixing and baking, or simply to the fact that the hour hand on a clock traces a bagel shape over the course of twelve hours.\n\nIn Tennis, a \"bagel\" refers to a player winning a set 6–0, and winning a match 6–0, 6–0, 6–0 is called a \"triple bagel\"."
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What American city produces most of the egg rolls sold in grocery stores in the United States?
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tc_196
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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{
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"The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, the federal district of Washington, D.C., five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.\nThe 48 contiguous states and federal district are in central North America between Canada and Mexico, with the state of Alaska in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii comprising an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2) and with over 320 million people, the United States is the world's third largest country by total area (and fourth largest by land area) and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. The geography and climate are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife. \n\nPaleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago, with European colonization beginning in the 16th century. The United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775. On July 4, 1776, as the colonies were fighting Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. The war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, and was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.Greene, Jack P.; Pole, J.R., eds. (2008). A Companion to the American Revolution. pp. 352–361. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, were felt to have provided inadequate federal powers. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties.\n\nThe United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, displacing American Indian tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of legal slavery in the country. By the end of that century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the U.S. as the world's sole superpower.\n\nThe United States is a highly developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal and real GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, and productivity per person. While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services, the manufacturing sector remains the second largest in the world. Though its population is only 4.4% of the world total, the United States accounts for nearly a quarter of world GDP and almost a third of global military spending, making it the world's foremost military and economic power. The United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations.Cohen, 2004: History and the HyperpowerBBC, April 2008: Country Profile: United States of America\n\nEtymology\n\nIn 1507 the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere \"America\" after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci (Latin: Americus Vespucius). The first evidence of the phrase \"United States of America\" is in a letter of January 2, 1776, from the office of General George Washington which expressed his wish to carry the \"full and ample powers of the United States of America\" to Spain to assist in the revolutionary war effort. \n\nThe first known publication of the phrase \"United States of America\" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared \"The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America.'\" The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence \"The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America. In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase \"UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his \"original Rough draught\" of the Declaration of Independence. This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation. In the final Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the title was changed to read, \"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America\". The preamble of the Constitution states \"...establish this Constitution for the United States of America.\"\n\nThe short form \"United States\" is also standard. Other common forms are the \"U.S.\", the \"USA\", and \"America\". Colloquial names are the \"U.S. of A.\" and, internationally, the \"States\". \"Columbia\", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s, derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name \"District of Columbia\". In non-English languages, the name is frequently the translation of either the \"United States\" or \"United States of America\", and colloquially as \"America\". In addition, an abbreviation (e.g. USA) is sometimes used. \n\nThe phrase \"United States\" was originally plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., \"the United States are\"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. The singular form—e.g., \"the United States is\"— became popular after the end of the American Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom \"these United States\". The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit. \n\nA citizen of the United States is an \"American\". \"United States\", \"American\" and \"U.S.\" refer to the country adjectivally (\"American values\", \"U.S. forces\"). \"American\" rarely refers to subjects not connected with the United States. \n\nHistory\n\nIndigenous and European contact\n\nThe first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 15,000 years ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival. Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After the Spanish conquistadors made the first contacts, the native population declined for various reasons, primarily from diseases such as smallpox and measles. Violence was not a significant factor in the overall decline among Native Americans, though conflict among themselves and with Europeans affected specific tribes and various colonial settlements. In the Hawaiian Islands, the earliest indigenous inhabitants arrived around 1 AD from Polynesia. Europeans under the British explorer Captain James Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778.\n\nIn the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans. Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars. At the same time, however, many natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares. Natives taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans and squash. European missionaries and others felt it was important to \"civilize\" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural techniques and lifestyles. \n\nSettlements\n\nAfter Spain sent Columbus' on his first voyage to the New World in 1492, other explorers followed. The Spanish set up small settlements in New Mexico and Florida. France had several small settlements along the Mississippi River. Successful English settlement on the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. Early experiments in communal living failed until the introduction of private farm holdings. Many settlers were dissenting Christian groups who came seeking religious freedom. The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses created in 1619, and the Mayflower Compact, signed by the Pilgrims before disembarking, established precedents for the pattern of representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. \n\nMost settlers in every colony were small farmers, but other industries developed within a few decades as varied as the settlements. Cash crops included tobacco, rice and wheat. Extraction industries grew up in furs, fishing and lumber. Manufacturers produced rum and ships, and by the late colonial period Americans were producing one-seventh of the world's iron supply. Cities eventually dotted the coast to support local economies and serve as trade hubs. English colonists were supplemented by waves of Scotch-Irish and other groups. As coastal land grew more expensive freed indentured servants pushed further west. \n\nSlave cultivation of cash crops began with the Spanish in the 1500s, and was adopted by the English, but life expectancy was much higher in North America because of less disease and better food and treatment, leading to a rapid increase in the numbers of slaves. Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery and colonies passed acts for and against the practice.Lien, 1913, p. 522Davis, 1996, p. 7 But by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions. \n\nWith the British colonization of Georgia in 1732, the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. \n\nIn the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being conquered and displaced, those 13 colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority. \n\nIndependence and expansion (1776–1865)\n\nThe American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed an ideology of \"republicanism\" asserting that government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They demanded their rights as Englishmen, \"no taxation without representation\". The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and the conflict escalated into war. \n\nFollowing the passage of the Lee Resolution, on July 2, 1776, which was the actual vote for independence, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, which proclaimed, in a long preamble, that humanity is created equal in their unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain, and declared, in the words of the resolution, that the Thirteen Colonies were independent states and had no allegiance to the British crown in the United States. The fourth day of July is celebrated annually as Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789. \n\nBritain recognized the independence of the United States following their defeat at Yorktown. In the peace treaty of 1783, American sovereignty was recognized from the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. Nationalists led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution, ratified in state conventions in 1788. The federal government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789. George Washington, who had led the revolutionary army to victory, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791. \n\nAlthough the federal government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the slave population. The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism; in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations. \n\nAmericans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of American Indian Wars. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. Expansion was aided by steam power, when steamboats began traveling along America's large water systems, which were connected by new canals, such as the Erie and the I&M; then, even faster railroads began their stretch across the nation's land. \n\nFrom 1820 to 1850, Jacksonian democracy began a set of reforms which included wider male suffrage; it led to the rise of the Second Party System of Democrats and Whigs as the dominant parties from 1828 to 1854. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that moved Indians into the west to their own reservations. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845 during a period of expansionist Manifest destiny. The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. \n\nThe California Gold Rush of 1848–49 spurred western migration and the creation of additional western states. After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, the loss of the American bison (sometimes called \"buffalo\") was an existential blow to many Plains Indians cultures. In 1869, a new Peace Policy sought to protect Native-Americans from abuses, avoid further war, and secure their eventual U.S. citizenship, although conflicts, including several of the largest Indian Wars, continued throughout the West into the 1900s.Smith (2001), Grant, pp. 523–526\n\nCivil War and Reconstruction Era\n\nDifferences of opinion and social order between northern and southern states in early United States society, particularly regarding Black slavery, ultimately led the U.S. into the American Civil War. Initially, states entering the Union alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. But with additional western territory and more free-soil states, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over federalism and disposition of the territories, whether and how to expand or restrict slavery. \n\nWith the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the first president from the largely anti-slavery Republican Party, conventions in thirteen slave states ultimately declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America, while the U.S. government maintained that secession was illegal. The ensuing war was at first for Union, then after 1863 as casualties mounted and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, a second war aim became abolition of slavery. The war remains the deadliest military conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 618,000 soldiers as well as many civilians. \n\nFollowing the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution brought about the prohibition of slavery, gave U.S. citizenship to the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, and promised them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. Following the Reconstruction Era, throughout the South Jim Crow laws soon effectively disenfranchised most blacks and some poor whites. Over the subsequent decades, in both the North and the South blacks and some whites faced systemic discrimination, including racial segregation and occasional vigilante violence, sparking national movements against these abuses.\n\nIndustrialization\n\nIn the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture. National infrastructure including telegraph and transcontinental railroads spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. The later invention of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life. \n\nThe end of the Indian Wars further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. Mainland expansion was completed by the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the Spanish–American War. \n\nRapid economic development at the end of the 19th century produced many prominent industrialists, and the U.S. economy became the world's largest. Dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise of populist, socialist, and anarchist movements. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including women's suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, greater antitrust measures to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions.\n\nWorld War I, Great Depression, and World War II\n\nThe United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, until 1917 when it joined the war as an \"associated power\", alongside the formal Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this, and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations. \n\nIn 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, which included the establishment of the Social Security system. The Great Migration of millions of African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through the 1960s; whereas the Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.\n\nAt first effectively neutral during World War II while Germany conquered much of continental Europe, the United States began supplying material to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers. During the war, the United States was referred as one of the \"Four Policemen\" of Allies power who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union and China. Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers, it emerged relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence. \n\nThe United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences with the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allies, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan; the Japanese surrendered on September 2, ending World War II. \n\nCold War and civil rights era\n\nAfter World War II the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power during what is known as the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism and, according to the school of geopolitics, a divide between the maritime Atlantic and the continental Eurasian camps. They dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other. The U.S. developed a policy of containment towards the expansion of communist influence. While the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict.\n\nThe U.S. often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored. American troops fought communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite and its 1961 launch of the first manned spaceflight initiated a \"Space Race\" in which the United States became the first nation to land a man on the moon in 1969. A proxy war in Southeast Asia eventually evolved into full American participation, as the Vietnam War.\n\nAt home, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion and a rapid growth of its population and middle class. Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation's infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and inner cities to large suburban housing developments. In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th and last U.S. state added to the country. A growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination, with Martin Luther King, Jr. becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sought to end racial discrimination. Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. The launch of a \"War on Poverty\" expanded entitlements and welfare spending. \n\nThe 1970s and early 1980s saw the onset of stagflation. After his election in 1980, President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with free-market oriented reforms. Following the collapse of détente, he abandoned \"containment\" and initiated the more aggressive \"rollback\" strategy towards the USSR. After a surge in female labor participation over the previous decade, by 1985 the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed. \n\nThe late 1980s brought a \"thaw\" in relations with the USSR, and its collapse in 1991 finally ended the Cold War. This brought about unipolarity with the U.S. unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower. The concept of Pax Americana, which had appeared in the post-World War II period, gained wide popularity as a term for the post-Cold War new world order.\n\nContemporary history\n\nAfter the Cold War, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history, ending in 2001. Originating in U.S. defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly affecting the global economy, society, and culture. On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people. In response, the United States launched the War on Terror, which included war in Afghanistan and the 2003–11 Iraq War.\n\nBeginning in 1994, the U.S. entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), linking 450 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. The goal of the agreement was to eliminate trade and investment barriers among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by January 1, 2008; trade among the partners has soared since the agreement went into force.[http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta \"North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)\"] Office of the United States Trade Representative. Retrieved January 11, 2015.\n\nBarack Obama, the first African American, and multiracial president, was elected in 2008 amid the Great Recession, which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. \n\nGeography, climate, and environment\n\nThe land area of the contiguous United States is 2959064 sqmi. Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 663268 sqmi. Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, is 10931 sqmi in area. The populated territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands together cover 9185 sqmi. \n\nThe United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the United States is measured: calculations range from 3676486 sqmi to 3717813 sqmi to 3796742 sqmi to 3,805,927 square miles (9.9 Mm2). Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada. \n\nThe coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.\n\nThe Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14000 ft in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges reaching altitudes higher than 14000 ft. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California, and only about 84 mi apart. At an elevation of 20310 ft, Alaska's Denali (Mount McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature. \n\nThe United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida are tropical, as are the populated territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in Tornado Alley areas in the Midwest and South. \n\nWildlife\n\nThe U.S. ecology is megadiverse: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 bird species, 311 reptile species, and 295 amphibian species. About 91,000 insect species have been described. The bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States, and is an enduring symbol of the country itself.\n\nThere are 58 national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas. Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country's land area. Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; about .86% is used for military purposes. \n\nEnvironmental issues have been on the national agenda since 1970. Environmental controversies include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife, logging and deforestation, and international responses to global warming. Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most prominent is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. \n\nDemographics\n\nPopulation\n\nThe U.S. Census Bureau estimated the country's population to be 323 425 550 as of April 25, 2016, and to be adding 1 person (net gain) every 13 seconds, or about 6,646 people per day. The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900. The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected. In the 1800s the average woman had 7.04 children, by the 1900s this number had decreased to 3.56. Since the early 1970s the birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 with 1.86 children per woman in 2014. Foreign born immigration has caused the US population to continue its rapid increase with the foreign born population doubling from almost 20 million in 1990 to over 40 million in 2010, representing one third of the population increase. The foreign born population reached 45 million in 2015. \n\nThe United States has a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, which is 5 births below the world average. Its population growth rate is positive at 0.7%, higher than that of many developed nations. In fiscal year 2012, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the 1965 Immigration Act. China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year since the 1990s. , approximately 11.4 million residents are illegal immigrants. As of 2015, 47% of all immigrants are Hispanic, 26% are Asian, 18% are white and 8% are black. The percentage of immigrants who are Asian is increasing while the percentage who are Hispanic is decreasing.\n\nAccording to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, nine million Americans, or roughly 3.4% of the adult population identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender. A 2012 Gallup poll also concluded that 3.5% of adult Americans identified as LGBT. The highest percentage came from the District of Columbia (10%), while the lowest state was North Dakota at 1.7%. In a 2013 survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 96.6% of Americans identify as straight, while 1.6% identify as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identify as being bisexual.\n\nIn 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively). The census counted more than 19 million people of \"Some Other Race\" who were \"unable to identify with any\" of its five official race categories in 2010, over 18.5 million (97%) of whom are of Hispanic ethnicity.\n\nThe population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent are identified as sharing a distinct \"ethnicity\" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent. Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%. Much of this growth is from immigration; in 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America. \n\nAbout 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs); about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. The US has numerous clusters of cities known as megaregions, the largest being the Great Lakes Megalopolis followed by the Northeast Megalopolis and Southern California. In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four global cities had over two million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston). There are 52 metropolitan areas with populations greater than one million. Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 47 are in the West or South. The metro areas of San Bernardino, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.\n\nLanguage\n\nEnglish (American English) is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2010, about 230 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language.\"Language Spoken at Home by the U.S. Population, 2010\", American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, in World Almanac and Book of Facts 2012, p. 615. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in 28 states.\n\nBoth Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii, by state law. Alaska recognizes twenty Native languages. While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French. Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms. Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions.\n\nSeveral insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Cherokee is officially recognized by the Cherokee Nation within the Cherokee tribal jurisdiction area in eastern Oklahoma; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico and is more widely spoken than English there.\n\nAccording to the Center for Immigration Studies, Arabic and Urdu (Pakistan's national language) are the fastest growing foreign languages spoken at American households. According to the survey, more than 63.2 million US residents speak a language other than English at home. In recent years, Arabic speaking residents increased by 29%, Urdu by 23% and Persian by 9%.\n\nThe most widely taught foreign languages at all levels in the United States (in terms of enrollment numbers) are: Spanish (around 7.2 million students), French (1.5 million), and German (500,000). Other commonly taught languages (with 100,000 to 250,000 learners) include Latin, Japanese, American Sign Language, Italian, and Chinese. 18% of all Americans claim to speak at least one language in addition to English. \n\nReligion\n\nThe First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Christianity is by far the most common religion practiced in the U.S., but other religions are followed, too. In a 2013 survey, 56% of Americans said that religion played a \"very important role in their lives\", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation. In a 2009 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans said that they attended church weekly or almost weekly; the figures ranged from a low of 23% in Vermont to a high of 63% in Mississippi. \n\nAs with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious. Irreligion is growing rapidly among Americans under 30. Polls show that overall American confidence in organized religion has been declining since the mid to late 1980s, and that younger Americans in particular are becoming increasingly irreligious. According to a 2012 study, Protestant share of U.S. population dropped to 48%, thus ending its status as religious category of the majority for the first time. Americans with no religion have 1.7 children compared to 2.2 among Christians. The unaffiliated are less likely to get married with 37% marrying compared to 52% of Christians. \n\nAccording to a 2014 survey, 70.6% of adults identified themselves as Christian, \nProtestant denominations accounted for 46.5%, while Roman Catholicism, at 20.8%, was the largest individual denomination. The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2014 was 5.9%. Other religions include Judaism (1.9%), Islam (0.9%), Buddhism (0.7%), Hinduism (0.7%). The survey also reported that 22.8% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990. There are also Unitarian Universalist, Baha'i, Sikh, Jain, Shinto, Confucian, Taoist, Druid, Native American, Wiccan, humanist and deist communities. \n\nProtestantism is the largest Christian religious grouping in the United States. Baptists collectively form the largest branch of Protestantism, and the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest individual Protestant denomination. About 26% of Americans identify as Evangelical Protestants, while 15% are Mainline and 7% belong to a traditionally Black church. Roman Catholicism in the United States has its origin in the Spanish and French colonization of the Americas, and later grew because of Irish, Italian, Polish, German and Hispanic immigration. Rhode Island is the only state where a majority of the population is Catholic. Lutheranism in the U.S. has its origin in immigration from Northern Europe and Germany. North and South Dakota are the only states in which a plurality of the population is Lutheran. Presbyterianism was introduced in North America by Scottish and Ulster Scots immigrants. Although it has spread across the United States, it is heavily concentrated on the East Coast. Dutch Reformed congregations were founded first in New Amsterdam (New York City) before spreading westward. Utah is the only state where Mormonism is the religion of the majority of the population. The Mormon Corridor also extends to parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming. \n\nThe Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the Southern United States in which socially conservative Evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays the least important role in New England and in the Western United States.\n\nFamily structure\n\n, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees. \n\nThe U.S. teenage pregnancy rate is 26.5 per 1,000 women. The rate has declined by 57% since 1991. In 2013, the highest teenage birth rate was in Alabama, and the lowest in Wyoming. Abortion is legal throughout the U.S., owing to Roe v. Wade, a 1973 landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations. In 2013, the average age at first birth was 26 and 40.6% of births were to unmarried women. \n\nThe total fertility rate (TFR) was estimated for 2013 at 1.86 births per woman. Adoption in the United States is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view (compared to other Western countries). In 2001, with over 127,000 adoptions, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of the total number of adoptions worldwide. Same-sex marriage is legal nationwide and it is legal for same-sex couples to adopt. Polygamy is illegal throughout the U.S.\n\nGovernment and politics\n\nThe United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, \"in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law\". The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. For 2014, the U.S. ranked 19th on the Democracy Index and 17th on the Corruption Perceptions Index. \n\nIn the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government: federal, state, and local. The local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is rare at lower levels.\n\nThe federal government is composed of three branches:\n* Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government. \n* Executive: The President is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to Congressional override), and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies. \n* Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the President with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.\n\nThe House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. At the 2010 census, seven states had the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, had 53. \n\nThe Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The President serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The President is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life. However, the court currently has one vacant seat after the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. \n\nThe state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral legislature. The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.\n\nThe original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the \"great writ\" of habeas corpus. The Constitution has been amended 27 times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled by the courts to be in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was established by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803) in a decision handed down by Chief Justice John Marshall. \n\nPolitical divisions\n\nMap of U.S. Economic Exclusion Zone, highlighting states, territories and possessions\n\nThe United States is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district, five territories and eleven uninhabited island possessions. The states and territories are the principal administrative districts in the country. These are divided into subdivisions of counties and independent cities. The District of Columbia is a federal district which contains the capital of the United States, Washington DC. The states and the District of Columbia choose the President of the United States. Each state has presidential electors equal to the number of their Representatives and Senators in Congress, the District of Columbia has three. \n\nCongressional Districts are reapportioned among the states following each decennial Census of Population. Each state then draws single member districts to conform with the census apportionment. The total number of Representatives is 435, and delegate Members of Congress represent the District of Columbia and the five major US territories. \n\nThe United States also observes tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations to a limited degree, as it does with the states' sovereignty. American Indians are U.S. citizens and tribal lands are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S Congress and the federal courts. Like the states they have a great deal of autonomy, but also like the states tribes are not allowed to make war, engage in their own foreign relations, or print and issue currency. \n\nParties and elections\n\nThe United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history. For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote. The President and Vice-president are elected through the Electoral College system. \n\nWithin American political culture, the center-right Republican Party is considered \"conservative\" and the center-left Democratic Party is considered \"liberal\". The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as \"blue states\", are relatively liberal. The \"red states\" of the South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.\n\nThe winner of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th, and current, U.S. president. Current leadership in the Senate includes Democratic Vice President Joseph Biden, Republican President Pro Tempore (Pro Tem) Orrin Hatch, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Minority Leader Harry Reid. Leadership in the House includes Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. \n\nIn the 114th United States Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate are controlled by the Republican Party. The Senate currently consists of 54 Republicans, and 44 Democrats with two independents who caucus with the Democrats; the House consists of 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats, with one vacancy. In state governorships, there are 31 Republicans, 18 Democrats and one independent. Among the DC mayor and the 5 territorial governors, there are 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats (one is also in the PPD), and 2 Independents. \n\nForeign relations\n\nThe United States has an established structure of foreign relations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and New York City is home to the United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G7, G20, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States (although the U.S. still maintains relations with Taiwan and supplies it with military equipment).\n\nThe United States has a \"Special Relationship\" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European Union countries, including France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. It works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among 22 donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous. \n\nThe U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for three sovereign nations through Compact of Free Association with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. These are Pacific island nations, once part of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands after World War II, which gained independence in subsequent years.\n\nGovernment finance\n\nTaxes in the United States are levied at the federal, state and local government level. These include taxes on income, payroll, property, sales, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010 taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.8% of GDP. During FY2012, the federal government collected approximately $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, up $147 billion or 6% versus FY2011 revenues of $2.30 trillion. Primary receipt categories included individual income taxes ($1,132B or 47%), Social Security/Social Insurance taxes ($845B or 35%), and corporate taxes ($242B or 10%). Based on CBO estimates, under 2013 tax law the top 1% will be paying the highest average tax rates since 1979, while other income groups will remain at historic lows. \n\nU.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world. The highest 10% of income earners pay a majority of federal taxes, and about half of all taxes. Payroll taxes for Social Security are a flat regressive tax, with no tax charged on income above $118,500 (for 2015 and 2016) and no tax at all paid on unearned income from things such as stocks and capital gains. The historic reasoning for the regressive nature of the payroll tax is that entitlement programs have not been viewed as welfare transfers. However, according to the Congressional Budget Office the net effect of Social Security is that the benefit to tax ratio ranges from roughly 70% for the top earnings quintile to about 170% for the lowest earning quintile, making the system progressive. \n\nThe top 10% paid 51.8% of total federal taxes in 2009, and the top 1%, with 13.4% of pre-tax national income, paid 22.3% of federal taxes. In 2013 the Tax Policy Center projected total federal effective tax rates of 35.5% for the top 1%, 27.2% for the top quintile, 13.8% for the middle quintile, and −2.7% for the bottom quintile. The incidence of corporate income tax has been a matter of considerable ongoing controversy for decades. State and local taxes vary widely, but are generally less progressive than federal taxes as they rely heavily on broadly borne regressive sales and property taxes that yield less volatile revenue streams, though their consideration does not eliminate the progressive nature of overall taxation. \n\nDuring FY 2012, the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis, down $60 billion or 1.7% vs. FY 2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Major categories of FY 2012 spending included: Medicare & Medicaid ($802B or 23% of spending), Social Security ($768B or 22%), Defense Department ($670B or 19%), non-defense discretionary ($615B or 17%), other mandatory ($461B or 13%) and interest ($223B or 6%). \n\nThe total national debt of the United States in the United States was $18.527 trillion (106% of the GDP) in 2014. \n\nMilitary\n\nThe President holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and by the Department of the Navy during times of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors. \n\nMilitary service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's 10 active aircraft carriers, and Marine expeditionary units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. \n\nThe military budget of the United States in 2011 was more than $700 billion, 41% of global military spending and equal to the next 14 largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.7% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top 15 military spenders, after Saudi Arabia. U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP ranked 23rd globally in 2012 according to the CIA. Defense's share of U.S. spending has generally declined in recent decades, from Cold War peaks of 14.2% of GDP in 1953 and 69.5% of federal outlays in 1954 to 4.7% of GDP and 18.8% of federal outlays in 2011. \n\nThe proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, was a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion was proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011; 4,484 service members were killed during the Iraq War. Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan in April 2012; by November 8, 2013 2,285 had been killed during the War in Afghanistan. \n\nLaw enforcement and crime\n\nLaw enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is the largest in the country. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties, including protecting civil rights, national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws. At the federal level and in almost every state, a legal system operates on a common law. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state criminal courts. Plea bargaining in the United States is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the country are settled by plea bargain rather than jury trial.\n\nIn 2012 there were 4.7 murders per 100,000 persons in the United States, a 54% decline from the modern peak of 10.2 in 1980. In 2001–2, the United States had above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence compared to other developed nations. A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States \"homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher.\" Gun ownership rights continue to be the subject of contentious political debate.\n\nFrom 1980 through 2008 males represented 77% of homicide victims and 90% of offenders. Blacks committed 52.5% of all homicides during that span, at a rate almost eight times that of whites (\"whites\" includes most Hispanics), and were victimized at a rate six times that of whites. Most homicides were intraracial, with 93% of black victims killed by blacks and 84% of white victims killed by whites. In 2012, Louisiana had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the U.S., and New Hampshire the lowest. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports estimates that there were 3,246 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents in 2012, for a total of over 9 million total crimes. \n\nCapital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and used in 31 states. No executions took place from 1967 to 1977, owing in part to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. In 1976, that Court ruled that, under appropriate circumstances, capital punishment may constitutionally be imposed. Since the decision there have been more than 1,300 executions, a majority of these taking place in three states: Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, several states have either abolished or struck down death penalty laws. In 2014, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. \n\nThe United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total prison population in the world. For the latest data, see National Research Council. [http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18613 The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences]. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014.[http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/2014_US_Nation_Behind_Bars_0.pdf Nation Behind Bars: A Human Rights Solution]. Human Rights Watch, May 2014. Retrieved May 10, 2014. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults. At year end 2012, the combined U.S. adult correctional systems supervised about 6,937,600 offenders. About 1 in every 35 adult residents in the United States was under some form of correctional supervision at yearend 2012, the lowest rate observed since 1997. The prison population has quadrupled since 1980, and state and local spending on prisons and jails has grown three times as much as that spent on public education during the same period. However, the imprisonment rate for all prisoners\nsentenced to more than a year in state or federal facilities is 478 per 100,000 in 2013 and the rate for pre-trial/remand prisoners is 153 per 100,000 residents in 2012. The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in sentencing guidelines and drug policies. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of inmates held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses. The privatization of prisons and prison services which began in the 1980s has been a subject of debate.Selman, Donna and Paul Leighton (2010). [https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442201729/Punishment-for-Sale-Private-Prisons-Big-Business-and-the-Incarceration-Binge Punishment for Sale: Private Prisons, Big Business, and the Incarceration Binge]. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. [https://books.google.com/books?id5lBraTDtiSgC&lpg\nPP1&pgPR11#v\nonepage&q&ffalse p. xi]. ISBN 1-4422-0173-8.Gottschalk, Marie (2014). [http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10330.html Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics]. Princeton University Press. [https://books.google.com/books?id\niOs_BAAAQBAJ&lpgPP1&pg\nPA70#vonepage&q&f\nfalse p. 70] ISBN 0-691-16405-3.Peter Kerwin (June 10, 2015). [http://www.news.wisc.edu/23835 Study finds private prisons keep inmates longer, without reducing future crime]. University of Wisconsin–Madison News. Retrieved June 11, 2015. In 2008, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate, and Maine the lowest. \n\nEconomy\n\nThe United States has a capitalist mixed economy which is fueled by abundant natural resources and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $16.8 trillion constitutes 24% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).\n\nThe US's nominal GDP is estimated to be $17.528 trillion From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7. The country ranks ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP. The U.S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency. \n\nThe United States is the largest importer of goods and second largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. In 2010, the total U.S. trade deficit was $635 billion. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners. In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export. Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt. The largest holder of the U.S. debt are American entities, including federal government accounts and the Federal Reserve, who hold the majority of the debt. \n\nIn 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 86.4% of the economy, with federal government activity accounting for 4.3% and state and local government activity (including federal transfers) the remaining 9.3%. The number of employees at all levels of government outnumber those in manufacturing by 1.7 to 1. While its economy has reached a postindustrial level of development and its service sector constitutes 67.8% of GDP, the United States remains an industrial power. The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing. In the franchising business model, McDonald's and Subway are the two most recognized brands in the world. Coca-Cola is the most recognized soft drink company in the world. \n\nChemical products are the leading manufacturing field. The United States is the largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its second largest importer. It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. The National Mining Association provides data pertaining to coal and minerals that include beryllium, copper, lead, magnesium, zinc, titanium and others. \n\nAgriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP, yet the United States is the world's top producer of corn and soybeans. The National Agricultural Statistics Service maintains agricultural statistics for products that include peanuts, oats, rye, wheat, rice, cotton, corn, barley, hay, sunflowers, and oilseeds. In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides livestock statistics regarding beef, poultry, pork, and dairy products. The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food, representing half of the world's biotech crops. \n\nConsumer spending comprises 68% of the U.S. economy in 2015. In August 2010, the American labor force consisted of 154.1 million people. With 21.2 million people, government is the leading field of employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe. The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers. The United States is ranked among the top three in the Global Competitiveness Report as well. It has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than European nations tend to. \n\nThe United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation and is one of just a few countries in the world without paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Liberia. However, 74% of full-time American workers get paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although only 24% of part-time workers get the same benefits. While federal law currently does not require sick leave, it's a common benefit for government workers and full-time employees at corporations. In 2009, the United States had the third highest workforce productivity per person in the world, behind Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the Netherlands. \n\nThe 2008–2012 global recession significantly affected the United States, with output still below potential according to the Congressional Budget Office. It brought high unemployment (which has been decreasing but remains above pre-recession levels), along with low consumer confidence, the continuing decline in home values and increase in foreclosures and personal bankruptcies, an escalating federal debt crisis, inflation, and rising petroleum and food prices. There remains a record proportion of long-term unemployed, continued decreasing household income, and tax and federal budget increases. \n\nIncome, poverty and wealth\n\nAmericans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD nations, and in 2007 had the second highest median household income. According to the Census Bureau real median household income was $50,502 in 2011, down from $51,144 in 2010. The Global Food Security Index ranked the U.S. number one for food affordability and overall food security in March 2013. Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as European Union residents, and more than every EU nation. For 2013 the United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 5th among 187 countries in its Human Development Index and 28th in its inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI). \n\nThere has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s. However, the gap between total compensation and productivity is not as wide because of increased employee benefits such as health insurance. While inflation-adjusted (\"real\") household income had been increasing almost every year from 1947 to 1999, it has since been flat on balance and has even decreased recently. According to Congressional Research Service, during this same period, immigration to the United States increased, while the lower 90% of tax filers incomes became stagnant, and eventually decreasing since 2000. The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has significantly affected income inequality, leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations.[http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014-FocusOnTopIncomes.pdf Focus on Top Incomes and Taxation in OECD Countries: Was the crisis a game changer?] OECD, May 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014. The post-recession income gains have been very uneven, with the top 1 percent capturing 95 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2012. The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.\n\nWealth, like income and taxes, is highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population possess 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom half claim only 2%. Between June 2007 and November 2008 the global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value. Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth was down $14 trillion, but has since increased $14 trillion over 2006 levels. At the end of 2014, household debt amounted to $11.8 trillion, down from $13.8 trillion at the end of 2008. \n\nThere were about 578,424 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2014, with almost two-thirds staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. In 2011 16.7 million children lived in food-insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 1.1% of U.S. children, or 845,000, saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases were not chronic. According to a 2014 report by the Census Bureau, one in five young adults lives in poverty today, up from one in seven in 1980. \n\nEducation\n\nAmerican public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17. \n\nAbout 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled. The U.S. spends more on education per student than any nation in the world, spending more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. Some 80% of U.S. college students attend public universities. \n\nThe United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. The majority of world's top universities listed by different ranking organizations are in the US. There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans 25 and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees. The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%. The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world. \n\nAs for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. trails some other OECD nations but spends more per student than the OECD average, and more than all nations in combined public and private spending. , student loan debt exceeded one trillion dollars, more than Americans owe on credit cards. \n\nCulture\n\nThe United States is home to many cultures and a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. Aside from the Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Native Alaskan populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors settled or immigrated within the past five centuries. Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.\n\nCore American culture was established by Protestant British colonists and shaped by the frontier settlement process, with the traits derived passed down to descendants and transmitted to immigrants through assimilation. Americans have traditionally been characterized by a strong work ethic, competitiveness, and individualism, as well as a unifying belief in an \"American creed\" emphasizing liberty, equality, private property, democracy, rule of law, and a preference for limited government. Americans are extremely charitable by global standards. According to a 2006 British study, Americans gave 1.67% of GDP to charity, more than any other nation studied, more than twice the second place British figure of 0.73%, and around twelve times the French figure of 0.14%. \n\nThe American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants. Whether this perception is realistic has been a topic of debate. CAP: [https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2006/04/26/1917/understanding-mobility-in-america/ Understanding Mobility in America]. April 26, 2006 While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree. While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute. \n\nFood\n\nMainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain with about three-quarters of grain products made of wheat flour and many dishes use indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers. These home grown foods are part of a shared national menu on one of America's most popular holidays; Thanksgiving, when some Americans make traditional foods to celebrate the occasion. \n\nCharacteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed. Americans drink three times as much coffee as tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages. \n\nAmerican eating habits owe a great deal to that of their British culinary roots with some variations. Although American lands could grow newer vegetables England could not, most colonists would not eat these new foods until accepted by Europeans. Over time American foods changed to a point that food critic, John L. Hess stated in 1972: \"Our founding fathers were as far superior to our present political leaders in the quality of their food as they were in the quality of their prose and intelligence\". \n\nThe American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1940s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%; frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American \"obesity epidemic\". Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake. \n\nLiterature, philosophy, and the arts\n\nIn the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet. A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)— may be dubbed the \"Great American Novel\". \n\nEleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo. \n\nThe transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, and later Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of American philosophical academia. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy. Cornel West and Judith Butler have led a continental tradition in American philosophical academia. Chicago school economists like Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan, and Thomas Sowell have affected various fields in social and political philosophy. \n\nIn the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. \n\nOne of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson. \n\nThough little known at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th-century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. \n\nMusic\n\nThe rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. \n\nElvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities, as have contemporary musical artists such as Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and Beyoncé as well as hip hop artists Jay Z, Eminem and Kanye West. Rock bands such as Metallica, the Eagles, and Aerosmith are among the highest grossing in worldwide sales. \n\nCinema\n\nHollywood, a northern district of Los Angeles, California, is one of the leaders in motion picture production. The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there, and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization. \n\nDirector D. W. Griffith, American's top filmmaker during the silent film period, was central to the development of film grammar, and producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. Directors such as John Ford redefined the image of the American Old West and history, and, like others such as John Huston, broadened the possibilities of cinema with location shooting, with great influence on subsequent directors. The industry enjoyed its golden years, in what is commonly referred to as the \"Golden Age of Hollywood\", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, film directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Altman were a vital component in what became known as \"New Hollywood\" or the \"Hollywood Renaissance\", grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. Since, directors such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron have gained renown for their blockbuster films, often characterized by high production costs, and in return, high earnings at the box office, with Cameron's Avatar (2009) earning more than $2 billion. \n\nNotable films topping the American Film Institute's AFI 100 list include Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), which is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time, Casablanca (1942), The Godfather (1972), Gone with the Wind (1939), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Graduate (1967), On the Waterfront (1954), Schindler's List (1993), Singin' in the Rain (1952), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Sunset Boulevard (1950). The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944. \n\nSports\n\nAmerican football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport; the National Football League (NFL) has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world, and the Super Bowl is watched by millions globally. Baseball has been regarded as the U.S. national sport since the late 19th century, with Major League Baseball (MLB) being the top league. Basketball and ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports, with the top leagues being the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL). These four major sports, when played professionally, each occupy a season at different, but overlapping, times of the year. College football and basketball attract large audiences. In soccer, the country hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the men's national soccer team qualified for ten World Cups and the women's team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup three times; Major League Soccer is the sport's highest league in the United States.\nThe market for professional sports in the United States is roughly $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. \n\nEight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. As of 2014, the United States has won 2,400 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 281 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most behind Norway. \nWhile most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact.Liss, Howard. Lacrosse (Funk & Wagnalls, 1970) pg 13. The most watched individual sports are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. \n\nMedia\n\nThe four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Fox. The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. Cable television offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercial, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day. \n\nIn 1998, the number of U.S. commercial radio stations had grown to 4,793 AM stations and 5,662 FM stations. In addition, there are 1,460 public radio stations. Most of these stations are run by universities and public authorities for educational purposes and are financed by public or private funds, subscriptions and corporate underwriting. Much public-radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR (formerly National Public Radio). NPR was incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967; its television counterpart, PBS, was also created by the same legislation. (NPR and PBS are operated separately from each other.) , there are 15,433 licensed full-power radio stations in the US according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). \n\nWell-known newspapers are The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Although the cost of publishing has increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major wire service, such as the Associated Press or Reuters, for their national and world coverage. With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families. Major cities often have \"alternative weeklies\" to complement the mainstream daily papers, for example, New York City's The Village Voice or Los Angeles' LA Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social groups. Early versions of the American newspaper comic strip and the American comic book began appearing in the 19th century. In 1938, Superman, the comic book superhero of DC Comics, developed into an American icon. Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yahoo.com, eBay, Amazon and Twitter. \n\nMore than 800 publications are produced in Spanish, the second most widely spoken mother tongue behind English. \n\nInfrastructure\n\nTransportation\n\nPersonal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million km) of public roads, including one of the world's longest highway systems at 57,000 miles (91700 km). The world's second largest automobile market, the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans. About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks. The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 mi. \n\nMass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips. Transport of goods by rail is extensive, though relatively low numbers of passengers (approximately 31 million annually) use intercity rail to travel, partly because of the low population density throughout much of the U.S. interior. However, ridership on Amtrak, the national intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010. Also, light rail development has increased in recent years. Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal. \n\nThe civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while \nmost major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and the fourth-busiest, O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. \n\nEnergy\n\nThe United States energy market is about 29,000 terawatt hours per year.IEA Key World Energy Statistics Statistics [http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2013.pdf 2013], [http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/kwes.pdf 2012], [http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2011/key_world_energy_stats.pdf 2011], [http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2010/key_stats_2010.pdf 2010], [http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2009/key2009.pdf 2009], [http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2006/key2006.pdf 2006] IEA October, crude oil p.11, coal p. 13 gas p. 15 Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons (7076 kg) of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources. The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum. \n\nFor decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part because of public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed. The United States has 27% of global coal reserves. It is the world's largest producer of natural gas and crude oil. \n\nWater supply and sanitation\n\nIssues that affect water supply in the United States include droughts in the West, water scarcity, pollution, a backlog of investment, concerns about the affordability of water for the poorest, and a rapidly retiring workforce. Increased variability and intensity of rainfall as a result of climate change is expected to produce both more severe droughts and flooding, with potentially serious consequences for water supply and for pollution from combined sewer overflows. \n\nScience and technology\n\nThe United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid 20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts were developed by the U.S. War Department by the Federal Armories during the first half of the 19th century. This technology, along with the establishment of a machine tool industry, enabled the U.S. to have large scale manufacturing of sewing machines, bicycles and other items in the late 19th century and became known as the American system of manufacturing. Factory electrification in the early 20th century and introduction of the assembly line and other labor saving techniques created the system called mass production. \n\nIn 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's research laboratory, one of the first of its kind, developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. The latter lead to emergence of the worldwide entertainment industry. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight. \n\nThe rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age, while the Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and aeronautics. \n\nThe invention of the transistor in the 1950s, a key active component in practically all modern electronics, led to many technological developments and a significant expansion of the U.S. technology industry. This in turn led to the establishment of many new technology companies and regions around the county such as Silicon Valley in California. Advancements by American microprocessor companies such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Intel along with both computer software and hardware companies that include Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, IBM, GNU-Linux, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems created and popularized the personal computer. The ARPANET was developed in the 1960s to meet Defense Department requirements, and became the first of a series of networks which evolved into the Internet. \n\nThese advancements then lead to greater personalization of technology for individual use. , 83.8% of American households owned at least one computer, and 73.3% had high-speed Internet service. 91% of Americans also own a mobile phone . The United States ranks highly with regard to freedom of use of the internet. \n\nIn the 21st century, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector. The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor. \n\nHealth\n\nThe United States has a life expectancy of 79.8 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990. Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world. Obesity rates in the United States are amongst the highest in the world. \n\nApproximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight; the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century. Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals. The infant mortality rate of 6.17 per thousand places the United States 169th highest out of 224 countries, with the 224th country having the lowest mortality rate. \n\nIn 2010, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and traffic accidents caused the most years of life lost in the U.S. Low back pain, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety caused the most years lost to disability. The most deleterious risk factors were poor diet, tobacco smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, physical inactivity, and alcohol use. Alzheimer's disease, drug abuse, kidney disease and cancer, and falls caused the most additional years of life lost over their age-adjusted 1990 per-capita rates. U.S. teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are substantially higher than in other Western nations, especially among blacks and Hispanics. U.S. underage drinking among teenagers is among the lowest in industrialized nations. \n\nThe U.S. is a global leader in medical innovation. America solely developed or contributed significantly to 9 of the top 10 most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five. Since 1966, more Americans have received the Nobel Prize in Medicine than the rest of the world combined. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe. The U.S. health-care system far outspends any other nation, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP. \n\nHealth-care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts and is not universal. In 2014, 13.4% of the population did not carry health insurance. The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue. In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance. Federal legislation passed in early 2010 would ostensibly create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014, though the bill and its ultimate effect are issues of controversy."
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Which 100-mile long waterway links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Mediterranean Sea (pronounced) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water.\n\nThe name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning \"inland\" or \"in the middle of land\" (from medius, \"middle\" and terra, \"land\"). It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2 (965,000 sq mi), but its connection to the Atlantic (the Strait of Gibraltar) is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar and Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. \n\nThe Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia, and in the south by Africa. It is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, is approximately 4,000 km (2,500 miles). The sea's average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km (500 miles). The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara (connected by the Dardanelles to the Aegean Sea), has a surface area of approximately 2,510,000 square km (970,000 square miles). \n\nThe sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region. The history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies.\n\nThe countries with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea are Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Monaco, Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. In addition, Palestine's Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia have coastlines on the sea.\n\nName\n\nThe term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning \"amid the earth (note: earth in the sense \"soil\", not Planet Earth)\" or \"between land\" (medi-; adj. medius, -um -a \"middle, between\" + terra f., \"land, earth\"): as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios (Μεσόγειος), is similarly from μέσο, \"between\" + γη, \"land, earth\"). It can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia (Μεσοποταμία), meaning \"between rivers\".\n\nThe Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names. For example, the Carthaginians called it the \"Syrian Sea\" and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum (Latin, \"Our Sea\"), and occasionally Mare Internum (Sallust, Jug. 17).\n\nIn ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible, it was primarily known as the \"Great Sea\" (הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל, HaYam HaGadol, Numbers 34:6,7; Joshua 1:4, 9:1, 15:47; Ezekiel 47:10,15,20), or simply \"The Sea\" (1 Kings 5:9; comp. 1 Macc. 14:34, 15:11); however, it has also been called the \"Hinder Sea\" (הַיָּם הָאַחֲרוֹן), due to its location on the west coast of Greater Syria or the Holy Land, and therefore behind a person facing the east, sometimes translated as \"Western Sea\", (Deut. 11:24; Joel 2:20). Another name was the \"Sea of the Philistines\" (יָם פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Exod. 23:31), from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites. The sea is also called the \"Great Sea\" (Middle English: Grete See) in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, meaning the \"Pure White Sea\".\n\nIn Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon (), \"the Middle Sea\", reflecting the Sea's name in ancient Greek (Mesogeios), Latin (Mare internum), and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East (Mediterranean, etc.).\n\nSimilarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as ' (), \"the [White] Middle Sea\", while in Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was referenced as ' (), or \"the Romaic/Byzantine Sea.\"\n\nIn Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, \"the White Sea\" since among Turks the white colour (ak) represents the west.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient civilisations\n\nSeveral ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were greatly influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food (from fishing and the gathering of other seafood) for numerous communities throughout the ages. \n\nDue to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history.\n\nTwo of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states and the Phoenicians, both of which extensively colonised the coastlines of the Mediterranean. Later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum (\"Our Sea\").\n\nDarius I of Persia, who conquered Ancient Egypt, built a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse. \n\nMiddle Ages and empires\n\nThe western Roman empire collapsed around AD 476. Temporarily the east was again dominant as the Byzantine Empire formed from the eastern half of the Roman empire. Another power arose in the 7th century, and with it the religion of Islam, which soon swept across from the east; at its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 75% of the Mediterranean region and left a lasting footprint on its eastern and southern shores.\n\nEurope was reviving, however, as more organised and centralised states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century.\n\nOttoman power continued to grow, and in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was extinguished with the Conquest of Constantinople. Ottomans gained control of much of the sea in the 16th century and maintained naval bases in southern France, Algeria and Tunisia. Barbarossa, the famous Ottoman captain is a symbol of this domination with the victory of the Battle of Preveza. The Battle of Djerba marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean. As the naval prowess of the European powers increased, they confronted Ottoman expansion in the region when the Battle of Lepanto checked the power of the Ottoman Navy. This was the last naval battle to be fought primarily between galleys.\n\nThe Barbary pirates of North Africa preyed on Christian shipping in the Western Mediterranean Sea. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th centuries, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. \n\nThe development of oceanic shipping began to affect the entire Mediterranean. Once, all trade from the east had passed through the region, but now the circumnavigation of Africa allowed spices and other goods to be imported through the Atlantic ports of western Europe. \n\n21st century and migrations\n\nIn 2013, the Maltese president described the Mediterranean sea as a \"cemetery\" due to the large amounts of migrants who drown there after their boats capsize. European Parliament president Martin Schulz said that Europe's migration policy has \"turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard\", referring to the number of drowned refugees in the region as a direct result of the policies. An Azerbaijani official described the sea as \"a burial ground ... where people die\". \n\nFollowing the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, the Italian government decided to strengthen the national system for the patrolling of the Mediterranean Sea by authorising \"Mare Nostrum\", a military and humanitarian mission in order to rescue the migrants and arrest the traffickers of immigrants. \n\nGeography\n\nThe Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar (known in Homer's writings as the \"Pillars of Hercules\") in the west and to the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, by the Dardanelles and the Bosporus respectively, in the east. The Sea of Marmara is often considered a part of the Mediterranean Sea, whereas the Black Sea is generally not. The 163 km long artificial Suez Canal in the southeast connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.\n\nLarge islands in the Mediterranean include Cyprus, Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Lesbos, Chios, Kefalonia, Corfu, Limnos, Samos, Naxos and Andros in the Eastern Mediterranean; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Cres, Krk, Brač, Hvar, Pag, Korčula and Malta in the central Mediterranean; and Ibiza, Majorca and Minorca (the Balearic Islands) in the Western Mediterranean.\n\nThe typical Mediterranean climate has hot, humid, and dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Crops of the region include olives, grapes, oranges, tangerines, and cork.\n\nExtent\n\nThe International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Mediterranean Sea as follows: \n\nStretching from the Strait of Gibraltar in the west to the entrances to the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal in the east, the Mediterranean Sea is bounded by the coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia, and is divided into two deep basins:\n*Western Basin:\n**On the west: A line joining the extremities of Cape Trafalgar (Spain) and Cape Spartel (Africa).\n**On the northeast: The west coast of Italy. In the Strait of Messina a line joining the north extreme of Cape Paci (15°42'E) with Cape Peloro, the east extreme of the Island of Sicily. The north coast of Sicily.\n** On the east: A line joining Cape Lilibeo the western point of Sicily (), through the Adventure Bank to Cape Bon (Tunisia).\n*Eastern Basin:\n**On the west: The northeastern and eastern limits of the Western Basin.\n**On the northeast: A line joining Kum Kale (26°11'E) and Cape Helles, the western entrance to the Dardanelles.\n**On the southeast: The entrance to the Suez Canal.\n**On the east: The coasts of Syria and Palestine.\n\n(It should be noted that the coast referred to as belonging to Palestine in this document dating to 1953 has been within the internationally recognised borders of the country known as Israel since 1948. Of the territories administered by the Palestinian National Authority, only the Gaza Strip has a sea coast.)\n\nOceanography\n\nBeing nearly landlocked affects conditions in the Mediterranean Sea: for instance, tides are very limited as a result of the narrow connection with the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean is characterised and immediately recognised by its deep blue colour.\n\nEvaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to the water circulation within the basin. Evaporation is especially high in its eastern half, causing the water level to decrease and salinity to increase eastward. The salinity at 5 m depth is 3.8%. \n\nThe pressure gradient pushes relatively cool, low-salinity water from the Atlantic across the basin; it warms and becomes saltier as it travels east, then sinks in the region of the Levant and circulates westward, to spill over the Strait of Gibraltar. Thus, seawater flow is eastward in the Strait's surface waters, and westward below; once in the Atlantic, this chemically distinct Mediterranean Intermediate Water can persist thousands of kilometres away from its source. \n\nCoastal countries\n\nThe following countries have a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea:\n*Northern shore (from west to east): Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey.\n*Eastern shore (from north to south): Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel.\n*Southern shore (from west to east): Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt.\n*Island nations: Malta, Cyprus.\n\nSeveral other territories also border the Mediterranean Sea (from west to east): The British overseas territory of Gibraltar, the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla and nearby islands, the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus, and the State of Palestine's Gaza Strip.\n\nMajor cities (municipalities) with populations larger than 200,000 people bordering the Mediterranean Sea are:\n\nSubdivisions\n\nAccording to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), the Mediterranean Sea is subdivided into a number of smaller waterbodies, each with their own designation (from west to east):\n\n*the Strait of Gibraltar;\n*the Alboran Sea, between Spain and Morocco;\n*the Balearic Sea, between mainland Spain and its Balearic Islands;\n*the Ligurian Sea between Corsica and Liguria (Italy);\n*the Tyrrhenian Sea enclosed by Sardinia, Italian peninsula and Sicily;\n*the Ionian Sea between Italy, Albania and Greece;\n*the Adriatic Sea between Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania;\n*the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey.\n\nOther seas\n\nAlthough not recognised by the IHO treaties, there are some other seas whose names have been in common use from the ancient times, or in the present:\n*the Sea of Sardinia, between Sardinia and Balearic Islands, as a part of the Balearic Sea\n*the Sea of Sicily between Sicily and Tunisia,\n*the Libyan Sea between Libya and Crete,\n*In the Aegean Sea,\n**the Thracian Sea in its north,\n**the Myrtoan Sea between the Cyclades and the Peloponnese,\n**the Sea of Crete north of Crete,\n**the Icarian Sea between Kos and Chios\n*the Cilician Sea between Turkey and Cyprus\n*the Levantine Sea at the eastern end of the Mediterranean\n\nOther features\n\nMany of these smaller seas feature in local myth and folklore and derive their names from these associations. In addition to the seas, a number of gulfs and straits are also recognised:\n\n*the Saint George Bay in Beirut, Lebanon\n*the Ras Ibn Hani cape in Latakia, Syria\n*the Ras al-Bassit cape in northern Syria.\n*the Minet el-Beida (\"White Harbour\") bay near ancient Ugarit, Syria\n*the Strait of Gibraltar, connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain from Morocco\n*the Bay of Gibraltar, at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula\n*the Gulf of Corinth, an enclosed sea between the Ionian Sea and the Corinth Canal\n*the Pagasetic Gulf, the gulf of Volos, south of the Thermaic Gulf, formed by the Mount Pelion peninsula\n*the Saronic Gulf, the gulf of Athens, between the Corinth Canal and the Mirtoan Sea\n*the Thermaic Gulf, the gulf of Thessaloniki, located in the northern Greek region of Macedonia\n*the Kvarner Gulf, Croatia\n*the Gulf of Lion, south of France\n*the Gulf of Valencia, east of Spain\n*the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the toe of Italy\n*the Gulf of Genoa, northwestern Italy\n*the Gulf of Venice, northeastern Italy\n*the Gulf of Trieste, northeastern Italy\n*the Gulf of Taranto, southern Italy\n*the Gulf of Salerno, southwestern Italy\n*the Gulf of Gaeta, southwestern Italy\n*the Gulf of Squillace, southern Italy\n*the Strait of Otranto, between Italy and Albania\n*the Gulf of Haifa, northern Israel\n*the Gulf of Sidra, between Tripolitania (western Libya) and Cyrenaica (eastern Libya)\n*the Strait of Sicily, between Sicily and Tunisia\n*the Corsica Channel, between Corsica and Italy\n*the Strait of Bonifacio, between Sardinia and Corsica\n*the Gulf of İskenderun, between İskenderun and Adana (Turkey)\n*the Gulf of Antalya, between west and east shores of Antalya (Turkey)\n*the Bay of Kotor, in south-western Montenegro and south-eastern Croatia\n*the Malta Channel, between Sicily and Malta\n*the Gozo Channel, between Malta Island and Gozo\n\n10 largest islands by area\n\nClimate\n\nSea temperature\n\nGeology\n\nThe geologic history of the Mediterranean Sea is complex. Underlain by oceanic crust, the sea basin was once thought to be a tectonic remnant of the ancient Tethys Ocean; it is now known to be a structurally younger basin, called the Neotethys, which was first formed by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. Because it is a near-landlocked body of water in a normally dry climate, the Mediterranean is subject to intensive evaporation and the precipitation of evaporites. The Messinian salinity crisis started about six million years ago (mya) when the Mediterranean became landlocked, and then essentially dried up. There are salt deposits accumulated on the bottom of the basin of more than a million cubic kilometres—in some places more than three kilometres thick. \n\nScientists estimate that the sea was last filled about 5.3 million years ago (mya) in less than two years by the Zanclean flood. Water poured in from the Atlantic Ocean through a newly breached gateway now called the Strait of Gibraltar at an estimated rate of about three orders of magnitude (one thousand times) larger than the current flow of the Amazon River. \n\nThe Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The coastline extends for 46000 km. A shallow submarine ridge (the Strait of Sicily) between the island of Sicily and the coast of Tunisia divides the sea in two main subregions: the Western Mediterranean, with an area of about 850 thousand km2 (330 thousand mi2); and the Eastern Mediterranean, of about 1.65 million km2 (640 thousand mi2). A characteristic of the coastal Mediterranean are submarine karst springs or s, which discharge pressurised groundwater into the coastal seawater from below the surface; the discharge water is usually fresh, and sometimes may be thermal. \n\nTectonics and paleoenvironmental analysis\n\nThe Mediterranean basin and sea system was established by the ancient African-Arabian continent colliding with the Eurasian continent. As Africa-Arabia drifted northward, it closed over the ancient Tethys Ocean which had earlier separated the two supercontinents Laurasia and Gondwana.\nAt about that time in the middle Jurassic period a much smaller sea basin, dubbed the Neotethys, was formed shortly before the Tethys Ocean closed at its western (Arabian) end. The broad line of collisions pushed up a very long system of mountains from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran in an episode of mountain-building tectonics known as the Alpine orogeny. The Neotethys grew larger during the episodes of collisions (and associated foldings and subductions) that occurred during the Oligocene and Miocene epochs (34 to 5.33 mya); see animation: Africa-Arabia colliding with Eurasia. Accordingly, the Mediterranean basin consists of several stretched tectonic plates in subduction which are the foundation of the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Various zones of subduction harbour and form the deepest and most majestic oceanic ridges, east of the Ionian Sea and south of the Aegean. The Central Indian Ridge runs East of the Mediterranean Sea South-East across the in-between of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula into the Indian Ocean. Nevertheless, while man-made geopolitical turmoil and chaos have governed the coastlines of many various Mediterranean nations throughout the courses of ancient, modern, present and foreseeable history, the Plate tectonic status of nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea will find sharing the same geological concerns and fate.\n\nMessinian salinity crisis\n\nDuring Mesozoic and Cenozoic times, as the northwest corner of Africa converged on Iberia, it lifted the Betic-Rif mountain belts across southern Iberia and northwest Africa. There the development of the intramontane Betic and Rif basins led to creating two roughly-parallel marine gateways between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Dubbed the Betic and Rifian corridors, they progressively closed during middle and late Miocene times; perhaps several times. During late Miocene times the closure of the Betic Corridor triggered the so-called \"Messinian salinity crisis\" (MSC), when the Mediterranean almost entirely dried out. The time of beginning of the MSC was recently estimated astronomically at 5.96 mya, and it persisted for some 630,000 years until about 5.3 mya; see Animation: Messinian salinity crisis, at right.\n\nAfter the initial drawdown and re-flooding there followed more episodes—the total number is debated—of sea drawdowns and re-floodings for the duration of the MSC. It ended when the Atlantic Ocean last re-flooded the basin—creating the Strait of Gibraltar and causing the Zanclean flood—at the end of the Miocene (5.33 mya). Some research has suggested that a desiccation-flooding-desiccation cycle may have repeated several times, which could explain several events of large amounts of salt deposition. Recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view. \n Garcia-Castellanos, D., A. Villaseñor, 2011. Messinian salinity crisis regulated by competing tectonics and erosion at the Gibraltar Arc. Nature, 2011-12-15 [https://docs.google.com/uc?id\n0B_xuyENh5ksFN2MwYWE5YjUtNzNkOS00OGZlLWFkMDYtOWMxYTViYjRiZjc0&exportdownload&hl\nen pdf here] [https://sites.google.com/site/daniggcc/publications Link]\n\nDesiccation and exchanges of flora and fauna\n\nThe present-day Atlantic gateway, i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar, originated in the early Pliocene via the Zanclean Flood. As mentioned, two other gateways preceded Gibraltar: the Betic Corridor across southern Spain and the Rifian Corridor across northern Morocco. The former gateway closed about six (6) mya, causing the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC); the latter or possibly both gateways closed during the earlier Tortonian times, causing a \"Tortonian salinity crisis\" (from 11.6 to 7.2 mya), which occurred well before the MSC and lasted much longer. Both \"crises\" resulted in broad connections of the mainlands of Africa and Europe, which thereby normalised migrations of flora and fauna—especially large mammals including primates—between the two continents. The Vallesian crisis indicates a typical extinction and replacement of mammal species in Europe during Tortonian times following climatic upheaval and overland migrations of new species; see Animation: Messinian salinity crisis (and mammal migrations), at right.\n\nThe near-completely enclosed configuration of the Mediterranean basin has enabled the oceanic gateways to dominate seawater circulation and the environmental evolution of the sea and basin. Circulation patterns are also affected by several other factors—including climate, bathymetry, and water chemistry and temperature—which are interactive and can induce precipitation of evaporites. Deposits of evaporites accumulated earlier in the nearby Carpathian foredeep during the Middle Miocene, and the adjacent Red Sea Basin (during the Late Miocene), and in the whole Mediterranean basin (during the MSC and the Messinian age). Diatomites are regularly found underneath the evaporite deposits, suggesting a connection between their geneses.\n\nToday, evaporation of surface seawater (output) is more than the supply (input) of fresh water by precipitation and coastal drainage systems, causing the salinity of the Mediterranean to be much higher than that of the Atlantic—so much so that the saltier Mediterranean waters sink below the waters incoming from the Atlantic, causing a two-layer flow across the Gibraltar strait: that is, an outflow submarine current of warm saline Mediterranean water, counterbalanced by an inflow surface current of less saline cold oceanic water from the Atlantic. Herman Sörgel's Atlantropa project proposal in the 1920s proposed a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, using the inflow current to provide a large amount of hydroelectric energy. The underlying energy grid was as well intended to support a political union between Europe and, at least, the Marghreb part of Africa (compare Eurafrika for the later impact and Desertec for a later project with some parallels in the planned grid). \n\nShift to a \"Mediterranean climate\"\n\nThe end of the Miocene also marked a change in the climate of the Mediterranean basin. Fossil evidence from that period reveals that the larger basin had a humid subtropical climate with rainfall in the summer supporting laurel forests. The shift to a \"Mediterranean climate\" occurred largely within the last three million years (the late Pliocene epoch) as summer rainfall decreased. The subtropical laurel forests retreated; and even as they persisted on the islands of Macaronesia off the Atlantic coast of Iberia and North Africa, the present Mediterranean vegetation evolved, dominated by coniferous trees and sclerophyllous trees and shrubs with small, hard, waxy leaves that prevent moisture loss in the dry summers. Much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a heavily wooded region.\n\nPaleoclimate\n\nBecause of its latitudinal position and its land-locked configuration, the Mediterranean is especially sensitive to astronomically induced climatic variations, which are well documented in its sedimentary record. Since the Mediterranean is involved in the deposition of eolian dust from the Sahara during dry periods, whereas riverine detrital input prevails during wet ones, the Mediterranean marine sapropel-bearing sequences provide high-resolution climatic information. These data have been employed in reconstructing astronomically calibrated time scales for the last 9 Ma of the Earth's history, helping to constrain the time of past geomagnetic reversals. Furthermore, the exceptional accuracy of these paleoclimatic records has improved our knowledge of the Earth's orbital variations in the past.\n\nEcology and biota\n\nAs a result of the drying of the sea during the Messinian salinity crisis, the marine biota of the Mediterranean are derived primarily from the Atlantic Ocean. The North Atlantic is considerably colder and more nutrient-rich than the Mediterranean, and the marine life of the Mediterranean has had to adapt to its differing conditions in the five million years since the basin was reflooded.\n\nThe Alboran Sea is a transition zone between the two seas, containing a mix of Mediterranean and Atlantic species. The Alboran Sea has the largest population of bottlenose dolphins in the Western Mediterranean, is home to the last population of harbour porpoises in the Mediterranean, and is the most important feeding grounds for loggerhead sea turtles in Europe. The Alboran sea also hosts important commercial fisheries, including sardines and swordfish. The Mediterranean monk seals live in the Aegean Sea in Greece. In 2003, the World Wildlife Fund raised concerns about the widespread drift net fishing endangering populations of dolphins, turtles, and other marine animals.\n\nEnvironmental history\n\nFor 4,000 years, human activity has transformed most parts of Mediterranean Europe, and the \"humanisation of the landscape\" overlapped with the appearance of the present Mediterranean climate. The image of a simplistic, environmental determinist notion of a Mediterranean Paradise on Earth in antiquity, which was destroyed by later civilisations dates back to at least the 18th century and was for centuries fashionable in archaeological and historical circles. Based on a broad variety of methods, e.g. historical documents, analysis of trade relations, floodplain sediments, pollen, tree-ring and further archaeometric analyses and population studies, Alfred Thomas Grove and Oliver Rackham's work on \"The Nature of Mediterranean Europe\" challenges this common wisdom of a Mediterranean Europe as a \"Lost Eden\", a formerly fertile and forested region, that had been progressively degraded and desertified by human mismanagement. The belief stems more from the failure of the recent landscape to measure up to the imaginary past of the classics as idealised by artists, poets and scientists of the early modern Enlightenment.\n\nThe historical evolution of climate, vegetation and landscape in southern Europe from prehistoric times to the present is much more complex and underwent various changes. For example, some of the deforestation had already taken place before the Roman age. While in the Roman age large enterprises as the Latifundiums took effective care of forests and agriculture, the largest depopulation effects came with the end of the empire. Some assume that the major deforestation took place in modern times — the later usage patterns were also quite different e.g. in southern and northern Italy. Also, the climate has usually been unstable and showing various ancient and modern \"Little Ice Ages\", and plant cover accommodated to various extremes and became resilient with regard to various patterns of human activity.\n\nHumanisation was therefore not the cause of climate change but followed it. The wide ecological diversity typical of Mediterranean Europe is predominantly based on human behavior, as it is and has been closely related human usage patterns. The diversity range was enhanced by the widespread exchange and interaction of the longstanding and highly diverse local agriculture, intense transport and trade relations, and the interaction with settlements, pasture and other land use. The greatest human-induced changes, however, came after World War II, respectively in line with the '1950s-syndrome' as rural populations throughout the region abandoned traditional subsistence economies. Grove and Rackham suggest that the locals left the traditional agricultural patterns towards taking a role as scenery-setting agents for the then much more important (tourism) travelers. This resulted in more monotonous, large-scale formations. Among further current important threats to Mediterranean landscapes are overdevelopment of coastal areas, abandonment of mountains and, as mentioned, the loss of variety via the reduction of traditional agricultural occupations.The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History, by Alfred Thomas Grove, Oliver Rackham, Yale University Press, 2003, [http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn9780300100556 review at Yale university press] [https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth\n0&typesummary&url\n/journals/journal_of_interdisciplinary_history/v032/32.3fagan.pdfThe Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (review) Brian M. Fagan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 32, Number 3, Winter 2002, pp. 454-455 |]\n\nNatural hazards\n\nThe region has a variety of geological hazards which have closely interacted with human activity and land use patterns. Among others, in the eastern Mediterranean, the Thera eruption, dated to the 17th or 16th century BC, caused a large tsunami that some experts hypothesise devastated the Minoan civilisation on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the Atlantis legend. Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland, while others as Mount Etna and Stromboli are to be found on neighbouring islands. The region around Vesuvius including the Phlegraean Fields Caldera west of Naples are quite active and constitute the most densely populated volcanic region in the world and eruptive event may occur within decades. \n\nVesuvius itself is regarded as quite dangerous due to a tendency towards explosive (Plinian) eruptions.\nIt is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.\n\nThe large experience of member states and regional authorities has led to exchange on the international level with cooperation of NGOs, states, regional and municipality authorities and private persons.[http://www.infopuntveiligheid.nl/Infopuntdocumenten/7._Eric_van_der_Horst.pdf Eric van der Horst presentation from 2011 about various EU EUROPEAN CIVIL PROTECTION efforts 2011] The Greek–Turkish earthquake diplomacy is a quite positive example of natural hazards leading to improved relations of traditional rivals in the region after earthquakes in İzmir and Athens 1999. The European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) was set up to respond to major natural disasters and express European solidarity to disaster-stricken regions within all of Europe. The largest amount of fund requests in the EU is being directed to forest fires, followed by floodings and earthquakes. Forest fires are, whether man made or natural, an often recurring and dangerous hazard in the Mediterranean region. Also, tsunamis are an often underestimated hazard in the region. For example, the 1908 Messina earthquake and tsunami took more than 123,000 lives in Sicily and Calabria and is among the most deadly natural disasters in modern Europe.\n\nBiodiversity\n\nUnlike the vast multidirectional Ocean currents in open Oceans within their respective Oceanic zones; biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea is that of a stable one due to the subtle but strong locked nature of currents which affects favorably, even the smallest macroscopic type of Volcanic Life Form. The stable Marine ecosystem of the Mediterranean Sea and sea temperature provides a nourishing environment for life in the deep sea to flourish while assuring a balanced Aquatic ecosystem excluded from any external deep oceanic factors.\n\nInvasive species\n\nThe opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 created the first salt-water passage between the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The Red Sea is higher than the Eastern Mediterranean, so the canal serves as a tidal strait that pours Red Sea water into the Mediterranean. The Bitter Lakes, which are hyper-saline natural lakes that form part of the canal, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalised with that of the Red Sea, the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red Sea have begun to colonise the Eastern Mediterranean. The Red Sea is generally saltier and more nutrient-poor than the Atlantic, so the Red Sea species have advantages over Atlantic species in the salty and nutrient-poor Eastern Mediterranean. Accordingly, Red Sea species invade the Mediterranean biota, and not vice versa; this phenomenon is known as the Lessepsian migration (after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer) or Erythrean invasion. The construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in the 1960s reduced the inflow of freshwater and nutrient-rich silt from the Nile into the Eastern Mediterranean, making conditions there even more like the Red Sea and worsening the impact of the invasive species.\n\nInvasive species have become a major component of the Mediterranean ecosystem and have serious impacts on the Mediterranean ecology, endangering many local and endemic Mediterranean species. A first look at some groups of exotic species show that more than 70% of the non-indigenous decapods and about 63% of the exotic fishes occurring in the Mediterranean are of Indo Pacific origin, introduced into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. This makes the Canal as the first pathway of arrival of \"alien\" species into the Mediterranean. The impacts of some lessepsian species have proven to be considerable mainly in the Levantine basin of the Mediterranean, where they are replacing native species and becoming a \"familiar sight\".\n\nAccording to the International Union for Conservation of Nature definition, as well as Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Ramsar Convention terminologies, they are alien species, as they are non-native (non-indigenous) to the Mediterranean Sea, and they are outside their normal area of distribution which is the Indo-Pacific region. When these species succeed in establishing populations in the Mediterranean sea, compete with and begin to replace native species they are \"Alien Invasive Species\", as they are an agent of change and a threat to the native biodiversity. In the context of CBD, \"introduction\" refers to the movement by human agency, indirect or direct, of an alien species outside of its natural range (past or present). The Suez Canal, being an artificial (man made) canal, is a human agency. Lessepsian migrants are therefore \"introduced\" species (indirect, and unintentional). Whatever wording is chosen, they represent a threat to the native Mediterranean biodiversity, because they are non-indigenous to this sea. In recent years, the Egyptian government's announcement of its intentions to deepen and widen the canal have raised concerns from marine biologists, fearing that such an act will only worsen the invasion of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean, facilitating the crossing of the canal for yet additional species. \n\nArrival of new tropical Atlantic species\n\nIn recent decades, the arrival of exotic species from the tropical Atlantic has become a noticeable feature. Whether this reflects an expansion of the natural area of these species that now enter the Mediterranean through the Gibraltar strait, because of a warming trend of the water caused by global warming; or an extension of the maritime traffic; or is simply the result of a more intense scientific investigation, is still an open question. While not as intense as the \"lessepsian\" movement, the process may be scientific interest and may therefore warrant increased levels of monitoring.\n\nSea-level rise\n\nBy 2100, the overall level of the Mediterranean could rise between 3 to as a result of the effects of climate change. This could have adverse effects on populations across the Mediterranean:\n*Rising sea levels will submerge parts of Malta. Rising sea levels will also mean rising salt water levels in Malta's groundwater supply and reduce the availability of drinking water. \n*A 30 cm rise in sea level would flood 200 km2 of the Nile Delta, displacing over 500,000 Egyptians. \n\nCoastal ecosystems also appear to be threatened by sea level rise, especially enclosed seas such as the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. These seas have only small and primarily east-west movement corridors, which may restrict northward displacement of organisms in these areas. Sea level rise for the next century (2100) could be between 30 cm and 100 cm and temperature shifts of a mere 0.05-0.1 °C in the deep sea are sufficient to induce significant changes in species richness and functional diversity. \n\nPollution\n\nPollution in this region has been extremely high in recent years. The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that 650000000 t of sewage, 129000 t of mineral oil, 60000 t of mercury, 3800 t of lead and 36000 t of phosphates are dumped into the Mediterranean each year. The Barcelona Convention aims to 'reduce pollution in the Mediterranean Sea and protect and improve the marine environment in the area, thereby contributing to its sustainable development.' \nMany marine species have been almost wiped out because of the sea's pollution. One of them is the Mediterranean monk seal which is considered to be among the world's most endangered marine mammals. \n\nThe Mediterranean is also plagued by marine debris. A 1994 study of the seabed using trawl nets around the coasts of Spain, France and Italy reported a particularly high mean concentration of debris; an average of 1,935 items per km2. Plastic debris accounted for 76%, of which 94% was plastic bags. \n\nShipping\n\nSome of the world's busiest shipping routes are in the Mediterranean Sea. It is estimated that approximately 220,000 merchant vessels of more than 100 tonnes cross the Mediterranean Sea each year—about one third of the world's total merchant shipping. These ships often carry hazardous cargo, which if lost would result in severe damage to the marine environment.\n\nThe discharge of chemical tank washings and oily wastes also represent a significant source of marine pollution. The Mediterranean Sea constitutes 0.7% of the global water surface and yet receives 17% of global marine oil pollution. It is estimated that every year between 100000 t and 150000 t of crude oil are deliberately released into the sea from shipping activities.\n\nApproximately 370000000 t of oil are transported annually in the Mediterranean Sea (more than 20% of the world total), with around 250-300 oil tankers crossing the sea every day. Accidental oil spills happen frequently with an average of 10 spills per year. A major oil spill could occur at any time in any part of the Mediterranean.\n\nTourism on the Azure\n\nThe Mediterranean Sea is arguably among the safest and most culturally diverse block basin sea regions in the world, renowned formostly for the Majestic Azure colour. With a unique combination of pleasant climate, beautiful coastline, rich history and various cultures the Mediterranean region is the most popular tourist destination in the world—attracting approximately one third of the world's international tourists.\n\nTourism is one of the most important sources of income for many Mediterranean countries regardless of the man-made geopolitical conflicts that harbour coastal nations. In that regard, authorities around the Mediterranean have made it a point to extinguish rising man-made chaotic zones that would affect the economies, societies in neighboring coastal countries, let alone shipping routes. Naval and rescue components in the Mediterranean Sea are considered one of the very best due to the quick intercooperation of various Naval Fleets within proximity of each other. Unlike the vast open Oceans, the closed nature of the Mediterranean Sea provides a much more adaptable naval initiative among the coastal countries to provide effective naval and rescue missions, considered the safest and regardless of any man-made or natural disaster.\n\nTourism also supports small communities in coastal areas and islands by providing alternative sources of income far from urban centers. However, tourism has also played major role in the degradation of the coastal and marine environment. Rapid development has been encouraged by Mediterranean governments to support the large numbers of tourists visiting the region each year. But this has caused serious disturbance to marine habitats such as erosion and pollution in many places along the Mediterranean coasts.\n\nTourism often concentrates in areas of high natural wealth, causing a serious threat to the habitats of endangered Mediterranean species such as sea turtles and monk seals. Reductions in natural wealth may reduce incentives for tourists to visit.\n\nOverfishing\n\nFish stock levels in the Mediterranean Sea are alarmingly low. The European Environment Agency says that over 65% of all fish stocks in the region are outside safe biological limits and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, that some of the most important fisheries—such as albacore and bluefin tuna, hake, marlin, swordfish, red mullet and sea bream—are threatened.\n\nThere are clear indications that catch size and quality have declined, often dramatically, and in many areas larger and longer-lived species have disappeared entirely from commercial catches.\n\nLarge open water fish like tuna have been a shared fisheries resource for thousands of years but the stocks are now dangerously low. In 1999, Greenpeace published a report revealing that the amount of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean had decreased by over 80% in the previous 20 years and government scientists warn that without immediate action the stock will collapse.\n\nAquaculture\n\nAquaculture is expanding rapidly—often without proper environmental assessment—and currently accounts for 30% of the fish protein consumed worldwide. The industry claims that farmed seafood lessens the pressure on wild fish stocks, yet many of the farmed species are carnivorous, consuming up to five times their weight in wild fish.\n\nMediterranean coastal areas are already over exposed to human influence, with pristine areas becoming ever scarcer. The aquaculture sector adds to this pressure, requiring areas of high water quality to set up farms. The installation of fish farms close to vulnerable and important habitats such as seagrass meadows is particularly concerning.\n\nGallery\n\nFile:Hammametgolf.jpg|Beach of Hammamet, Tunisia\nFile:Plage-de-la-courtade.jpg|The beach of la Courtade in the Îles d'Hyères, France\nFile:Tuaredda beach, Sardinia, Italy.jpg|Sardinia's south coast, Italy\nFile:Malta - Birzebbuga - Triq il-Bajja s-Sabiha + Pretty Bay + Gnien Mons. Guzeppi Minuti 03 ies.jpg|Pretty Bay, Malta\nFile:Piran Stadtpanorama.jpg|Panoramic view of Piran, Slovenia\nFile:Cavtat Croatia 2008-10-07.JPG|Panoramic view of Cavtat, Croatia\nFile:Neum02451.JPG|View of Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina\nFile:svetistefan1756.JPG|A view of Sveti Stefan, Montenegro\nFile:Ksamil Beach.jpg|Ksamil beaches, Albania\nFile:Panagiotis wreck.jpg|Navagio, Greece\nFile:Marmaris TURKEY.JPG|Marmaris, Turquoise Coast, Turkey\nFile:Petra tou romiou beach.jpg|Paphos, Cyprus\nFile:Burjeslam.jpg|Burj Islam Beach, Latakia, Syria\nFile:BeirutRaouche1.jpg|A view of Raouché off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon\nFile:P1090840 (5149227688).jpg|View from the city of Haifa, Israel\nFile:Gaza Beach.jpg|Beach on the Gaza Strip, State of Palestine\nFile:Coast of Alexandria, A view From Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt.jpg|Coast of Alexandria, view From Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt\n|A beach in Benghazi, Libya\nFile:ForbysIbizaTown 02.jpg|Old city of Ibiza Town, Spain\nFile:Les Aiguades.jpg|Les Aiguades near Béjaïa, Algeria\nFile:EL Jebha1.jpg|El Jebha, a port town in Morocco\nFile:Gibraltar-Europa-Point-LH-from-the-sea.jpg|Europa Point, Gibraltar\nFile:Monaco City 001.jpg|Panoramic view of La Condamine, Monaco",
"The Red Sea (also the Erythraean Sea) is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion. The sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley.\n\nThe Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km2 (169,100 mi2), is about 2250 km (1398 mi) long and, at its widest point, 355 km (220.6 mi) wide. It has a maximum depth of 2211 m (7254 ft) in the central median trench, and an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft). However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the world's northernmost tropical sea.\n\nExtent\n\nThe International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows: \n\n:On the North. The Southern limits of the Gulfs of Suez [A line running from Ràs Muhammed (27°43'N) to the South point of Shadwan Island (34°02'E) and thence Westward on a parallel (27°27'N) to the coast of Africa] and Aqaba [A line running from Ràs al Fasma Southwesterly to Requin Island () through Tiran Island to the Southwest point thereof and thence Westward on a parallel (27°54'N) to the coast of the Sinaï Peninsula].\n:On the South. A line joining Husn Murad () and Ras Siyyan ().\n\nName\n\nRed Sea is a direct translation of the Greek Erythra Thalassa () and Latin Mare Rubrum (alternatively Sinus Arabicus, literally \"Arabian Gulf\"), Arabic Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar (البحر الأحمر) or Baḥr Al-Qulzum (بحر القلزم), Somali Badda Cas and Tigrinya Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī (ቀይሕ ባሕሪ). The name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water's surface. A theory favored by some modern scholars is that the name red is referring to the direction south, just as the Black Sea's name may refer to north. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions. Herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably. \n\nHistorically, it was also known to western geographers as Mare Mecca (Sea of Mecca), and Sinus Arabicus (Gulf of Arabia). Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. \n\nThe association of the Red Sea with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is ancient, and was made explicit in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Exodus from Hebrew to Koine Greek in approximately the third century B.C. In that version, the Hebrew Yam Suph (ים סוף) is translated as Erythra Thalassa (Red Sea). (See also the more recent suggestion that the Yam Suph of the Exodus refers to a Sea of Reeds). The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms — the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek Erythra thalassa in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the north-western part of the Indian Ocean, and also to a region on Mars.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient era\n\nThe earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, as they attempted to establish commercial routes to Punt. One such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC (by Hatshepsut). Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea. Historically, scholars argued whether these trips were possible. The biblical Book of Exodus tells the tale of the Israelites' crossing of a body of water, which the Hebrew text calls Yam Suph (). Yam Suph was traditionally identified as the Red Sea. Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882‒942 CE), in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, identifies the crossing place of the Red Sea as Baḥar al-Qulzum, meaning the Gulf of Suez. (The story is part of the larger biblical lore about an Exodus of Israelites under Moses). Yam Suph can also been translated as Sea of Reeds.\n\nIn the 6th century BC, Darius the Great of Persia sent reconnaissance missions to the Red Sea, improving and extending navigation by locating many hazardous rocks and currents. A canal was built between the Nile and the northern end of the Red Sea at Suez. In the late 4th century BC, Alexander the Great sent Greek naval expeditions down the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Greek navigators continued to explore and compile data on the Red Sea. Agatharchides collected information about the sea in the 2nd century BC. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (\"Periplus of the Red Sea\"), a Greek periplus written by an unknown author around the 1st century AD, contains a detailed description of the Red Sea's ports and sea routes. The Periplus also describes how Hippalus first discovered the direct route from the Red Sea to India.\n\nThe Red Sea was favored for Roman trade with India starting with the reign of Augustus, when the Roman Empire gained control over the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the northern Red Sea. The route had been used by previous states but grew in the volume of traffic under the Romans. From Indian ports goods from China were introduced to the Roman world. Contact between Rome and China depended on the Red Sea, but the route was broken by the Aksumite Empire around the 3rd century AD. \n\nMiddle Ages and modern era\n\nDuring the Middle Ages, the Red Sea was an important part of the spice trade route. In 1513, trying to secure that channel to Portugal, Afonso de Albuquerque laid siege to Aden but was forced to retreat. They cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, as the first European fleet to have sailed these waters.\n\nIn 1798, France ordered General Napoleon to invade Egypt and take control of the Red Sea. Although he failed in his mission, the engineer Jean-Baptiste Lepère, who took part in it, revitalised the plan for a canal which had been envisaged during the reign of the Pharaohs. Several canals were built in ancient times from the Nile to the Red Sea along or near the line of the present Sweet Water Canal, but none lasted for long. The Suez Canal was opened in November 1869. At the time, the British, French, and Italians shared the trading posts. The posts were gradually dismantled following the First World War. After the Second World War, the Americans and Soviets exerted their influence whilst the volume of oil tanker traffic intensified. However, the Six Day War culminated in the closure of the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975. Today, in spite of patrols by the major maritime fleets in the waters of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal has never recovered its supremacy over the Cape route, which is believed to be less vulnerable.\n\nOceanography\n\nThe Red Sea is between arid land, desert and semi-desert. Reef systems are better developed along the Red Sea mainly because of its greater depths and an efficient water circulation pattern. The Red Sea water mass-exchanges its water with the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. These physical factors reduce the effect of high salinity caused by evaporation in the north and relatively hot water in the south.\n\nThe climate of the Red Sea is the result of two monsoon seasons; a northeasterly monsoon and a southwesterly monsoon. Monsoon winds occur because of differential heating between the land and the sea. Very high surface temperatures and high salinities make this one of the warmest and saltiest bodies of seawater in the world. The average surface water temperature of the Red Sea during the summer is about 26 C in the north and 30 C in the south, with only about 2 °C (3.6 °F) variation during the winter months. The overall average water temperature is 22 C. Temperature and visibility remain good to around 200 m (656 ft). The sea is known for its strong winds and unpredictable local currents.\n\nThe rainfall over the Red Sea and its coasts is extremely low, averaging per year. The rain is mostly short showers, often with thunderstorms and occasionally with dust storms. The scarcity of rainfall and no major source of fresh water to the Red Sea result in excess evaporation as high as 205 cm per year and high salinity with minimal seasonal variation. A recent underwater expedition to the Red Sea offshore from Sudan and Eritrea found surface water temperatures 28 °C in winter and up to 34 °C in the summer, but despite that extreme heat the coral was healthy with much fish life with very little sign of coral bleaching, with only 9% infected by Thalassomonas loyana, the 'white plague' agent. Favia favus coral there harbours a virus, BA3, which kills T.loyana. \nPlans are afoot to use samples of these corals' apparently heat-adapted commensal algae to salvage bleached coral elsewhere.\n\nSalinity\n\nThe Red Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, owing to high evaporation. Salinity ranges from between ~36 ‰ in the southern part because of the effect of the Gulf of Aden water and reaches 41 ‰ in the northern part, owing mainly to the Gulf of Suez water and the high evaporation. The average salinity is 40 ‰. (Average salinity for the world's seawater is ~35 ‰ on the Practical Salinity Scale, or PPS; that translates to 3.5% actual dissolved salts.)\n\nThe salinity of the Red Sea is greater than the world average, approximately 4 percent. This is due to several factors:\n# High rate of evaporation and very little precipitation.\n# Lack of significant rivers or streams draining into the sea.\n# Limited connection with the Indian Ocean, which has lower water salinity.\n\nTidal range\n\nIn general tide ranges between in the north, near the mouth of the Gulf of Suez and in the south near the Gulf of Aden but it fluctuates between and away from the nodal point. The central Red Sea (Jeddah area) is therefore almost tideless, and as such the annual water level changes are more significant. Because of the small tidal range the water during high tide inundates the coastal sabkhas as a thin sheet of water up to a few hundred metres rather than flooding the sabkhas through a network of channels. However, south of Jeddah in the Shoiaba area the water from the lagoon may cover the adjoining sabkhas as far as 3 km, whereas, north of Jeddah in the Al-Kharrar area the sabkhas are covered by a thin sheet of water as far as 2 km. The prevailing north and northeast winds influence the movement of water in the coastal inlets to the adjacent sabkhas, especially during storms. Winter mean sea level is higher than in summer. Tidal velocities passing through constrictions caused by reefs, sand bars and low islands commonly exceed 1–2 m/s (3–6.5 ft/s). Coral reefs in the Red Sea are near Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.\n\nCurrent\n\nIn the Red Sea detailed current data is lacking, partially because they are weak and variable both spatially and temporally. Temporal and spatial currents variation is as low as and are governed all by wind. During the summer, NW winds drive surface water south for about four months at a velocity of 15–20 cm/s (6–8 in/s), whereas in winter the flow is reversed resulting in the inflow of water from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. The net value of the latter predominates, resulting in an overall drift to the north end of the Red Sea. Generally, the velocity of the tidal current is between 50–60 cm/s (20–23.6 in/s) with a maximum of 1 m/s at the mouth of the al-Kharrar Lagoon. However, the range of the north-northeast current along the Saudi coast is 8–29 cm/s (3–11.4 in/s).\n\nWind regime\n\nThe north part of the Red Sea is dominated by persistent north-west winds, with speeds ranging between 7 km/h and 12 km/h. The rest of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are subjected to regular and seasonally reversible winds. The wind regime is characterized by seasonal and regional variations in speed and direction with average speed generally increasing northward.\n\nWind is the driving force in the Red Sea to transport material as suspension or as bedload. Wind-induced currents play an important role in the Red Sea in resuspending bottom sediments and transferring materials from sites of dumping to sites of burial in quiescent environment of deposition. Wind-generated current measurement is therefore important in order to determine the sediment dispersal pattern and its role in the erosion and accretion of the coastal rock exposure and the submerged coral beds.\n\nGeology\n\nThe Red Sea was formed by the Arabian peninsula being split from the Horn of Africa by movement of the Red Sea Rift. This split started in the Eocene and accelerated during the Oligocene. The sea is still widening, and it is considered that it will become an ocean in time (as proposed in the model of John Tuzo Wilson). In 1949, a deep water survey reported anomalously hot brines in the central portion of the Red Sea. Later work in the 1960s confirmed the presence of hot, 60 °C (140 °F), saline brines and associated metalliferous muds. The hot solutions were emanating from an active subseafloor rift. The high salinity of the waters was not hospitable to living organisms. \n\nSometime during the Tertiary period, the Bab el Mandeb closed and the Red Sea evaporated to an empty hot dry salt-floored sink. Effects causing this would have been:\n*A \"race\" between the Red Sea widening and Perim Island erupting filling the Bab el Mandeb with lava.\n*The lowering of world sea level during the Ice Ages because of much water being locked up in the ice caps.\n\nA number of volcanic islands rise from the center of the sea. Most are dormant. However, in 2007, Jabal al-Tair island in the Bab el Mandeb strait erupted violently. Two new islands were formed in 2011 and 2013 in the Zubair Archipelago, a small chain of islands owned by Yemen. The first island named Sholan Island emerged in an eruption in December 2011, the second island named Jadid emerged in September 2013. \n\nMineral resources\n\nIn terms of mineral resources the major constituents of the Red Sea sediments are as follows:\n*Biogenic constituents:\nNanofossils, foraminifera, pteropods, siliceous fossils\n*Volcanogenic constituents:\nTuffites, volcanic ash, montmorillonite, cristobalite, zeolites\n*Terrigenous constituents:\nQuartz, feldspars, rock fragments, mica, heavy minerals, clay minerals\n*Authigenic minerals:\nSulfide minerals, aragonite, Mg-calcite, protodolomite, dolomite, quartz, chalcedony.\n*Evaporite minerals:\nMagnesite, gypsum, anhydrite, halite, polyhalite\n*Brine precipitate:\nFe-montmorillonite, goethite, hematite, siderite, rhodochrosite, pyrite, sphalerite, anhydrite.\n\nLiving resources\n\nThe Red Sea is a rich and diverse ecosystem. More than 1200 species of fish have been recorded in the Red Sea, and around 10% of these are found nowhere else. This also includes 42 species of deepwater fish. \n\nThe rich diversity is in part due to the 2000 km of coral reef extending along its coastline; these fringing reefs are 5000–7000 years old and are largely formed of stony acropora and porites corals. The reefs form platforms and sometimes lagoons along the coast and occasional other features such as cylinders (such as the Blue Hole (Red Sea) at Dahab). These coastal reefs are also visited by pelagic species of Red Sea fish, including some of the 44 species of shark.\n\nThe Red Sea also contains many offshore reefs including several true atolls. Many of the unusual offshore reef formations defy classic (i.e., Darwinian) coral reef classification schemes, and are generally attributed to the high levels of tectonic activity that characterize the area.\n\nThe special biodiversity of the area is recognized by the Egyptian government, who set up the Ras Mohammed National Park in 1983. The rules and regulations governing this area protect local marine life, which has become a major draw for diving enthusiasts.\n\nDivers and snorkellers should be aware that although most Red Sea species are innocuous, a few are hazardous to humans: see Red Sea species hazardous to humans. \n\nOther marine habitats include sea grass beds, salt pans, mangroves and salt marshes.\n\nDesalination plants \n\nThere is extensive demand for desalinated water to meet the needs of the population and the industries along the Red Sea.\n\nThere are at least 18 desalination plants along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia which discharge warm brine and treatment chemicals (chlorine and anti-scalants) that bleach and kill corals and cause diseases to the fish. This is only localized, but it may intensify with time and profoundly impact the fishing industry. \n\nThe water from the Red Sea is also used by oil refineries and cement factories for cooling. Used water drained back into the coastal zones may harm the nearshore environment of the Red Sea.\n\nSecurity\n\nThe Red Sea is part of the sea roads between Europe, the Persian Gulf and East Asia, and as such has heavy shipping traffic. Government-related bodies with responsibility to police the Red Sea area include the Port Said Port Authority, Suez Canal Authority and Red Sea Ports Authority of Egypt, Jordan Maritime Authority, Israel Port Authority, Saudi Ports Authority and Sea Ports Corporation of Sudan.\n\nFacts and figures \n\n* Length: ~2250 km - 79% of the eastern Red Sea with numerous coastal inlets\n* Maximum Width: ~ 306–355 km (190–220 mi)– Massawa (Eritrea)\n* Minimum Width: ~ 26–29 km (16–18 mi)- Bab el Mandeb Strait (Yemen)\n* Average Width: ~ 280 km\n* Average Depth: ~ 490 m\n* Maximum Depth: ~2211 m\n* Surface Area: 438-450 x 102 km2 (16,900–17,400 sq mi)\n* Volume: 215–251 x 103 km3 (51,600–60,200 cu mi)\n\n* Approximately 40% of the Red Sea is quite shallow (under 100 m/330 ft), and about 25% is under 50 m deep.\n* About 15% of the Red Sea is over 1000 m depth that forms the deep axial trough.\n* Shelf breaks are marked by coral reefs\n* Continental slope has an irregular profile (series of steps down to ~500 m)\n* Centre of Red Sea has a narrow trough (~ 1000 m; some deeps may exceed 2500 m)\n\nTourism\n\nThe sea is known for its spectacular recreational diving sites, such as Ras Mohammed, SS Thistlegorm (shipwreck), Elphinstone Reef, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef, St.John's Reef, Rocky Island in Egypt[http://www.dive-the-world.com/diving-sites-red-sea.php Scuba Diving in Egypt - The Red Sea: Holidays in Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef and St. John's - Liveaboard and Day Trips] and less known sites in Sudan such as Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi.\n\nThe Red Sea became a sought-after diving destination after the expeditions of Hans Hass in the 1950s, and later by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Popular tourist resorts include El Gouna, Hurghada, Safaga, Marsa Alam, on the west shore of the Red Sea, and Sharm-el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Taba on the Egyptian side of Sinaï, as well as Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel in an area known as the Red Sea Riviera.\n\nThe popular tourist beach of Sharm el-Sheikh was closed to all swimming in December 2010 due to several serious shark attacks, including a fatality. As of December 2010, scientists are investigating the attacks and have identified, but not verified, several possible causes including over-fishing which causes large sharks to hunt closer to shore, tourist boat operators who chum offshore for shark-photo opportunities, and reports of ships throwing dead livestock overboard. The sea's narrowness, significant depth, and sharp drop-offs, all combine to form a geography where large deep-water sharks can roam in hundreds of meters of water, yet be within a hundred meters of swimming areas.\n\nBordering countries\n\nThe Red Sea may be geographically divided into three sections: the Red Sea proper, and in the north, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez. The six countries bordering the Red Sea proper are:\n\n* Eastern shore:\n** \n** \n* Western shore:\n** \n** \n** \n** \n\nThe Gulf of Suez is entirely bordered by Egypt. The Gulf of Aqaba borders Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.\n\nIn addition to the standard geographical definition of the six countries bordering the Red Sea cited above, areas such as Somalia are sometimes also described as Red Sea territories. This is primarily due to their proximity to and geological similarities with the nations facing the Red Sea and/or political ties with said areas. \n\nTowns and cities\n\nTowns and cities on the Red Sea coast (including the coasts of the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez) include:\n\n* Al Hudaydah (الحديدة)\n* Al Lith (الليِّث)\n* Al Qunfudhah (القنفذة)\n* Al-Qusair (القصير)\n* Al Wajh (الوجه)\n* Aqaba (العقبة)\n* Asseb (ዓሳብ)\n* Dahab (دهب)\n* Duba (ضباء)\n* Eilat (אילת ، ايلات)\n* El Gouna (الجونة)\n\n* El Suweis (السويس)\n* / Hala'ib (حلايب) (disputed)\n* Haql (حقل)\n* Hirgigo (ሕርጊጎ)\n* Hurghada (الغردقة)\n* Jeddah (جدة)\n* Jazan (جازان)\n* Marsa Alam (مرسى علم)\n* Massawa (ምጽዋ)\n* Moulhoule (Moulhoulé ،مول هولة ) \n \n* Nuweiba (نويبع)\n* Port Safaga (ميناء سفاجا)\n* Port Sudan (بورت سودان)\n* Rabigh (رابغ)\n* Sharm el Sheikh (شرم الشيخ)\n* Soma Bay (سوما باي)\n* Suakin (سواكن)\n* Taba (طابا)\n* Thuwal (ثول)\n* Yanbu (ينبع)"
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In which country is the Aswan Dam?
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tc_206
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Aswan Dam is an embankment dam built across the Nile at Aswan, Egypt between 1898 and 1902. Since the 1960s, the name commonly refers to the Aswan High Dam. Construction of the High Dam became a key objective of the Egyptian Government following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, as the ability to control floods, provide water for irrigation, and generate hydroelectricity were seen as pivotal to Egypt's industrialization. The High Dam was constructed between 1960 and 1970, and has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt.\n\nBefore the dams were built, the Nile flooded every year during late summer, when water flowed down the valley from its East African drainage basin. These floods brought high water and natural nutrients and minerals that annually enriched the fertile soil along the floodplain and delta; this had made the Nile valley ideal for farming since ancient times. Because floods vary, in high-water years the whole crop might be wiped out, while in low-water years widespread drought and famine occasionally occurred. As Egypt's population grew and conditions changed, both a desire and ability developed to control the floods, and thus both protect and support farmland and the economically important cotton crop. With the reservoir storage provided by the Aswan dams, the floods could be lessened and the water stored for later release.\n\nConstruction history\n\nThe earliest recorded attempt to build a dam near Aswan was in the 11th century, when the Arab polymath and engineer Ibn al-Haytham (known as Alhazen in the West) was summoned to Egypt by the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the flooding of the Nile, a task requiring an early attempt at an Aswan Dam. His field work convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme. \n\nAswan Low Dam, 1898–1902\n\nThe British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902, and the dam was opened on 10 December 1902. The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor. \n\nAswan High Dam prelude, 1954–1959\n\nIn 1912 the Greek-Egyptian engineer Adrian Daninos began to develop the plan of the new Aswan Dam. Although the Low Dam was almost over-topped in 1946, the Egyptian government of King Farouk showed no interest in Daninos's plans. Instead the Nile Valley Plan by British hydrologist Harold Edwin Hurst to store water in Sudan and Ethiopia, where evaporation is much lower, was favored. The Egyptian position changed completely with the overthrow of the monarchy, led by the Free Officers Movement including Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Free Officers were convinced that the Nile Waters had to be stored in Egypt for political reasons, and within two months the plan of Daninos was accepted. Initially, both the US and the Soviet Union were interested in the development of the dam, but this occurred in the midst of the Cold War, as well as growing intra-Arab rivalries.\n\nIn 1955 Nasser was trying to portray himself as the leader of Arab nationalism, in opposition to the traditional monarchies, especially Hashemite Iraq following its signing of the 1955 Baghdad Pact. At that time the US feared that communism would spread to the Middle East and saw Nasser as a natural leader of an anti-communist pro-capitalist Arab League. America and Britain offered to help finance construction of the high dam, with a loan of US$270 million, in return for Nasser's leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed both to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, and sought to work with both the United States and the Soviet Union for Egyptian and Arab benefit. After a particularly criticized raid by Israel against Egyptian forces in Gaza in 1955, Nasser realized that he could not legitimately portray himself as the leader of pan-Arab nationalism if he could not defend his country militarily against Israel. In addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and turned first to the US.\n\nUS Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and American President Dwight Eisenhower told Nasser that the US would supply him with weapons only if they were used for defensive purposes and accompanied by US military personnel for supervision and training. Nasser did not accept these conditions and then looked to the Soviet Union for support. Although Dulles believed that Nasser was only bluffing and that the Soviet Union would not aid Nasser, he was wrong—the Soviet Union promised Nasser a quantity of arms in exchange for a deferred payment of Egyptian grain and cotton. On 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support. Instead of attacking Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him. This explains the later offer of December 1955, in which the US and Britain pledged $56 and $14 million respectively towards the construction of the dam. \n\nThough the Czech arms deal actually increased US willingness to invest in Aswan, the British cited the deal as a reason for betraying their promise of funds. What angered Dulles much more was Nasser's recognition of China, which was in direct conflict with Dulles's policy of containment. There are several other reasons why the US decided to withdraw the offer of funding. Dulles believed that the Soviet Union would not fulfill its commitment to help the Egyptians. He was also irritated by Nasser's neutrality and attempts to play both sides of the Cold War. At the time, other western allies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, were irritated and jealous that Egypt, a persistently neutral country, was being offered so much aid. \n\nIn June 1956, the Soviets offered Nasser $1.12 billion at 2% interest for the construction of the dam. On 19 July the US State Department announced that American financial assistance for the High Dam was \"not feasible in present circumstances.\" \n\nOn 26 July 1956, with wide Egyptian acclaim, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal as well as fair compensation for the former owners. Nasser planned on the revenues generated by the canal helping to fund construction of the High Dam. When the Suez War broke out, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel seized the canal and the Sinai, but pressure from the US and the Soviet Union at the United Nations and elsewhere forced them to withdraw.\n\nIn 1958, the Soviet Union provided funding for the dam project.\n\nIn the 1950s, archaeologists began raising concerns that several major historical sites, including the famous temple of Abu Simbel were about to be under water. A rescue operation began in 1960 under UNESCO (for details see below under Effects).\n\nConstruction and filling, 1960–1976\n\nThe Soviets also provided technicians and heavy machinery. The enormous rock and clay dam was designed by the Soviet Hydroproject Institute along with some Egyptian engineers. 25,000 Egyptian engineers and workers contributed to the construction of the dams.\n\nOn the Egyptian side, the project was led by Osman Ahmed Osman's Arab Contractors. The relatively young Osman underbid his only competitor by one-half. \n* 1960: Start of construction on 9 January \n* 1964: First dam construction stage completed, reservoir started filling\n* 1970: The High Dam, as-Sad al-'Aali, completed on 21 July \n* 1976: Reservoir reached capacity\n* 2011: plans to build extension to dam\n\nSpecifications\n\nThe Aswan High Dam is 3830 m long, wide at the base, wide at the crest and tall. It contains of material. At maximum, 11000 m3/s of water can pass through the dam. There are further emergency spillways for an extra 5000 m3/s, and the Toshka Canal links the reservoir to the Toshka Depression. The reservoir, named Lake Nasser, is long and at its widest, with a surface area of 5250 km2. It holds 132 km3 of water.\n\nIrrigation scheme\n\nDue to the absence of appreciable rainfall, Egypt's agriculture depends entirely on irrigation. With irrigation, two crops per year can be produced, except for sugar cane which has a growing period of almost one year.\n\nThe high dam at Aswan releases, on average, 55 km3 water per year, of which some 46 km3 are diverted into the irrigation canals.\n\nIn the Nile valley and delta, almost 33600 km2 benefit from these waters producing on average 1.8 crops per year. The annual crop consumptive use of water is about 38 km3. Hence, the overall irrigation efficiency is 38/46 = 0.82 or 82%. This is a relatively high irrigation efficiency. The field irrigation efficiencies are much less, but the losses are re-used downstream. This continuous re-use accounts for the high overall efficiency.\n\nThe following table shows that the equal distribution of irrigation water over the branch canals taking off from the one main irrigation canal, the Mansuriya Canal near Giza, leaves much to be desired: \n\n* Period 1 March to 31 July. 1 feddan is 0.42 ha or about 1 acre.\n* Data from the Egyptian Water Use Management Project (EWUP) \n\nThe salt concentration of the water in the Aswan reservoir is about , a very low salinity level. At an annual inflow of 55 km3, the annual salt import reaches 14 million tons. The average salt concentration of the drainage water evacuated into the sea and the coastal lakes is . At an annual discharge of 10 km3 (not counting the 2 kg/m3 of salt intrusion from the sea and the lakes, see figure \"Water balances\"), the annual salt export reaches 27 million ton. In 1995, the salt export was higher than the import, and Egypt's agricultural lands were desalinizing. Part of this could be due to the large number of subsurface drainage projects executed in the last decades to control the water table and soil salinity. \n\nDrainage through sub-surface drains and drainage channels is essential to prevent a deterioration of crop yields from waterlogging and soil salinization caused by irrigation. By 2003, more than 20000 km2 have been equipped with a subsurface drainage system and approximately of water is drained annually from areas with these systems. The total investment cost in agricultural drainage over 27 years from 1973 to 2002 was about US$3.1 billion covering the cost of design, construction, maintenance, research and training. During this period 11 large-scale projects were implemented with financial support from World Bank and other donors \n\nEffects\n\nThe High Dam has resulted in protection from floods and droughts, an increase in agricultural production and employment, electricity production and improved navigation that benefits tourism. Conversely, the dam flooded a large area, causing the relocation of over 100,000 people. Many archaeological sites were submerged while others were relocated. The dam is blamed for coastline erosion, soil salinity and health problems.\n\nThe assessment of the costs and benefits of the dam remains controversial decades after its completion. According to one estimate, the annual economic benefit of the High Dam immediately after its completion was E£255 million (US$587 million using the 1970 exchange rate of US$2.30 per E£1): £140 million from agricultural production, £100 million from hydroelectric generation, £10 million from flood protection, and £5 million from improved navigation. At the time of its construction, total cost, including unspecified \"subsidiary projects\" and the extension of electric power lines, amounted to £450 million. Not taking into account the negative environmental and social effects of the dam, its costs are thus estimated to have been recovered within only two years. One observer notes: \"The impacts of the Aswan High Dam (...) have been overwhelmingly positive. Although the Dam has contributed to some environmental problems, these have proved to be significantly less severe than was generally expected, or currently believed by many people.\" Another observer disagrees and recommended that the dam should be torn down. Tearing it down would cost only a fraction of the funds required for \"continually combating the dam's consequential damage\" and 500,000 hectares of fertile land could be reclaimed from the layers of mud on the bed of the drained reservoir. \n\nPeriodic floods and droughts have affected Egypt since ancient times. The dam mitigated the effects of floods, such as those in 1964, 1973 and 1988. Navigation along the river has been improved, both upstream and downstream of the dam. Sailing along the Nile is a favorite tourism activity, which is mainly done during winter when the natural flow of the Nile would have been too low to allow navigation of cruise ships. A new fishing industry has been created around Lake Nasser, though it is struggling due to its distance from any significant markets. The annual production was about 35 000 tons in the mid-1990s. Factories for the fishing industry and packaging have been set up near the Lake.\n\nDrought protection, agricultural production and employment\n\nThe dams also protected Egypt from the droughts in 1972–1973 and 1983–1987 that devastated East and West Africa. The High Dam allowed Egypt to reclaim about 2 million feddan (840,000 hectares) in the Delta and along the Nile Valley, increasing the country's irrigated area by a third. The increase was brought about both by irrigating what used to be desert and by bringing under cultivation of 385,000 ha that were previously used as flood retention basins. About half a million families were settled on these new lands. In particular the area under rice and sugar cane cultivation increased. In addition, about 1 million feddan (420,000 hectares), mostly in Upper Egypt, were converted from flood irrigation with only one crop per year to perennial irrigation allowing two or more crops per year. On other previously irrigated land, yields increased because water could be made available at critical low-flow periods. For example, wheat yields in Egypt tripled between 1952 and 1991 and better availability of water contributed to this increase. Most of the 32 km³ of freshwater, or almost 40 percent of the average flow of the Nile that were previously lost to the sea every year could be put to beneficial use. While about 10 km³ of the water saved is lost due to evaporation in Lake Nasser, the amount of water available for irrigation still increased by 22 km³. Other estimates put evaporation from Lake Nasser at between 10 and 16 cubic km per year. \n\nElectricity production\n\nThe dam powers twelve generators each rated at 175 MW, with a total of . Power generation began in 1967. When the dam first reached peak output it produced around half of Egypt's entire electricity production (about 15 percent by 1998) and allowed most Egyptian villages to use electricity for the first time. The High Dam has also improved the efficiency and the extension of the Old Aswan Hydropower stations by regulating upstream flows.\n\nResettlement\n\nLake Nasser flooded much of lower Nubia and 100,000 to 120,000 people were resettled in Sudan and Egypt. \n\nIn Sudan, 50,000 to 70,000 Sudanese Nubians were moved from the old town of Wadi Halfa and its surrounding villages. Some were moved to a newly created settlement on the shore of Lake Nasser called New Wadi Halfa, and some were resettled approximately 700 kilometres south to the semi-arid Butana plain near the town of Khashm el-Girba up the Atbara River. The climate there had a regular rainy season as opposed to their previous desert habitat in which virtually no rain fell. The government developed an irrigation project, called the New Halfa Agricultural Development Scheme to grow cotton, grains, sugar cane and other crops. The Nubians were resettled in twenty five planned villages that included schools, medical facilities and other services including piped water and some electrification.\n\nIn Egypt, the majority of the 50,000 Nubians were moved three to ten kilometers from the Nile near Kom Ombo, 45 kilometers downstream from Aswan in what was called “New Nubia”. Housing and facilities were built for 47 village units whose relationship to each other approximated that in Old Nubia. Irrigated land was provided to grow mainly sugar cane. \n\nArchaeological sites\n\n22 monuments and architectural complexes, including the Abu Simbel temples, that were threatened by flooding from Lake Nasser were preserved by moving them to the shores of Lake Nasser under the UNESCO Nubia Campaign. Also moved were Philae, Kalabsha and Amada. Other monuments were granted to countries that helped with the works (such as the Debod temple in Madrid, the Temple of Taffeh in Leiden and the Temple of Dendur in New York). The remaining archaeological sites, including the Buhen fort have been flooded by Lake Nasser.\n\nLoss of sediments\n\nBefore the construction of the High Dam, the Nile deposited sediments of various particle size – consisting of fine sand, silt and clay – on fields in Upper Egypt through its annual flood, contributing to soil fertility. However, the nutrient value of the sediment has often been overestimated. 88 percent of the sediment was carried to the sea before the construction of the High Dam. The nutrient value added to the land by the sediment was only 6,000 tons of potash, 7,000 tons of phosphorus pentoxide and 17,000 tons of nitrogen. These amounts are insignificant compared to what is needed to reach the yields achieved today in Egypt's irrigation. Also, the annual spread of sediment due to the Nile floods occurred along the banks of the Nile. Areas far from the river which never received the Nile floods before are now being irrigated. \n\nThe trapping of sediment by the dam has also increased coastline erosion surrounding the Nile Delta. The coastline erodes an estimated per year. \n\nWaterlogging and increase in soil salinity\n\nBefore the construction of the High Dam, groundwater levels in the Nile Valley fluctuated 8–9 m per year with the water level of the Nile. During summer when evaporation was highest, the groundwater level was too deep to allow salts dissolved in the water to be pulled to the surface through capillary action. With the disappearance of the annual flood and heavy year-round irrigation, groundwater levels remained high with little fluctuation leading to waterlogging. Soil salinity also increased because the distance between the surface and the groundwater table was small enough (1–2 m depending on soil conditions and temperature) to allow water to be pulled up by evaporation so that the relatively small concentrations of salt in the groundwater accumulated on the soil surface over the years. Since most of the farmland did not have proper subsurface drainage to lower the groundwater table, salinization gradually affected crop yields. Drainage through sub-surface drains and drainage channels is essential to prevent a deterioration of crop yields from soil salinization and waterlogging. By 2003, more than 2 million have been equipped with a subsurface drainage system at a cost from 1973 to 2002 of about US$3.1 billion. \n\nHealth\n\nContrary to many predictions made prior to the Aswan High Dam construction and publications that followed, that the prevalence of bilharzia (schistosomiasis) would increase, it did not. This assumption did not take into account the extent of perennial irrigation that was already present throughout Egypt decades before the high dam closure. By the 1950s only a small proportion of Upper Egypt had not been converted from basin (low transmission) to perennial (high transmission) irrigation. Expansion of perennial irrigation systems in Egypt did not depend on the high dam. In fact, within 15 years of the high dam closure there was solid evidence that biharzia was declining in Upper Egypt. S. haematobium has since disappeared altogether. Suggested reasons for this include improvements in irrigation practice. In the Nile Delta, schistosomaisis had been highly endemic, with prevalence in the villages 50% or higher for almost a century before. This was a consequence of the conversion of the Delta to perennial irrigation to grow long staple cotton by the British. This has changed. Large scale treatment programs in the 1990s using single dose oral medication contributed greatly to reducing the prevalence and severity of S. mansoni in the Delta.\n\nOther effects\n\nSediment deposited in the reservoir is lowering the water storage capacity of Lake Nasser. The reservoir storage capacity is 162 km³, including 31 km³ dead storage at the bottom of the lake below 147 m above sea level, 90 km³ live storage, and 41 km³ of storage for high flood waters above 175m above sea level. The annual sediment load of the Nile is about 134 million tons. This means that the dead storage volume would be filled up after 300–500 years if the sediment accumulated at the same rate throughout the area of the lake. Obviously sediment accumulates much faster at the upper reaches of the lake, where sedimentation has already affected the live storage zone.\n\nBefore the construction of the High Dam, the 50,000 km of irrigation and drainage canals in Egypt had to be dredged regularly to remove sediments. After construction of the dam, aquatic weeds grew much faster in the clearer water, helped by fertilizer residues. The total length of the infested waterways was about 27,000 km in the mid-1990s. Weeds have been gradually brought under control by manual, mechanical and biological methods.\n\nMediterranean fishing and brackish water lake fishery declined after the dam was finished because nutrients that flowed down the Nile to the Mediterranean were trapped behind the dam. For example, the Sardine catch off the Egyptian coast declined from 18,000 tons in 1962 to a mere 460 tons in 1968, but then gradually recovered to 8,590 tons in 1992. A scientific article in the mid-1990s noted that \"the mismatch between low primary productivity and relatively high levels of fish production in the region still presents a puzzle to scientists.\" \n\nA concern before the construction of the High Dam had been the potential drop in river-bed level downstream of the Dam as the result of erosion caused by the flow of sediment-free water. Estimates by various national and international experts put this drop at between 2 and 10 meters. However, the actual drop has been measured at 0.3–0.7 meters, much less than expected.\n\nThe red-brick construction industry, which consisted of hundreds of factories that used Nile sediment deposits along the river, has also been negatively affected. Deprived of sediment, they started using the older alluvium of otherwise arable land taking out of production up to 120 square kilometers annually, with an estimated 1,000 square kilometers destroyed by 1984 when the government prohibited, “with only modest success,” further excavation. According to one source, bricks are now being made from new techniques which use a sand-clay mixture and it has been argued that the mud-based brick industry would have suffered even if the dam had not been built.\n\nBecause of the lower turbidity of the water sunlight penetrates deeper in the Nile water. Because of this and the increased presence of nutrients from fertilizers in the water, more algae grow in the Nile. This in turn increases the costs of drinking water treatment. Apparently few experts had expected that water quality in the Nile would actually decrease because of the High Dam."
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Where did Idi Amin rule from 1971-1979?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Idi Amin Dada (; 2816 August 2003) was the third President of Uganda, ruling from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment the King's African Rifles in 1946, serving in Kenya and Uganda. Eventually, Amin held the rank of major general in the post-colonial Ugandan Army, and became its commander before seizing power in the military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. He later promoted himself to field marshal while he was the head of state.\n\nAmin's rule was characterized by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000. \n\nDuring his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany.Gareth M. Winrow. The Foreign Policy of the GDR in Africa, p. 141. In 1975, Amin became the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), a Pan-Africanist group designed to promote solidarity of the African states. During the 1977–1979 period, Uganda was a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Amin did however enjoy the support of the American CIA, which helped deliver bombs and other military equipment to Amin's Army and helped take part in military operations with Amin's forces in Uganda. In 1977, when Britain broke diplomatic relations with Uganda, Amin declared he had defeated the British and added \"CBE\", for \"Conqueror of the British Empire\", to his title. Radio Uganda then announced his entire title: \"His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE\".\n\nDissent within Uganda and Amin's attempt to annex the Kagera province of Tanzania in 1978, led to the Uganda–Tanzania War and the demise of his eight-year regime, leading Amin to flee into exile to Libya and then Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death on 16 August 2003.\n\nBiography \n\nEarly life \n\nAmin never wrote an autobiography nor did he authorize any official written account of his life, so there are discrepancies regarding when and where he was born. Most biographical sources hold that he was born in either Koboko or Kampala around 1925. Other unconfirmed sources state Amin's year of birth from as early as 1923 to as late as 1928. Amin's son Hussein has stated that his father was born in Kampala in 1928. According to Fred Guweddeko, a researcher at Makerere University, Idi Amin was the son of Andreas Nyabire (1889–1976). Nyabire, a member of the Kakwa ethnic group, converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam in 1910, and changed his name to Amin Dada. He named his first-born son after himself. Abandoned by his father at a young age, Idi Amin grew up with his mother's family in a rural farming town in northwestern Uganda. Guweddeko states that Amin's mother was Assa Aatte (1904–1970), an ethnic Lugbara and a traditional herbalist who treated members of Buganda royalty, among others. Amin joined an Islamic school in Bombo in 1941. After a few years, he left school with only a fourth-grade English-language education, and did odd jobs before being recruited to the army by a British colonial army officer. \n\nColonial British Army \n\nAmin joined the King's African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army in 1946, as an assistant cook. In later life he falsely claimed he was forced to join the Army during World War II and that he served in the Burma Campaign. He was transferred to Kenya for infantry service as a private in 1947, and served in the 21st KAR infantry battalion in Gilgil, Kenya until 1949. That year his unit was deployed to Northern Kenya to fight against Somali rebels in the Shifta War. In 1952, his brigade was deployed against the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. He was promoted to corporal the same year, then to sergeant in 1953.\n\nIn 1959, Amin was made Afande (warrant officer), the highest rank possible for a Black African in the colonial British Army of that time. Amin returned to Uganda the same year and, in 1961, he was promoted to lieutenant, becoming one of the first two Ugandans to become commissioned officers. He was assigned to quell the cattle rustling between Uganda's Karamojong and Kenya's Turkana nomads. In 1962, following Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom, Amin was promoted to captain and then, in 1963, to major. He was appointed Deputy Commander of the Army in 1964 and, the following year, to Commander of the Army. In 1970, he was promoted to commander of all the armed forces.\n\nAmin was an athlete during his time in both the British and Ugandan army. At 193 cm (6 ft 4 in) tall and powerfully built, he was the Ugandan light heavyweight boxing champion from 1951 to 1960, as well as a swimmer. Idi Amin was also a formidable rugby forward, although one officer said of him: \"Idi Amin is a splendid type and a good (rugby) player, but virtually bone from the neck up, and needs things explained in words of one letter\". In the 1950s, he played for Nile RFC.Cotton, p111 There is a frequently repeated urban myth that he was selected as a replacement by East Africa for their match against the 1955 British Lions. Amin, however, does not appear on the team photograph or on the official team list. Following conversations with a colleague in the British Army, Amin became a keen fan of Hayes Football Club – an affection that would remain for the rest of his life. \n\nCommander of the Army \n\nIn 1965, Prime Minister Milton Obote and Amin were implicated in a deal to smuggle ivory and gold into Uganda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The deal, as later alleged by General Nicholas Olenga, an associate of the former Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, was part of an arrangement to help troops opposed to the Congolese government trade ivory and gold for arms supplies secretly smuggled to them by Amin. In 1966, the Ugandan Parliament demanded an investigation. Obote imposed a new constitution abolishing the ceremonial presidency held by Kabaka (King) Mutesa II of Buganda, and declared himself executive president. He promoted Amin to colonel and army commander. Amin led an attack on the Kabaka's palace and forced Mutesa into exile to the United Kingdom, where he remained until his death in 1969. \n\nAmin began recruiting members of Kakwa, Lugbara, South Sudanese, and other ethnic groups from the West Nile area bordering South Sudan. The South Sudanese had been residents in Uganda since the early 20th century, having come from South Sudan to serve the colonial army. Many African ethnic groups in northern Uganda inhabit both Uganda and South Sudan; allegations persist that Amin's army consisted mainly of South Sudanese soldiers. \n\nSeizure of power \n\nEventually a rift developed between Amin and Obote, exacerbated by the support Amin had built within the army by recruiting from the West Nile region, his involvement in operations to support the rebellion in southern Sudan and an attempt on Obote's life in 1969. In October 1970, Obote took control of the armed forces, reducing Amin from his months-old post of commander of all the armed forces to that of commander of the army.\n\nHaving learned that Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, Amin seized power in a military coup on 25 January 1971, while Obote was attending a Commonwealth summit meeting in Singapore. Troops loyal to Amin sealed off Entebbe International Airport and took Kampala. Soldiers surrounded Obote's residence and blocked major roads. A broadcast on Radio Uganda accused Obote's government of corruption and preferential treatment of the Lango region. Cheering crowds were reported in the streets of Kampala after the radio broadcast. Amin announced that he was a soldier, not a politician, and that the military government would remain only as a caretaker regime until new elections, which would be announced when the situation was normalised. He promised to release all political prisoners. \n\nAmin gave former King (Kabaka) of Buganda and President, Sir Edward Mutesa (who had died in exile), a state funeral in April 1971, freed many political prisoners, and reiterated his promise to hold free and fair elections to return the country to democratic rule in the shortest period possible. \n\nPresidency \n\nEstablishment of military rule \n\nOn 2 February 1971, one week after the coup, Amin declared himself President of Uganda, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Army Chief of Staff, and Chief of Air Staff. He announced that he was suspending certain provisions of the Ugandan constitution, and soon instituted an Advisory Defence Council composed of military officers with himself as the chairman. Amin placed military tribunals above the system of civil law, appointed soldiers to top government posts and parastatal agencies, and informed the newly inducted civilian cabinet ministers that they would be subject to military discipline. Amin renamed the presidential lodge in Kampala from Government House to \"The Command Post\". He disbanded the General Service Unit (GSU), an intelligence agency created by the previous government, and replaced it with the State Research Bureau (SRB). SRB headquarters at the Kampala suburb of Nakasero became the scene of torture and executions over the next few years. Other agencies used to persecute dissenters included the military police and the Public Safety Unit (PSU).\n\nObote took refuge in Tanzania, having been offered sanctuary there by the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. Obote was soon joined by 20,000 Ugandan refugees fleeing Amin. The exiles attempted but failed to regain Uganda in 1972, through a poorly organised coup attempt.\n\nPersecution of ethnic and political groups \n\nAmin retaliated against the attempted invasion by Ugandan exiles in 1972, by purging the army of Obote supporters, predominantly those from the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups. In July 1971, Lango and Acholi soldiers were massacred in the Jinja and Mbarara barracks, and, by early 1972, some 5,000 Acholi and Lango soldiers, and at least twice as many civilians, had disappeared. The victims soon came to include members of other ethnic groups, religious leaders, journalists, artists, senior bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, students and intellectuals, criminal suspects, and foreign nationals. In this atmosphere of violence, many other people were killed for criminal motives or simply at will. Bodies were often dumped into the River Nile. \n\nThe killings, motivated by ethnic, political, and financial factors, continued throughout Amin's eight-year reign. The exact number of people killed is unknown. The International Commission of Jurists estimated the death toll at no fewer than 80,000 and more likely around 300,000. An estimate compiled by exile organizations with the help of Amnesty International puts the number killed at 500,000. Among the most prominent people killed were Benedicto Kiwanuka, a former prime minister and chief justice; Janani Luwum, the Anglican archbishop; Joseph Mubiru, the former governor of the central bank of Uganda; Frank Kalimuzo, the vice chancellor of Makerere University; Byron Kawadwa, a prominent playwright; and two of Amin's own cabinet ministers, Erinayo Wilson Oryema and Charles Oboth Ofumbi. \n\nAmin recruited his followers from his own tribe, the Kakwas, along with South Sudanese. By 1977, these three groups formed 60 percent of the 22 top generals and 75 percent of the cabinet. Similarly, Muslims formed 80 percent and 87.5 percent of these groups even though they were only 5 percent of the population. This helps explain why Amin survived eight attempted coups. \nThe army grew from 10,000 to 25,000 by 1978. Amin's army was largely a mercenary force. Half the soldiers were South Sudanese and 26 percent Congolese, with only 24 percent being Ugandan, mostly Muslim and Kakwa. \n\nIn August 1972, Amin declared what he called an \"economic war\", a set of policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly from the Indian subcontinent and born in the country, their ancestors having come to Uganda when the country was still a British colony. Many owned businesses, including large-scale enterprises, which formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy. On 4 August 1972, Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens (most of them held British passports). This was later amended to include all 80,000 Asians, except for professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers. A plurality of the Asians with British passports, around 30,000, emigrated to the UK. Others went to Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sweden, Tanzania, and the U.S. Amin expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and handed them over to his supporters. The businesses were mismanaged, and industries collapsed from lack of maintenance. This proved disastrous for the already declining economy.\n\nIn 1977, Henry Kyemba, Amin's health minister and a former official of the first Obote regime, defected and resettled in the UK. Kyemba wrote and published A State of Blood, the first insider exposé of Amin's rule.\n\nInternational relations \n\nInitially, Amin was supported by Western powers such as Israel, West Germany and, in particular, Great Britain. During the late 1960s, Obote's move to the left, which included his Common Man's Charter and the nationalisation of 80 British companies, had made the West worried that he would pose a threat to Western capitalist interests in Africa and make Uganda an ally of the Soviet Union. Amin, who had served with the King's African Rifles and taken part in Britain's suppression of the Mau Mau uprising prior to Ugandan independence was known by the British as \"intensely loyal to Britain\"; this made him an obvious choice as Obote's successor. Although some have claimed that Amin was being groomed for power as early as 1966, the plotting by the British and other Western powers began in earnest in 1969, after Obote had begun his nationalisation programme. \n\nFollowing the expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972, most of whom were of Indian descent, India severed diplomatic relations with Uganda. The same year, as part of his \"economic war\", Amin broke diplomatic ties with the UK and nationalised eighty-five British-owned businesses.\n\nThat year, relations with Israel soured. Although Israel had previously supplied Uganda with arms, in 1972 Amin expelled Israeli military advisers and turned to Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and the Soviet Union for support. Amin became an outspoken critic of Israel. In return, Gaddafi gave financial aid to Amin. In the 1974 French-produced documentary film General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, Amin discussed his plans for war against Israel, using paratroops, bombers, and suicide squadrons.\n\nThe Soviet Union became Amin's largest arms supplier. East Germany was involved in the General Service Unit and the State Research Bureau, the two agencies which were most notorious for terror. Later during the Ugandan invasion of Tanzania in 1979, East Germany attempted to remove evidence of its involvement with these agencies.\n\nIn 1973, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Patrick Melady recommended that the United States reduce its presence in Uganda. Melady described Amin's regime as \"racist, erratic and unpredictable, brutal, inept, bellicose, irrational, ridiculous, and militaristic\". Accordingly, the United States closed its embassy in Kampala.\n\nIn June 1976, Amin allowed an Air France airliner from Tel Aviv to Paris hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO) and two members of the German Revolutionäre Zellen to land at Entebbe Airport. There the hijackers were joined by three more. Soon after, 156 non-Jewish hostages who did not hold Israeli passports were released and flown to safety, while 83 Jews and Israeli citizens, as well as 20 others who refused to abandon them (among whom were the captain and crew of the hijacked Air France jet), continued to be held hostage. In the subsequent Israeli rescue operation, codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (popularly known as Operation Entebbe), on the night of 3–4 July 1976, a group of Israeli commandos were flown in from Israel and seized control of Entebbe Airport, freeing nearly all the hostages. Three hostages died during the operation and 10 were wounded; 7 hijackers, about 45 Ugandan soldiers, and 1 Israeli soldier, Yoni Netanyahu, were killed. A fourth hostage, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, an elderly Jewish Englishwoman who had been taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala before the rescue operation, was subsequently murdered in reprisal. The incident further soured Uganda's international relations, leading the United Kingdom to close its High Commission in Uganda. \n\nUganda under Amin embarked on a large military build-up, which raised concerns in Kenya. Early in June 1975, Kenyan officials impounded a large convoy of Soviet-made arms en route to Uganda at the port of Mombasa. Tension between Uganda and Kenya reached its climax in February 1976, when Amin announced that he would investigate the possibility that parts of southern Sudan and western and central Kenya, up to within 32 km of Nairobi, were historically a part of colonial Uganda. The Kenyan Government responded with a stern statement that Kenya would not part with \"a single inch of territory\". Amin backed down after the Kenyan army deployed troops and armored personnel carriers along the Kenya–Uganda border. \n\nDeposition and exile \n\nBy 1978, the number of Amin's supporters and close associates had shrunk significantly, and he faced increasing dissent from the populace within Uganda as the economy and infrastructure collapsed as a result of the years of neglect and abuse. After the killings of Bishop Luwum and ministers Oryema and Oboth Ofumbi in 1977, several of Amin's ministers defected or fled into exile. In November 1978, after Amin's vice president, General Mustafa Adrisi, was injured in a car accident, troops loyal to him mutinied. Amin sent troops against the mutineers, some of whom had fled across the Tanzanian border. Amin accused Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere of waging war against Uganda, ordered the invasion of Tanzanian territory, and formally annexed a section of the Kagera Region across the boundary.\n\nIn January 1979, Nyerere mobilised the Tanzania People's Defence Force and counterattacked, joined by several groups of Ugandan exiles who had united as the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). Amin's army retreated steadily, and, despite military help from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Amin was forced to flee into exile by helicopter on 11 April 1979, when Kampala was captured. He escaped first to Libya, where he stayed until 1980, and ultimately settled in Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi royal family allowed him sanctuary and paid him a generous subsidy in return for his staying out of politics. Amin lived for a number of years on the top two floors of the Novotel Hotel on Palestine Road in Jeddah. Brian Barron, who covered the Uganda–Tanzania war for the BBC as chief Africa correspondent, together with cameraman Mohamed Amin of Visnews in Nairobi, located Amin in 1980, and secured the first interview with him since his deposition. \n\nDuring interviews he gave during his exile in Saudi Arabia, Amin held that Uganda needed him, and never expressed remorse for the nature of his regime. In 1989, he attempted to return to Uganda, apparently to lead an armed group organised by Colonel Juma Oris. He reached Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), before Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko forced him to return to Saudi Arabia.\n\nDeath \n\nOn 19 July 2003, one of Amin's wives, Madina, reported that he was in a coma and near death at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from kidney failure. She pleaded with the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, to allow him to return to Uganda for the remainder of his life. Museveni replied that Amin would have to \"answer for his sins the moment he was brought back\". Amin's family decided to disconnect life support and Amin died at the hospital in Jeddah on 16 August 2003. He was buried in Ruwais Cemetery in Jeddah in a simple grave without any fanfare. After Amin's death, David Owen revealed that when he was the British Foreign Secretary, he had proposed having Amin assassinated. He has defended this, arguing: \"I'm not ashamed of considering it, because his regime goes down in the scale of Pol Pot as one of the worst of all African regimes\". \n\nFamily and associates \n\nA polygamist, Idi Amin married at least six women, three of whom he divorced. He married his first and second wives, Malyamu and Kay, in 1966. In 1967, he married Nora, and then married Nalongo Madina in 1972. On 26 March 1974, he announced on Radio Uganda that he had divorced Malyamu, Nora, and Kay. Malyamu was arrested in Tororo on the Kenyan border in April 1974 and accused of attempting to smuggle a bolt of fabric into Kenya. She later moved to London where she operates a restaurant in East London. In 1974, Kay Amin died under mysterious circumstances, with her body found dismembered. Nora fled to Zaire in 1979; her current whereabouts are unknown.\n\nIn July 1975, Amin staged a £2 Million wedding to 19 year old Sarah Kyolaba, a go-go dancer with the Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band, nicknamed \"Suicide Sarah.\" The wedding was held during the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit meeting in Kampala, and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat served as Amin’s best man.\nThe couple had four children, and enjoyed rally race driving Amin's Citroën SM, with Sarah as navigator. \nSarah was a hairdresser in Tottenham when she died in 2015. Before she met Amin, she was living with a boyfriend, Jesse Gitta; he vanished and it is not clear if he was beheaded, or detained after fleeing to Kenya. \n\nBy 1993, Amin was living with the last nine of his children and one wife, Mama a Chumaru (who appears to be his sixth and newest wife), the mother of the youngest four of his children. His last known child, daughter Iman, was born in 1992. According to The Monitor, Amin married a few months before his death in 2003.\n\nSources differ widely on the number of children Amin fathered; most say that he had 30 to 45. Until 2003, Taban Amin (born 1955), Idi Amin's eldest son, was the leader of West Nile Bank Front (WNBF), a rebel group opposed to the government of Yoweri Museveni. In 2005, he was offered amnesty by Museveni, and in 2006, he was appointed Deputy Director General of the Internal Security Organisation. Another of Amin's sons, Haji Ali Amin, ran for election as Chairman (i.e. mayor) of Njeru Town Council in 2002 but was not elected. In early 2007, the award-winning film The Last King of Scotland prompted one of his sons, Jaffar Amin (born in 1967), to speak out in his father's defence. Jaffar Amin said he was writing a book to rehabilitate his father's reputation. Jaffar is the tenth of Amin's 40 official children by seven official wives.\n\nOn 3 August 2007, Amin's son (with Sarah), Faisal Wangita (born in 1983),was convicted for playing a role in a murder in London. \n\nAmong Amin's closest associates was the British-born Bob Astles, who is considered by many to have been a malignant influence and by others as having been a moderating presence. Isaac Malyamungu was an instrumental affiliate and one of the more feared officers in Amin's army.\n\nErratic behaviour, self-bestowed titles, and media portrayal \n\nAmin's egotistical behaviour and mental health have been the subjects of much speculation throughout his reign and life. He was described as having a quick-change and violent short temper; being charming, happy, and charismatic one minute and then suddenly angry, violent, and brutal the next, with little or no warning. Many have speculated that his behaviour was either the result of long-term syphilis of the brain or possibly undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder. As the years progressed, Amin's behaviour became more erratic, unpredictable, and outspoken. After the United Kingdom broke off all diplomatic relations with his regime in 1977, Amin declared he had defeated the British, and conferred on himself the decoration of CBE (Conqueror of the British Empire). His full self-bestowed title ultimately became: \"His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular\", in addition to his officially-stated claim of being the uncrowned King of Scotland. He never received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) or the Military Cross (MC). He conferred a doctorate of law on himself from Makerere University as well as the Victorious Cross (VC), a medal made to emulate the British Victoria Cross. \n\nAmin became the subject of rumours and myths, including a widespread belief that he was a cannibal. Some of the unsubstantiated rumours, such as the mutilation of one of his wives, were spread and popularised by the 1980 film Rise and Fall of Idi Amin and alluded to in the film The Last King of Scotland in 2006, a movie which earned actor Forest Whitaker an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Amin. \n\nDuring Amin's time in power, popular media outside of Uganda often portrayed him as an essentially comic and eccentric figure. In a 1977 assessment typical of the time, a Time magazine article described him as a \"killer and clown, big-hearted buffoon and strutting martinet\". The comedy-variety series Saturday Night Live aired four Amin sketches between 1976–79, including one in which he was an ill-behaved houseguest in exile, and another in which he was a spokesman against venereal disease. In a Benny Hill show transmitted in January 1977, Hill portrayed Amin sitting behind a desk that featured a placard reading \"ME TARZAN, U GANDA\". \n\nThe foreign media were often criticised by Ugandan exiles and defectors for emphasizing Amin's self-aggrandizing eccentricities and taste for excess while downplaying or excusing his murderous behavior. Other commentators even suggested that Amin had deliberately cultivated his eccentric reputation in the foreign media as an easily parodied buffoon in order to defuse international concern over his administration of Uganda. \n\nPortrayal in media and literature \n\nFilm and television dramatisations \n\n* Victory at Entebbe (1976), a TV film about Operation Entebbe. Julius Harris plays Amin. Godfrey Cambridge was originally cast as Amin, but died of a heart attack on the set. Amin commented on Cambridge's death, saying that it was \"punishment from God\". \n* Raid on Entebbe (1977), a film depicting the events of Operation Entebbe. Yaphet Kotto portrays Amin as a charismatic, but short-tempered political and military leader.\n* In Mivtsa Yonatan (1977; also known as Operation Thunderbolt), an Israeli film about Operation Entebbe, Jamaican-born British actor Mark Heath portrays Amin, who in this film is first angered by the Palestinian terrorists whom he later comes to support.\n* Comedian Richard Pryor portrayed a parodied version of Amin in his namesake show in 1977. \n* Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1981), a film recreating Idi Amin's atrocities. Amin is played by Kenyan actor Joseph Olita.\n* The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), a comedy film in which Amin, portrayed by Prince Hughes in a cameo appearance, is one of the real-life figures in the Beirut meeting where he helps plan to attack the United States at the beginning of the movie. Frank Drebin injures Amin's hand after blocking a punch with a spittoon, and uses it to knock Amin out a window.\n* Mississippi Masala (1991), a film depicting the resettlement of an Indian family after the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin. Joseph Olita again plays Amin in a cameo.\n* The Last King of Scotland (2006), a film adaptation of Giles Foden's 1998 novel of the same name. For his portrayal of Idi Amin, Forest Whitaker won the Academy Award, British Academy Film Award, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award, thus becoming the fourth black actor to win the Oscar for Best Actor.\n\nDocumentaries \n\n* General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait (1974), directed by French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder.\n* Idi Amin: Monster in Disguise (1997), a television documentary directed by Greg Baker.\n* The Man Who Ate His Archbishop's Liver? (2004), a television documentary written, produced, and directed by Elizabeth C. Jones for Associated-Rediffusion and Channel 4.\n* The Man Who Stole Uganda (1971), World In Action first broadcast 5 April 1971.\n* Inside Idi Amin's Terror Machine (1979), World In Action first broadcast 13 June 1979.\n* A Day in the Life of a Dictator (2013), directed by Hendrick Dusollier\n\nBooks \n\n* State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin (1977) by Henry Kyemba\n* The General Is Up by Peter Nazareth\n* Ghosts of Kampala: The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1980) by George Ivan Smith\n* The Last King of Scotland (1998) by Giles Foden (fictional)\n* Idi Amin Dada: Hitler in Africa (1977) by Thomas Patrick Melady\n* General Amin (1975) by David Martin\n* I Love Idi Amin: The Story of Triumph under Fire in the Midst of Suffering and Persecution in Uganda (1977) by Festo Kivengere\n* Impassioned for Freedom: Uganda, Struggle Against Idi Amin (2006) by Eriya Kategaya\n* Confessions of Idi Amin: The chilling, explosive expose of Africa's most evil man – in his own words (1977) compiled by Trevor Donald\n* \"Kahawa\" by Donald Westlake; a thriller in which Amin is a minor character, but Amin's Uganda is portrayed in detail.\n* [http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=h7YGkcrJZJsC Culture of the Sepulchre] (2012) by Madanjeet Singh (former Indian Ambassador to Uganda), ISBN 0-670-08573-1 \n\nMusic and audio \n\n* \"Idi Aminthe Amazin' Man song\" (1975) by John Bird\n* \"Idi Amin\" (1978) by Mighty Sparrow\n* \"Idi Amin\" (1978) by Black Randy and the Metrosquad\n* \"Springtime in Uganda\" (2004) by Blaze Foley (posthumous release)\n* The Collected Broadcasts of Idi Amin (1975) based on The Collected Bulletins of President Idi Amin (1974) and Further Bulletins of President Idi Amin (1975) by Alan Coren, portraying Amin as an amiable, if murderous, buffoon in charge of a tin-pot dictatorship. It was a British comedy album parodying Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, released in 1975 on Transatlantic Records. Performed by John Bird and written by Alan Coren, it was based on columns he wrote for Punch magazine"
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Which country has the rand as its currency?
|
tc_209
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"South African rand"
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"The rand (sign: R; code: ZAR) is the currency of South Africa. The rand has the symbol \"R\" and is subdivided into 100 cents, symbol \"c\". Unlike the dollar, the decimal separator between a rand and cent is expressed by a comma. The ISO 4217 code is ZAR, from Dutch Zuid-Afrikaanse Rand (South African rand). The rand is the currency of the Common Monetary Area between South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Namibia.\n\nHistorical users of the South African rand included South-West Africa and the nominally independent bantustans under the apartheid system: Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe rand takes its name from the Witwatersrand (literally \"white waters' ridge\" in English), the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found.\n\nHistory\n\nThe cent was introduced in the then Union of South Africa on 14 February 1961, three months before the Republic of South Africa was established. A Decimal Coinage Commission had been set up in 1956 to consider a move away from the denominations of pounds, shillings, and pence, submitting its recommendation on 8 August 1958. It replaced the South African pound as legal tender, at the rate of 2 rand to 1 pound, or 10 shillings to the rand. The government introduced a mascot, Decimal Dan, \"the rand-cent man\" (known in Afrikaans as Dan Desimaal). This was accompanied by a radio jingle, to inform the public about the new currency. \n\nBrief exchange rate history\n\nA rand was worth US$1.40 from the time of its inception in 1961 until 1982, when mounting political pressure combined with sanctions placed against the country due to apartheid started to erode its value. The currency broke above parity with the dollar for the first time in March 1982, and continued to trade between R 1 and R 1.30 to the dollar until June 1984, when depreciation of the currency gained momentum. By February 1985, it was trading over R 2 per dollar, and in July that year, all foreign exchange trading was suspended for 3 days to try to stop the devaluation.\n\nBy the time that State President PW Botha made his Rubicon speech on 15 August 1985, it had weakened to R 2.40 per dollar. The currency recovered somewhat between 1986–88, trading near the R 2 level most of the time and even breaking beneath it sporadically. The recovery was short-lived, however, and by the end of 1989, the rand was trading at levels more than R 2.50 per dollar.\n\nAs it became clear in the early 1990s that the country was destined for black majority rule and one reform after the other was announced, uncertainty about the future of the country hastened the depreciation until the level of R 3 to the dollar was breached in November 1992. A host of local and international events influenced the currency after that, most notably the 1994 democratic election which had it weaken to over R 3.60 to the dollar, the election of Tito Mboweni as the new governor of the South African Reserve Bank, and the inauguration of President Thabo Mbeki in 1999 which had it quickly slide to over R 6 to the dollar. The controversial land reform program that was kicked off in Zimbabwe, followed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, propelled it to its weakest historical level of R 13.84 to the dollar in December 2001.\n\nThis sudden depreciation in 2001 led to a formal investigation, which in turn led to a dramatic recovery. By the end of 2002, the currency was trading under R 9 to the dollar again, and by the end of 2004 was trading under R 5.70 to the dollar. The currency softened somewhat in 2005, and was trading around R 6.35 to the dollar at the end of the year. At the start of 2006, however, the currency resumed its rally, and as of 19 January 2006, was trading under R 6 to the dollar again. However, during the second and third quarters of 2006 (i.e. April through September), the rand weakened significantly.\n\nIn sterling terms, it fell from around 9.5p to just over 7p, losing some 25% of its international trade-weighted value in just six months. Late in 2007, the rand rallied modestly to just over 8p, only to experience a precipitous slide during the first quarter of 2008.\n\nThis downward slide could be attributed to a range of factors: South Africa's worsening current account deficit, which widened to a 36‑year high of 7.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007; inflation at a five-year high of just under 9%; escalating global risk aversion as investors' concerns over the spreading impact of the subprime crisis grew; and a general flight to \"safe havens\", away from the perceived risks of emerging markets. The rand depreciation was exacerbated by the Eskom electricity crisis, which arose from the utility being unable to meet the country's rapidly growing energy demands.\n\nBy the end of 2014, the rand had weakened to R 15.05 per dollar, partly due to South Africa's consistent trade account deficit with the rest of the world.\n\nFrom 9 December 2015 to 13 December 2015, over a four-day period, the rand dropped over 10% due to what some suspected was President Zuma's surprise announcement that he would be replacing the then-Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene with the little-known David van Rooyen. The rapid drop in value was stemmed when the President back-tracked and announced that the better-known previous Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, would instead be appointed to the post. Zuma's surprise firing of Nene damaged international confidence in the rand, with it experiencing significant exchange volatility throughout much of January 2016, reaching an all-time low of R 17.9169 to the US dollar on the 9 January 2016 before rebounding to R 16.57 later the same day. \n\nThe January drop in value was also partly caused by Japanese retail investors cutting their losses in the currency to look for higher-yield investments elsewhere and due to concerns over the impact of the economic slowdown in China, South Africa's largest export partner. By mid-January, economists were speculating that the rand could expect to see further volatility for the rest of 2016. \nBy 29 April, it reached its highest performance over the previous 5 months, exchanging at a rate of 14.16 to the United States dollar \n\nFollowing the United Kingdom's (UK) vote to leave the European Union (EU), the rand dropped in value over 8% against the United States dollar on the 24th June 2016, the currency's largest single-day decline since the 2008 crash. This was partly due to a general global financial retreat from currencies seen as risky to the US dollar and partly due to concerns over how the UK's withdrawal from the EU would impact South Africa's economy and trade relations. \n\nCoins\n\nCoins were introduced in 1961 in denominations of , 1, , 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents. In 1965, 2-cent coins replaced the -cent coins. The -cent coin was last struck for circulation in 1973. The 2-rand coin was introduced in 1989, followed by 5-rand coins in 1994. Production of the 1- and 2-cent coins was discontinued in 2002, primarily due to inflation having devalued them, but they remain legal tender. Shops normally round the total purchase price of goods to the nearest 5 cents (in favour of the consumer).\n\nIn an effort to curb counterfeiting, a new 5-rand coin was released in August 2004. Security features introduced on the coin include a bimetal design (similar to the €1 and €2 coins, the Thai 10-baht coin, the British £2 coin, and the Canadian $2 coin), a specially serrated security groove along the rim and microlettering. \n\nBanknotes\n\nThe first series of rand banknotes was introduced in 1961 in denominations of 1, 2, 10, and 20 rand, with similar designs and colours to the preceding pound notes to ease the transition. They bore the image of what was believed at the time to be Jan van Riebeeck, the first V.O.C. administrator of Cape Town. It was later discovered that the image was not in fact Van Riebeeck at all. Like the last pound notes, they were printed in two variants, one with English written first and the other with Afrikaans written first. This practice was continued in the 1966 series which included the first 5-rand notes, but did not include the 20-rand denomination.\n\nThe 1978 series began with denominations of 2, 5, and 10 rand, with 20 and 50 rand introduced in 1984. This series hsd a major design change. In addition, the series has only one variant for each denomination of note. Afrikaans was the first language on the 2, 10, and 50 rand, while English was the first language on 5 and 20 rand. The notes bore the image of Jan van Riebeeck. The 1-rand note was replaced by a coin.\n\nIn the 1990s, the notes were redesigned with images of the Big Five wildlife species; 10-, 20- and 50-rand notes were introduced in 1992, retaining the colour scheme of the previous issue. Coins were introduced for 2 rand and 5 rand, replacing the notes of the previous series, mainly because of the severe wear and tear experienced with low-denomination notes in circulation. In 1994, notes were introduced for 100 and 200 rand.\n\nThe 2005 series has the same principal design, but with additional security features such as colour-shifting ink on the 50-rand and higher and the EURion constellation. The obverses of all denominations are printed in English, while two other languages are printed on the reverses, thus making use of all 11 official languages of South Africa.\n\nIn 2010, the South African Reserve Bank and commercial banks withdrew all 1990 series R 200 banknotes due to relatively high-quality counterfeit notes in circulation. \n\nIn 2011, the South African Reserve Bank issued 100-rand banknotes which were defective because they lacked fluorescent printing visible under UV light. In June, printing of this denomination was moved from the South African Bank Note Company to Crane Currency’s Swedish division (Tumba Bruk), which reportedly produced 80 million 100-rand notes. The South African Reserve Bank shredded 3.6 million 100-rand banknotes printed by Crane Currency because they had the same serial numbers as a batch printed by the South African Bank Note Company. In addition, the notes printed in Sweden were not the correct colour, and they were 1 mm short. \n\nOn 11 February 2012, President Jacob Zuma announced that the country would be issuing a complete set of banknotes bearing Nelson Mandela's image. They were entered into circulation on 6 November 2012. \n\nIn 2013, the 2012 series was updated with the addition of the EURion constellation to all five notes. \n\nFirst series\n\nSecond series\n\nThird series\n\nFourth series\n\nFifth series"
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|
What is the former name of the People's Republic of Venin?
|
tc_210
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
"doc_source": [
"Search",
"Search"
],
"filename": [
"Benin.txt",
"People's_Republic_of_Benin.txt"
],
"title": [
"Benin",
"People's Republic of Benin"
],
"wiki_context": [
"Benin ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Benin () and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. A majority of the population live on its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city and economic capital. Benin covers an area of 114,763 square kilometers and its population in 2015 was estimated to be approximately 10.88 million. Benin is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming. \n\nThe official language of Benin is French. However, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the African Petroleum Producers Association and the Niger Basin Authority. \n\nFrom the 17th to the 19th century, the main political entities in the area were the Kingdom of Dahomey along with the city-state of Porto-Novo and a large area with many different tribes to the north. This region was referred to as the Slave Coast from as early as the 17th century due to the large number of slaves shipped to the New World during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. After slavery was abolished, France took over the country and renamed it French Dahomey. In 1960, Dahomey gained full independence from France, and had a tumultuous period with many different democratic governments, many military coups and military governments.\n\nA Marxist–Leninist state called the People's Republic of Benin existed between 1975 and 1990. In 1991, it was replaced by the current multi-party Republic of Benin. \n\nEtymology\n\nDuring the colonial period and at independence, the country was known as Dahomey. On 30 November 1975 it was renamed to Benin, after the body of water on which the country lies—the Bight of Benin—which, in turn, had been named after the Benin Empire (nowadays Nigeria). The country of Benin has no connection to Benin City in modern Nigeria, nor to the Benin bronzes.\n\nThe new name, Benin, was chosen for its neutrality. Dahomey was the name of the former Kingdom of Dahomey, which covered only most of the southern third of the present country and therefore did not represent Porto-Novo (a rival state in the south), the northwestern sector Atakora, nor the kingdom of Borgu, which covered the northeastern third. \n\nHistory\n\nPrecolonial history\n\nThe current country of Benin combines three areas which had different political and ethnic systems prior to French colonial control. Before 1700, there were a few important city states along the coast (primarily of the Aja ethnic group, but also including Yoruba and Gbe peoples) and a mass of tribal regions inland (composed of Bariba, Mahi, Gedevi, and Kabye peoples). The Oyo Empire, located primarily to the east of modern Benin, was the most significant large-scale military force in the region and it would regularly conduct raids and exact tribute from the coastal kingdoms and the tribal regions. The situation changed in the 1600s and early 1700s as the Kingdom of Dahomey, which was of Fon ethnicity, was founded on the Abomey plateau and began taking over areas along the coast. By 1727, king Agaja of the Kingdom of Dahomey had conquered the coastal cities of Allada and Whydah, but it had become a tributary of the Oyo empire and did not directly attack the Oyo allied city-state of Porto-Novo. The rise of the kingdom of Dahomey, the rivalry between the kingdom and the city of Porto-Novo, and the continued tribal politics of the northern region, persisted into the colonial and post-colonial periods. \n\nThe Dahomey Kingdom was known for its culture and traditions. Young boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers, and taught the kingdom's military customs until they were old enough to join the army. Dahomey was also famous for instituting an elite female soldier corps, called Ahosi i.e. the king's wives or Mino, \"our mothers\" in the Fon language Fongbe, and known by many Europeans as the Dahomean Amazons. This emphasis on military preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of \"black Sparta\" from European observers and 19th century explorers like Sir Richard Burton. \n\nPortuguese Empire\n\nThe kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery; otherwise the captives would have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. By about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling Africans to the European slave-traders. Though the leaders of Dahomey appeared initially to resist the slave trade, it flourished in the region of Dahomey for almost three hundred years, beginning in 1472 with a trade agreement with Portuguese merchants, leading to the area's being named \"the Slave Coast\". Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom's many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s. The decline was partly due to the banning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain and other countries. This decline continued until 1885, when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the present-day Benin Republic bound for Brazil, a former Portuguese colony that had yet to abolish slavery.\n\nThe capital's name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning \"New Port\". It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade.\n\nColonial period (1900 until 1958)\n\nBy the middle of the nineteenth century, Dahomey had begun to lose its status as the regional power. This enabled the French to take over the area in 1892. In 1899, the French included the land called French Dahomey within the larger French West Africa colonial region. In 1958, France granted autonomy to the Republic of Dahomey, and full independence on 1 August 1960. The president who led them to independence was Hubert Maga. \n\nPost-colonial period\n\nFor the next twelve years after 1960, ethnic strife contributed to a period of turbulence. There were several coups and regime changes, with the figures of Hubert Maga, Sourou Apithy, Justin Ahomadegbé, and Emile Derlin Zinsou dominating; the first three each represented a different area and ethnicity of the country. These three agreed to form a Presidential Council after violence marred the 1970 elections.\n\nOn 7 May 1972, Maga ceded power to Ahomadegbe. On 26 October 1972, Lt. Col. Mathieu Kérékou overthrew the ruling triumvirate, becoming president and stating that the country would not \"burden itself by copying foreign ideology, and wants neither Capitalism, Communism, nor Socialism\". On 30 November 1974 however, he announced that the country was officially Marxist, under control of the Military Council of the Revolution (CNR), which nationalized the petroleum industry and banks. On 30 November 1975, he renamed the country to the People's Republic of Benin. \n\nThe CNR was dissolved in 1979, and Kérékou arranged show elections where he was the only allowed candidate. Establishing relations with China, North Korea, and Libya, he put nearly all businesses and economic activities under state control, causing foreign investment in Benin to dry up. Kérékou attempted to reorganize education, pushing his own aphorisms such as \"Poverty is not a fatality\", resulting in a mass exodus of teachers, along with a large number of other professionals. The regime financed itself by contracting to take nuclear waste first from the Soviet Union and later from France.\n\nIn 1980, Kérékou converted to Islam and changed his first name to Ahmed, then changed his name back after claiming to be a born-again Christian.\n\nIn 1989, riots broke out after the regime did not have money to pay its army. The banking system collapsed. Eventually Kérékou renounced Marxism and a convention forced Kérékou to release political prisoners and arrange elections. Marxism-Leninism was also abolished as the nation's form of government. \n\nThe country's name was officially changed to the Republic of Benin on 1 March 1990, after the newly formed government's constitution was complete. \n\nIn a 1991 election, Kérékou lost to Nicéphore Soglo. Kérékou returned to power after winning the 1996 vote. In 2001, a closely fought election resulted in Kérékou winning another term, after which his opponents claimed election irregularities.\n\nIn 1999, Kérékou issued a national apology for the substantial role Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade. \n\nKérékou and former president Soglo did not run in the 2006 elections, as both were barred by the constitution's restrictions on age and total terms of candidates.\n\nOn 5 March 2006, an election was held that was considered free and fair. It resulted in a runoff between Yayi Boni and Adrien Houngbédji. The runoff election was held on 19 March and was won by Boni, who assumed office on 6 April. The success of the fair multi-party elections in Benin won praise internationally. Boni was reelected in 2011, taking 53.18% of the vote in the first round—enough to avoid a runoff election, becoming the first president to win an election without a runoff since the restoration of democracy in 1991.\n\nIn the March 2016 presidential elections, in which Boni Yayi was barred by the constitution from running for a third term, businessman Patrice Talon won the second round with 65.37% of the vote, defeating investment banker and former Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou. Talon was sworn in on 6 April 2016. Speaking on the same day that the Constitutional Court confirmed the results, Talon said that he would \"first and foremost tackle constitutional reform\", discussing his plan to limit presidents to a single term of five years in order to combat \"complacency\". He also said that he planned to slash the size of the government from 28 to 16 members. \n\nPolitics\n\nBenin's politics take place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, where the President of Benin is both head of state and head of government, within a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the legislature. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The political system is derived from the 1990 Constitution of Benin and the subsequent transition to democracy in 1991.\n\nBenin scored highly in the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which comprehensively measures the state of governance across the continent. 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759.84 281.08 763.00 281.04 774.80 270.91 774.76 272.27 785.00 272.27 785.00 273.76 791.00 273.76 791.00 275.77 801.74 275.37 806.88 280.47 817.96 283.01 823.47 285.98 822.81 287.98 826.21 288.89 827.76 289.44 832.73 290.00 835.00 292.46 844.84 293.99 846.60 294.00 857.00 294.00 857.00 286.00 857.00 286.00 857.00 286.23 859.87 287.62 869.61 289.01 871.72 290.95 874.68 294.33 874.42 296.69 876.56 298.98 878.65 298.94 881.14 299.00 884.00 299.00 884.00 299.00 913.00 299.00 913.00 299.00 913.00 315.00 912.00 315.00 912.00 315.76 917.70 316.21 927.45 321.00 931.00 321.00 931.00 322.37 924.00 322.37 924.00 322.93 917.23 320.61 905.79 329.00 903.00 329.00 903.00 328.00 894.00 328.00 894.00 318.78 891.20 322.04 885.32 322.64 880.00 322.64 880.00 322.64 872.01 322.64 872.01 322.64 866.54 319.80 866.88 319.03 862.96 317.84 856.92 322.79 851.79 328.00 850.00 326.01 846.41 321.84 843.26 321.74 840.00 321.64 836.40 325.42 834.71 325.69 830.00 325.69 830.00 323.14 814.00 323.14 814.00 323.14 814.00 323.14 796.00 323.14 796.00 323.04 790.35 322.85 788.03 329.00 787.00 329.00 787.00 328.02 776.51 328.02 776.51 328.02 776.51 319.58 765.91 319.58 765.91 319.58 765.91 319.00 753.00 319.00 753.00 319.00 753.00 295.00 753.00 295.00 753.00 Plateau\npoly 206.34 763.93 205.43 757.98 198.00 755.65 191.50 753.61 187.31 756.49 184.00 757.05 184.00 757.05 174.00 757.05 174.00 757.05 174.00 757.05 169.00 757.05 169.00 757.05 164.61 756.98 153.74 754.41 152.33 760.22 151.73 762.72 153.77 772.55 154.89 775.00 154.89 775.00 158.36 781.00 158.36 781.00 158.36 781.00 166.66 799.00 166.66 799.00 167.87 801.99 168.54 806.16 170.20 808.63 170.20 808.63 174.52 813.21 174.52 813.21 174.52 813.21 183.37 825.01 183.37 825.01 187.45 831.76 184.90 833.76 187.92 839.99 187.92 839.99 197.31 852.00 197.31 852.00 198.71 854.11 208.31 865.01 210.09 865.98 211.94 866.98 213.96 866.99 216.00 866.83 216.00 866.83 238.00 863.41 238.00 863.41 240.99 862.91 246.45 862.26 249.00 861.03 251.65 859.76 254.75 856.94 257.00 855.00 261.30 861.61 263.82 856.19 272.00 851.00 272.00 851.00 272.00 855.00 272.00 855.00 272.00 855.00 292.00 855.00 292.00 855.00 292.00 855.00 288.00 835.00 288.00 835.00 288.00 835.00 286.41 827.21 286.41 827.21 286.41 827.21 279.70 819.96 279.70 819.96 279.70 819.96 274.37 806.00 274.37 806.00 274.37 806.00 269.43 786.60 269.43 786.60 269.43 786.60 260.30 783.98 260.30 783.98 260.30 783.98 253.83 777.87 253.83 777.87 253.83 777.87 241.55 769.00 241.55 769.00 241.55 769.00 233.00 767.69 233.00 767.69 233.00 767.69 226.00 764.00 226.00 764.00 221.54 767.25 214.37 769.95 209.30 766.15 Zou\npoly 153.00 804.00 153.00 859.00 153.00 859.00 153.00 859.00 139.00 859.00 139.00 859.00 140.12 869.52 144.79 869.08 146.70 874.04 146.70 874.04 148.00 891.00 148.00 891.00 148.00 891.00 167.00 887.01 167.00 887.01 173.25 884.66 179.78 879.51 187.00 881.43 192.57 882.92 192.27 886.99 195.43 890.37 199.86 895.12 204.70 896.92 211.00 897.00 211.10 886.84 212.56 890.16 215.29 883.00 215.29 883.00 217.11 877.00 217.11 877.00 218.73 873.21 219.32 873.47 220.00 869.07 220.00 869.07 213.00 869.07 213.00 869.07 206.74 868.26 197.27 854.10 193.37 849.09 190.23 845.06 187.66 844.48 185.56 839.00 183.47 833.53 184.76 830.30 182.35 826.01 182.35 826.01 168.00 807.99 168.00 807.99 168.00 807.99 160.57 789.00 160.57 789.00 160.57 789.00 155.00 778.00 155.00 778.00 151.88 784.13 153.00 796.83 153.00 804.00 Couffo\npoly 257.00 858.00 248.00 863.30 248.00 863.30 248.00 863.30 222.00 868.00 222.00 868.00 221.30 877.09 214.05 887.68 213.30 891.00 213.30 891.00 212.78 897.00 212.78 897.00 212.78 897.00 210.56 904.00 210.56 904.00 210.56 904.00 210.03 909.00 210.03 909.00 209.27 912.47 207.53 913.55 207.11 918.00 206.62 923.23 208.88 928.13 207.61 934.00 206.40 939.60 201.12 945.73 201.38 952.00 201.38 952.00 206.00 968.00 206.00 968.00 222.41 965.82 240.46 961.05 257.00 961.00 262.31 950.04 272.23 953.79 277.61 950.02 281.43 947.33 282.20 940.30 281.95 936.00 281.83 933.85 281.57 933.02 281.00 931.00 274.36 932.39 273.12 930.44 273.00 924.00 273.00 924.00 273.00 901.00 273.00 901.00 273.00 901.00 271.88 889.00 271.88 889.00 271.88 889.00 271.88 880.00 271.88 880.00 270.65 874.76 266.10 871.72 265.57 868.00 265.10 864.74 268.71 860.40 270.00 855.00 262.76 858.36 261.92 862.80 257.00 858.00 Atlantique\npoly 265.94 871.63 272.70 873.14 274.03 882.00 274.03 882.00 276.00 930.06 276.00 930.06 277.77 929.74 280.02 929.17 281.69 930.06 286.93 933.10 282.45 945.82 281.00 950.00 290.46 952.22 290.49 955.31 294.09 956.25 296.22 956.80 307.99 954.73 311.00 954.27 312.59 954.03 315.15 953.84 316.43 952.83 318.46 951.21 317.93 947.36 318.04 945.00 318.18 941.90 319.74 936.26 319.27 934.17 318.66 931.45 316.47 930.61 315.04 925.00 314.39 922.44 314.16 916.52 312.26 915.00 309.68 912.91 300.38 914.73 297.00 915.00 297.00 915.00 297.00 885.00 297.00 885.00 297.00 885.00 295.98 878.56 295.98 878.56 295.98 878.56 286.74 871.95 286.74 871.95 286.74 871.95 284.00 857.00 284.00 857.00 276.19 857.00 270.53 855.71 267.85 865.00 Ouémé\npoly 190.28 887.88 191.51 885.48 187.86 884.18 179.49 881.23 172.19 887.47 165.00 890.03 161.26 891.37 159.48 890.71 156.00 891.21 156.00 891.21 149.00 893.00 149.00 893.00 149.00 893.00 144.00 907.00 144.00 907.00 150.92 912.00 146.25 912.89 149.18 917.78 150.76 920.42 153.53 920.93 155.83 922.69 160.20 926.05 161.69 929.71 162.00 935.00 172.27 940.14 174.95 959.54 178.00 970.00 178.00 970.00 161.00 974.00 161.00 974.00 157.16 974.77 154.35 974.62 152.00 978.00 152.00 978.00 204.00 968.00 204.00 968.00 204.00 968.00 199.26 951.00 199.26 951.00 199.26 951.00 205.79 933.00 205.79 933.00 205.79 933.00 205.06 919.00 205.06 919.00 205.06 919.00 210.00 900.00 210.00 900.00 204.65 899.12 198.01 895.52 194.14 891.70 Mono\npoly 278.09 952.30 265.26 954.83 262.14 957.00 260.19 958.36 260.03 959.06 259.00 961.00 259.00 961.00 274.00 960.00 274.00 960.00 274.00 960.00 275.00 956.00 275.00 956.00 275.00 956.00 275.00 960.00 275.00 960.00 275.00 960.00 290.00 957.00 290.00 957.00 290.00 957.00 290.00 955.00 290.00 955.00 287.42 953.90 284.83 952.87 282.00 952.63 Littoral\n\nBenin is divided into twelve departments (French: départements) which, in turn, are subdivided into 77 communes. In 1999, the previous six departments were each split into two halves, forming the current twelve. The six new departments were assigned official capitals in 2008.\n\nGeography\n\nBenin, a narrow, north–south strip of land in West Africa, lies between latitudes 6° and 13°N, and longitudes 0° and 4°E. Benin is bounded by Togo to the west, Burkina Faso and Niger to the north, Nigeria to the east, and the Bight of Benin to the south. The distance from the Niger River in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south is about 650 km. Although the coastline measures 121 km the country measures about 325 km at its widest point.\n\nBenin shows little variation in elevation and can be divided into four areas from the south to the north, starting with the low-lying, sandy, coastal plain (highest elevation 10 m) which is, at most, 10 km wide. It is marshy and dotted with lakes and lagoons communicating with the ocean. Behind the coast lies the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic-covered plateaus of southern Benin (altitude between 20 and), which are split by valleys running north to south along the Couffo, Zou, and Oueme Rivers.\n\nThen an area of flat lands dotted with rocky hills whose altitude seldom reaches 400 m extends around Nikki and Save. Finally, a range of mountains extends along the northwest border and into Togo; this is the Atacora, with the highest point, Mont Sokbaro, at 658 m.\n\nBenin has fields of lying fallow, mangroves, and remnants of large sacred forests. In the rest of the country, the savanna is covered with thorny scrubs and dotted with huge baobab trees. Some forests line the banks of rivers. In the north and the northwest of Benin the Reserve du W du Niger and Pendjari National Park attract tourists eager to see elephants, lions, antelopes, hippos, and monkeys.[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/6761.htm \"Background Note: Benin\"]. U.S. Department of State (June 2008). Pendjari National Park together with the bordering Parks Arli and W in Burkina Faso and Niger are among the most important strongholds for the endangered West African lion. With an estimated 356 (range: 246–466) lions, W-Arli-Pendjari harbours the largest remaining population of lions in West Africa. Historically Benin has served as habitat for the endangered painted hunting dog, Lycaon pictus; however, this canid is thought to have been locally extirpated.\n\nBenin's climate is hot and humid. Annual rainfall in the coastal area averages 1300 mm or about 51 inches. Benin has two rainy and two dry seasons per year. The principal rainy season is from April to late July, with a shorter less intense rainy period from late September to November. The main dry season is from December to April, with a short cooler dry season from late July to early September. Temperatures and humidity are high along the tropical coast. In Cotonou, the average maximum temperature is 31 °C; the minimum is 24 °C.\n\nVariations in temperature increase when moving north through a savanna and plateau toward the Sahel. A dry wind from the Sahara called the Harmattan blows from December to March, during which grass dries up, the vegetation turns reddish brown, and a veil of fine dust hangs over the country, causing the skies to be overcast. It also is the season when farmers burn brush in the fields.\n\nEconomy\n\n]\n\nThe economy of Benin is dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Cotton accounts for 40% of GDP and roughly 80% of official export receipts. Growth in real output has averaged around 5% in the past seven years, but rapid population growth has offset much of this increase. Inflation has subsided over the past several years. Benin uses the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro.\n\nBenin’s economy has continued to strengthen over the past years, with real GDP growth estimated at 5.1 and 5.7% in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The main driver of growth is the agricultural sector, with cotton being the country’s main export, while services continue to contribute the largest part of GDP largely because of Benin’s geographical location, enabling trade, transportation, transit and tourism activities with its neighbouring states. \n\nIn order to raise growth still further, Benin plans to attract more foreign investment, place more emphasis on tourism, facilitate the development of new food processing systems and agricultural products, and encourage new information and communication technology. Projects to improve the business climate by reforms to the land tenure system, the commercial justice system, and the financial sector were included in Benin's US$307 million Millennium Challenge Account grant signed in February 2006.\n\nThe Paris Club and bilateral creditors have eased the external debt situation, with Benin benefiting from a G8 debt reduction announced in July 2005, while pressing for more rapid structural reforms. An insufficient electrical supply continues to adversely affect Benin's economic growth though the government recently has taken steps to increase domestic power production.\n\nAlthough trade unions in Benin represent up to 75% of the formal workforce, the large informal economy has been noted by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITCU) to contain ongoing problems, including a lack of women's wage equality, the use of child labour, and the continuing issue of forced labour. \n\nBenin is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). \n\nCotonou has the country's only seaport and international airport. A new port is currently under construction between Cotonou and Porto Novo. Benin is connected by two-lane asphalted roads to its neighboring countries (Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria). Mobile telephone service is available across the country through various operators. ADSL connections are available in some areas. Benin is connected to the Internet by way of satellite connections (since 1998) and a single submarine cable SAT-3/WASC (since 2001), keeping the price of data extremely high. Relief is expected with initiation of the Africa Coast to Europe cable in 2011.\n\nCurrently, about a third of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. \n\nTransport\n\nTransport in Benin includes road, rail, water and air transportation. Benin possesses a total of 6,787 km of highway, of which 1,357 km are paved. Of the paved highways in the country, there are 10 expressways. This leaves 5,430 km of unpaved road. The Trans–West African Coastal Highway crosses Benin, connecting it to Nigeria to the east, and Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast to the west. When construction in Liberia and Sierra Leone is finished, the highway will continue west to seven other Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) nations. A paved highway also connects Benin northwards to Niger, and through that country to Burkina Faso and Mali to the north-west. Rail transport in Benin consists of 578 km of single track, railway. Benin does not, at this time, share railway links with adjacent countries – Niger possesses no railways to connect to, and while the other surrounding countries, Nigeria, Togo and Burkina Faso, do have railway networks, no connections have been built. In 2006, an Indian proposal appeared, which aims to link the railways of Benin with Niger and Burkina Faso. Benin will be a participant in the AfricaRail project.\n\nCadjehoun Airport located at Cotonou, has direct international jet service to Accra, Niamey, Monrovia, Lagos, Ouagadougou, Lomé, and Douala, as well as other cities in Africa. Direct services also link Cotonou to Paris, Brussels and Istanbul.\n\nDemographics\n\nThe majority of Benin's population lives in the south. The population is young, with a life expectancy of 59 years. About 42 African ethnic groups live in this country; these various groups settled in Benin at different times and also migrated within the country. Ethnic groups include the Yoruba in the southeast (migrated from Nigeria in the 12th century); the Dendi in the north-central area (who came from Mali in the 16th century); the Bariba and the Fula (; ) in the northeast; the Betammaribe and the Somba in the Atacora Range; the Fon in the area around Abomey in the South Central and the Mina, Xueda, and Aja (who came from Togo) on the coast.\n\nRecent migrations have brought other African nationals to Benin that include Nigerians, Togolese, and Malians. The foreign community also includes many Lebanese and Indians involved in trade and commerce. The personnel of the many European embassies and foreign aid missions and of nongovernmental organizations and various missionary groups account for a large part of the European population. A small part of the European population consists of Beninese citizens of French ancestry, whose ancestors ruled Benin and left after independence.\n\nLargest cities\n\nHealth \n\nThe HIV/AIDS rate in Benin was estimated in 2013 at 1.13% of adults aged 15–49 years. Malaria is a problem in Benin, being a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children younger than five years.\n\nDuring the 1980s, less than 30% of the country's population had access to primary health care services. Benin had one of the highest death rates for children under the age of five in the world. Its infant mortality rate stood at 203 deaths for every live births. Only one in three mothers had access to child health care services. The Bamako Initiative changed that dramatically by introducing community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. , Benin had the 34th highest rate of maternal mortality in the world. According to a 2013 UNICEF report, 13% of women had undergone female genital mutilation.[http://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGCM_Lo_res.pdf UNICEF 2013], p. 27 A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost. Demographic and Health Surveys has completed three surveys in Benin since 1996. \n\nCulture\n\nArts\n\nBeninese literature had a strong oral tradition long before French became the dominant language. Félix Couchoro wrote the first Beninese novel, L'Esclave, in 1929.\n\nPost-independence, the country was home to a vibrant and innovative music scene, where native folk music combined with Ghanaian highlife, French cabaret, American rock, funk and soul, and Congolese rumba.\n\nSinger Angélique Kidjo and actor Djimon Hounsou were born in Cotonou, Benin. Composer Wally Badarou and singer Gnonnas Pedro are also of Beninese descent.\n\nBiennale Benin, continuing the projects of several organizations and artists, started in the country in 2010 as a collaborative event called \"Regard Benin\". In 2012, the project become a Biennial coordinated by the Consortium, a federation of local associations. The international exhibition and artistic program of the 2012 Biennale Benin are curated by Abdellah Karroum and the Curatorial Delegation.\n\nCustomary names\n\nMany Beninese in the south of the country have Akan-based names indicating the day of the week on which they were born. This is due to influence of the Akan people like the Akwamu and others. \n\nLanguage\n\nLocal languages are used as the languages of instruction in elementary schools, with French only introduced after several years. In wealthier cities, however, French is usually taught at an earlier age. Beninese languages are generally transcribed with a separate letter for each speech sound (phoneme), rather than using diacritics as in French or digraphs as in English. This includes Beninese Yoruba, which in Nigeria is written with both diacritics and digraphs. For instance, the mid vowels written é è, ô, o in French are written ' in Beninese languages, whereas the consonants written ng and sh or ch in English are written ŋ and c. However, digraphs are used for nasal vowels and the labial-velar consonants kp and gb, as in the name of the Fon language Fon gbe, and diacritics are used as tone marks. In French-language publications, a mixture of French and Beninese orthographies may be seen.\n\nReligion\n\nIn the 2002 census, 42.8% of the population of Benin were Christian (27.1% Roman Catholic, 5% Celestial Church of Christ, 3.2% Methodist, 7.5% other Christian denominations), 24.4% were Muslim, 17.3% practiced Vodun, 6% practiced other local traditional religions, 1.9% practiced other religions, and 6.5% claimed no religious affiliation.[http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90082.htm International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Benin]. United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (14 September 2007). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.\n\nTraditional religions include local animistic religions in the Atakora (Atakora and Donga provinces), and Vodun and Orisha veneration among the Yoruba and Tado peoples in the center and south of the nation. The town of Ouidah on the central coast is the spiritual center of Beninese Vodun.\n\nThe major introduced religions are Christianity, followed throughout the south and center of Benin and in Otammari country in the Atakora, and Islam, introduced by the Songhai Empire and Hausa merchants, and now followed throughout Alibori, Borgou and Donga provinces, as well as among the Yoruba (who also follow Christianity). Many, however, continue to hold Vodun and Orisha beliefs and have incorporated the pantheon of Vodun and Orisha into Christianity. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a sect originating in the 19th century, is also present in a significant minority.\n\nEducation\n\nThe literacy rate in Benin is among the lowest in the world: in 2006 it was estimated to be 28.7% (40.6% for males and 18.4% for females).\n\nAlthough at one time the education system was not free, Benin has abolished school fees and is carrying out the recommendations of its 2007 Educational Forum.\n\nCuisine\n\nBeninese cuisine is known in Africa for its exotic ingredients and flavorful dishes. Beninese cuisine involves fresh meals served with a variety of key sauces. In southern Benin cuisine, the most common ingredient is corn, often used to prepare dough which is mainly served with peanut- or tomato-based sauces. Fish and chicken are the most common meats used in southern Beninese cuisine, but beef, goat, and bush rat are also consumed. The main staple in northern Benin is yams, often served with sauces mentioned above. The population in the northern provinces use beef and pork meat which is fried in palm or peanut oil or cooked in sauces. Cheese is used in some dishes. Couscous, rice, and beans are commonly eaten, along with fruits such as mangoes, oranges, avocados, bananas, kiwi fruit, and pineapples.\n\nMeat is usually quite expensive, and meals are generally light on meat and generous on vegetable fat. Frying in palm or peanut oil is the most common meat preparation, and smoked fish is commonly prepared in Benin. Grinders are used to prepare corn flour, which is made into a dough and served with sauces. \"Chicken on the spit\" is a traditional recipe in which chicken is roasted over fire on wooden sticks. Palm roots are sometimes soaked in a jar with saltwater and sliced garlic to tenderize them, then used in dishes. Many people have outdoor mud stoves for cooking.\n\nSports\n\nSoccer (Football) is generally considered the most popular sport in Benin. However, in the past 5 years, American baseball has been introduced to the country.",
"The People's Republic of Benin () was a socialist state located in the Gulf of Guinea on the African continent, which would become present-day Benin. The People's Republic was established on 30 November 1975, after the 1972 coup d'état in the Republic of Dahomey. It effectively lasted until 1 March 1990, with the adoption of a new constitution, and the abolition of Marxism-Leninism in the nation in 1989. \n\nOn 26 October 1972, the army led by Commander Mathieu Kérékou overthrew the government, suspended the constitution and dissolved both the National Assembly and the Presidential Council. On 30 November 1972 it released the keynote address of New Politics of National Independence. The territorial administration was reformed, mayors and deputies replacing traditional structures (village chiefs, convents, animist priests, etc.). On 30 November 1974 he declared in the city of Abomey, before an assembly of stunned notables, a speech proclaiming the formal accession of his government to Marxism-Leninism. He soon aligned Dahomey with the Soviet Union. The People's Revolutionary Party of Benin, designed as a vanguard party, was created on the same day as the country's only legal party.\n\nThe first year of the Marxist government was marked by purges in the state apparatus. Kérékou condemned, and sometimes executed, various representatives of the former political regime, and some of its own employees: Captain Michel Aipké, Interior minister, was sentenced to death and executed on a charge of adultery with the wife of the head of state. He was shot, and activists invited to file past his body. On 30 November 1975, with the first anniversary of the speech of Abomey, Kérékou changed the country's name to Benin, named after the Benin Empire that had once flourished in neighboring Nigeria. The National Day was set for 30 November referring to three days of 1972, 1974, and 1975, dubbed by the regime the Three Glorious.\n\nIn January 1977, an attempted coup, called Operation Shrimp, led by the mercenary Bob Denard and supported by France, Gabon, and Morocco failed and it helped to harden the regime, which was officially moving toward the way of a government-political party. The constitution was adopted on 26 August of that year, Article 4 stating:\n\nA basic law established an all-powerful national assembly. \n\nThe opposition was muzzled, and political prisoners remained in detention for years without trial. The elections were held under a system of unique applications. Campaigns were conducted for rural development and improving education. The government also pursued a policy of anti-religious inspiration, in order to root out witchcraft, forces of evil, and retrograde beliefs (West African Vodun, a traditional religion well established in the South, was prohibited, which did not prevent Kérékou, a few years later, from having his personal marabout). Benin received only modest support from other communist countries, hosting several teams from cooperating Cuba, East Germany, the USSR, and North Korea. \n\nBenin tried to implement extensive programs of economic and social development without getting results. Mismanagement and corruption undermined the country's economy. The industrialization strategy by the internal market of Benin caused an escalation of foreign debt. Between 1980 and 1985, the annual service of its external debt raised from 20 to 49 million, while its GNP dropped from 1.402 to 1.024 billion and the stock of debt exploded from 424 to 817 million. The three former presidents, Hubert Maga, Sourou Migan Apithy, and Justin Ahomadegbe (imprisoned in 1972) were released in 1981.\n\nA new constitution was adopted in 1978, and the first elections for the National Revolutionary Assembly were held in 1979. Kérékou was elected unopposed to a four-year term as president in 1980 and reelected in 1984. As was the case in most Marxist-Leninist states, the National Revolutionary Assembly was nominally the highest source of state power, but in practice did little more than rubber-stamp decisions already made by Kérékou and the PRPB.\n\nIn 1986, the economic situation in Benin had become critical: the system, ironically, already dubbed the Marxism-Beninism, inherited the nickname of laxism-Leninism. A popular running gag said that the number of supporters convinced by the regime did not exceeded twelve. Agriculture was disorganized, the Commercial Bank of Benin ruined, and communities were largely paralyzed due to lack of budget. On the political front, the violations of human rights, with cases of torture of political prisoners, contributed to social tension: the church and the unions opposed more openly the regime. Plans for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed in 1987 draconian economic measures: 10% additional levy on wages, hiring freezes, and compulsory retirements. On June 16, 1989, the People's Republic of Benin signed with the IMF a first adjustment plan, in exchange for enhanced structural adjustment facility (ESAF) of 21.9 million Special Drawing Rights of the IMF. Were planned: a reduction in public expenditure and tax reform, privatizations, reorganization or liquidation of public enterprises, a policy of liberalization and the obligation to enter into that borrowing at concessional rates. The IMF agreement set off a massive strike of students and staff, requiring the payment of their salaries and their scholarships. On 22 June 1989, the country signed a rescheduling agreement first with the Paris Club, for a total of $199 million and Benin was granted a 14.1% reduction of its debt.\n\nThe social and political turmoil, the catastrophic economic situation and the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, lead Kérékou to agree to bring down his regime. In February 1989, a pastoral letter signed by eleven bishops of Benin expressed its condemnation of the PRC. On 7 December 1989, Kérékou took the lead and surprised the people disseminating an official statement announcing the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism, the liquidation of the Political Bureau, and the closure of the party's central committee. The Government accepted the establishment of a National Conference bringing together representatives of different political movements. The Conference opened on 19 February 1990: Kérékou expressed himself in person on 21 February, publicly recognising the failure of his policy. The work of the Conference decided to draft a new constitution and the establishment of a democratic process provided by a provisional government entrusted to a prime minister. Kérékou remained head of state on a temporary basis. Kérékou said on 28 February to the attention of the Conference: \n\nA transitional government was set up in 1990, paving the way for the return of democracy and multi-party system. The new constitution was adopted by referendum on December 1990. The official name of Benin was preserved for the country, which became the Republic of Benin. Prime Minister Nicephore Soglo, won 67.7% of the votes and defeated Kérékou in the presidential election in March 1991. Kérékou accepted the election results and left his office. He became president again by winning the election in 1996, having meanwhile dropped all references to Marxism and to atheism to become an evangelical pastor. His return to power involved no recovery of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Benin."
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In which country are Tangier and Casablanca?
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tc_211
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Tangier (; Ṭanjah; Berber: Ṭanja; old Berber name: Tingi, ⵜⵉⵏⴳⵉ; other English name: Tangiers) is a major city in northwestern Morocco. It is located on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. It is the capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima Region and of the Tangier-Assilah prefecture of Morocco.\n\nThe history of Tangier is very rich, due to the historical presence of many civilizations and cultures starting from before the 5th century BCE. Between the period of being a strategic Berber town and then a Phoenician trading center to the independence era around the 1950s, Tangier was a refuge for many cultures. In 1923, Tangier was considered as having international status by foreign colonial powers, and became a destination for many European and American diplomats, spies, writers and businessmen.\n\nThe city is currently undergoing rapid development and modernization. Projects include new tourism projects along the bay, a modern business district called Tangier City Center, a new airport terminal and a new football stadium. Tangier's economy is also set to benefit greatly from the new Tanger-Med port.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe city's name is said to come from Tingis, the daughter of Atlas, the mythical supporter of the Heavens. However, it more likely derives from the Semitic word tigisis, meaning \"harbour\". \nTangier is also referred as Boughaz or nicknamed as \"the bride of the north\" by the Moroccans and \"the door of Africa\" for its particular location in the peak of the continent.\n\nHistory\n\nTangier was founded by Carthaginian colonists in the early 5th century BCE, who were probably the first ones to settle around the coast.\n\nThe Greeks ascribed its foundation to the giant Antaios, whose tomb and skeleton are pointed out in the vicinity, calling Sufax the son of Hercules by the widow of Antaeus. The cave of Hercules, a few miles from the city, is a major tourist attraction. It is believed that Hercules slept there before attempting one of his twelve labours.\n\nThe commercial town of Tingis (Τιγγίς in Ancient Greek), came under Roman rule in the course of the 2nd century BC (146 BC), first as a free city and then, under Augustus, a colony (Colonia Julia, under Claudius), capital of Mauritania Tingitana of Hispania (since 38 BC). It was the scene of the martyrdoms of Saint Marcellus of Tangier. Tingis was the main Roman city of Mauretania Tingitana in the fourth century and enjoyed huge development and importance. In the 5th century AD, Vandals conquered and occupied \"Tingi\" and from here swept across North Africa.\n\nA century later (between 534 and 682), Tangier fell back to the Eastern Roman empire, before coming under Arab (Umayyad) control in 702. Due to its Christian past, it is still a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. \nWhen the Portuguese, driven in good part by religious fervor, started their colonial expansion by taking Ceuta in 1415, Tangier was always a primary goal. They failed to capture the city in 1437 but finally occupied it in 1471 (see List of colonial heads of Tangier). A partial plan of the original kasbah (Arabic: القصبة al-qaṣbah) was found in 2009-12, in a Portuguese document now preserved in the Military Archives of Sweden in Stockholm (Krigsarkivet (Riksarkivet)). The Portuguese rule lasted until 1662, when it was given to Charles II of England as part of the dowry from the Portuguese Infanta Catherine of Braganza, becoming English Tangier. The English gave the city a garrison and a charter which made it equal to English towns. The English planned to improve the harbour by building a mole. With an improved harbour the town would have played the same role that Gibraltar later played in British naval strategy. The mole cost £340,000 and reached 1,436 feet long, before being blown up during the evacuation. \n\nAn attempt of Sultan Moulay Ismail of Morocco to seize the town in 1679 was unsuccessful; but a crippling blockade by his Jaysh al-Rifi ultimately forced the English to withdraw. The English destroyed the town and its port facilities prior to their departure in 1684. Under Moulay Ismail the city was reconstructed to some extent, but it gradually declined until, by 1810, the population was no more than 5,000.\n\nThe United States dedicated its first consulate in Tangier during the George Washington administration. In 1821, the Legation Building in Tangier became the first piece of property acquired abroad by the U.S. government—a gift to the U.S. from Sultan Moulay Suliman. In 1828, Great Britain blockaded the port in retaliation for piracy. It was bombarded by the French Prince of Joinville in 1844.\n\nItalian revolutionary hero Giuseppe Garibaldi lived in exile at Tangier in late 1849 and the first half of 1850, following the fall of the revolutionary Roman Republic.\n\nTangier's geographic location made it a centre for European diplomatic and commercial rivalry in Morocco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the opening of the 20th century, it had a population of about 40,000, including 20,000 Muslims, 10,000 Jews, and 9,000 Europeans (of whom 7,500 were Spanish). The city was increasingly coming under French influence, and it was here in 1905 that Kaiser Wilhelm II triggered an international crisis that almost led to war between his country and France by pronouncing himself in favour of Morocco's continued independence.\n\nIn 1912, Morocco was effectively partitioned between France and Spain, the latter occupying the country's far north and far south, while France declared a protectorate over the remainder. The last Sultan of independent Morocco, Moulay Hafid, was exiled to the Sultanate Palace in the Tangier Kasbah after his forced abdication in favour of his brother Moulay Yusef.\nTangier was made an international zone in 1923 under the joint administration of France, Spain, and Britain under an international convention signed in Paris on December 18, 1923. Ratifications were exchanged in Paris on May 14, 1924. The convention was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on September 13, 1924. The convention was amended in 1928. The governments of Italy, Portugal and Belgium adhered to the convention in 1928, and the government of the Netherlands in 1929.\n\nThe International zone of Tangier had a 373 square kilometer area and, by 1939, a population of about 60,000 inhabitants. \n\nSpanish troops occupied Tangier on June 14, 1940, the same day Paris fell to the Germans. Despite calls by the writer Rafael Sánchez Mazas and other Spanish nationalists to annex \"Tánger español\", the Franco regime publicly considered the occupation a temporary wartime measure. A diplomatic dispute between Britain and Spain over the latter's abolition of the city's international institutions in November 1940 led to a further guarantee of British rights and a Spanish promise not to fortify the area. The territory was restored to its pre-war status on October 11, 1945. Pre-1956 Tangier had a population of 40,000 Muslims, 31,000 Europeans and 15,000 Jews. Tangier joined with the rest of Morocco following the restoration of full sovereignty in 1956.\n\nEcclesiastical history\n\nOriginally, the city was part of the larger province of Mauretania Caesariensis, which included much of Northern Africa. Later the area was subdivided, with the eastern part keeping the former name and the newer part receiving the name of Mauretania Tingitana. It is not known exactly at what period there may have been an episcopal see at Tangier in ancient times, but in the Middle Ages Tangier was used as a titular see (i.e., an honorific fiction for the appointment of curial and auxiliary bishops), placing it in Mauretania Tingitana. For the historical reasons given above, one official list of the Roman Curia places the see in Mauretania Caesarea.\n\nTowards the end of the 3rd century, Tangier was the scene of the martyrdom of Saint Marcellus of Tangier, mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on 30 October, and of St. Cassian, mentioned on 3 December.\n\nUnder the Portuguese domination, there was a Bishop of Tangier who was a suffragan of the diocese of Lisbon but in 1570 the diocese was united to the diocese of Ceuta. Six Bishops of Tangier from this period are known, the first, who did not reside in his see, in 1468. During the era of the protectorate over Morocco, Tangier was the residence of the Prefect Apostolic of Morocco, the mission having been founded on November 28, 1630, and entrusted to the Friars Minor. At the time it had a Catholic church, several chapels, schools, and a hospital. The Prefecture Apostolic was raised to the status of a Vicariate Apostolic of Marocco April 14, 1908, and on November 14, 1956, became the Archdiocese of Tangier. \n\nThe city also has the Anglican church of Saint Andrew.\n\nEspionage\n\nTangier has been reputed as a safe house for international spying activities. Its position during the Cold War and during other spying periods of the 19th and 20th centuries is legendary.\n\nTangier acquired the reputation of a spying and smuggling centre and attracted foreign capital due to political neutrality and commercial liberty at that time. It was via a British bank in Tangier that the Bank of England in 1943 for the first time obtained samples of the high-quality forged British currency produced by the Nazis in \"Operation Bernhard\".\n\nThe city has also been a subject for many spy fiction books and films (see Tangier in popular culture below).\n\nClimate\n\nTangier has a mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with heavier rainfall than most parts of North Africa and nearby areas on the Iberian Peninsula owing to its exposed location. The summers are relatively hot and sunny and the winters are wet and mild: frost is rare, however in January 2005 a low of -4.2 °C was recorded.\n \n\nSubdivisions\n\nThe prefecture is divided administratively into the following: \n\nCulture\n\nThe multicultural placement of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities and the foreign immigrants attracted writer and composer Paul Bowles, playwright Tennessee Williams, the beat writers William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the painter Brion Gysin and the music group the Rolling Stones, who all lived in or visited Tangier during different periods of the 20th century.\n\nThe writer George Orwell and his wife (travelling as Mr. & Mrs. Blair) visited Tangier in September, 1938. Orwell reported newspapers on sale: \"La Press Morocain, strongly pro-Franco; Le Petite Morocain, impartial; La Dépêche Morocain, somewhat pro-Franco; Le Journal De Tanger, seemingly non-political; Tangier Gazette & Morocco Mail, an English weekly, slightly antifascist and strongly anti-Japanese.\" He also noted \"There are four post offices, one French, one British, and two Spanish - Franco and government. Stamps are British surcharged Tangier. Coinage as in French Morocco.\" \n\nIt was after Delacroix that Tangier became an obligatory stop for artists seeking to experience the colors and light he spoke of for themselves—with varying results. Matisse made several sojourns in Tangier, always staying at the Grand Hotel Villa de France. \"I have found landscapes in Morocco,\" he claimed, \"exactly as they are described in Delacroix's paintings.\" The Californian artist Richard Diebenkorn was directly influenced by the haunting colors and rhythmic patterns of Matisse's Morocco paintings.\n\nAntonio Fuentes was born in Tangier in 1905 from a Spanish family. An article in La Gazette du Maroc described Antonio Fuentes as the Picasso of Tangier, and he died in the city 90 years later. \n\nIn the 1940s and until 1956 when the city was an International Zone, the city served as a playground for eccentric millionaires, a meeting place for secret agents and all kinds of crooks, and a mecca for speculators and gamblers, an Eldorado for the fun-loving \"Haute Volée\". During World War II the Office of Strategic Services operated out of Tangier for various operations in North Africa. \n\nAround the same time, a circle of writers emerged which was to have a profound and lasting literary influence. This included Paul Bowles, who lived and wrote for over half a century in the city, Tennessee Williams and Jean Genet as well as Mohamed Choukri (one of North Africa's most controversial and widely read authors), Abdeslam Boulaich, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet and Ahmed Yacoubi. Among the best known works from this period is Choukri's For Bread Alone. Originally written in Classical Arabic, the English edition was the result of close collaboration with Bowles (who worked with Choukri to provide the translation and supplied the introduction). Tennessee Williams described it as \"a true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact.\" Independently, William S. Burroughs lived in Tangier for four years and wrote Naked Lunch, whose locale of Interzone is an allusion to the city.\n\nAfter several years of gradual disentanglement from Spanish and French colonial control, Morocco reintegrated the city of Tangier at the signing of the Tangier Protocol on October 29, 1956. Tangier remains a very popular tourist destination for cruise ships and day visitors from Spain and Gibraltar.\n\nSport\n\nI.R.T. (or Ittihad Riadi de Tanger) is a football club. Tangier would be one of the host cities for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, which would be played at the new Ibn Batouta Stadium and in other cities across Morocco, until Morocco was banned from participating the Africa Cup of Nations due to their denial. \n\nNational Cricket Stadium is the only major cricket stadium in Morocco. Stadium hosted its first International Tournament from 12 to 21 August 2002. Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka competed in a 50-overs one day triangular series.\n\nThe ICC has granted international status to the Tangier Cricket Stadium in Morocco official approval that will allow it become North Africa's first international cricket venue.\n\nEconomy\n\nTangier is Morocco's second most important industrial centre after Casablanca. The industrial sectors are diversified: textile, chemical, mechanical, metallurgical and naval. Currently, the city has four industrial parks of which two have the status of free economic zone (see Tangier Free Zone).\n\nTangier's economy relies heavily on tourism. Seaside resorts have been increasing with projects funded by foreign investments. Real estate and construction companies have been investing heavily in tourist infrastructures. A bay delimiting the city centre extends for more than 7 km. The years 2007 and 2008 were particularly important for the city because of the completion of large construction projects; These include the Tangier-Mediterranean port (\"Tanger-Med\") and its industrial parks, a 45,000-seat sports stadium, an expanded business district, and a renovated tourist infrastructure.\n\nAgriculture in the area of Tangier is tertiary and mainly cereal.\n\nThe infrastructure of this city on the strait of Gibraltar consists of a port that manages flows of goods and travellers (more than one million travellers per annum) and integrates a marina with a fishing port.\n\nArtisanal trade in the old medina (old city) specializes mainly in leather working, handicrafts made from wood and silver, traditional clothing, and shoes of Moroccan origin.\n\nThe city has seen a fast pace of rural exodus from other small cities and villages. Today's population is more than three-times larger than 32 years ago (850.000 inhabitants in 2014 vs. 250,000 in 1982). This phenomenon has resulted in the appearance of peripheral suburban districts, mainly inhabited by poor people, that often lack sufficient infrastructure.\n\nNotable landmarks\n\n*Dar el Makhzen (Sultan's palace)\n*Ancien Palais du Mendoub\n*Perdicaris Parc Named after the notable Ion H. Percifaris (Greek-American communitist of Tangiers).\n*Sidi Bou Abib Mosque\n*Tangier Grand Mosque\n*Church of the Immaculate Conception\n*Anglican Church of St. Andrew\n*Plaza de Toros (bullring arena) on Rue de Tetouan\n*Gran Teatro Cervantes\n*Tangier American Legation Museum\n*Museum of Moroccan Arts and Antiquities\n*Museum of Contemporary Art\n*Fondation Lorin\n*Musée de Carmen-Macein\n*Grand Socco souk and square\n*Petit Socco souk\n*Casabarata souk or giant flea market\n*Hotel Continental\n*Rue Es-Siaghine\n*Rue de la Liberté\n*Avenue Pasteur\n*Avenue Mohammed VI beach\n*Parc de la Mendoubia\n*Quartier du Marshan\n*Colline du Charf\n*Café Hafa\n\nTransport\n\nA railway line connects the city with Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh in the south and Fes and Oujda in the east. The service is operated by ONCF. The Rabat–Tangier expressway connects Tangier to Fès via Rabat 250 km, Settat via Casablanca 330 km and Tanger-Med port. The Ibn Batouta International Airport (formerly known as Tangier-Boukhalef) is located 15 km south-west of the city centre.\n\nThe new Tanger-Med Port is managed by the Danish firm A. P. Moller–Maersk Group and will free up the old port for tourist and recreational development.\n\nTangier's Ibn Batouta International Airport and the rail tunnel will serve as the gateway to the \"Moroccan Riviera\" the coast between Tangier and Oujda. Traditionally the north coast was an impoverished and underdeveloped region of Morocco but it has some of the best beaches on the Mediterranean and is likely to see rapid development.\n\nThe Ibn Batouta International Airport has been being expanded and modernized to accommodate more flights. The biggest airline at the airport is Royal Air Maroc. In addition, a TGV high-speed train system is being built. It will take a few years to complete, and will become the fastest train system in North Africa.\n\nLanguage\n\nMost of the inhabitants of Tangier speak the Darija, mainly influenced by Spanish. About 25% of the city inhabitants speak Berber in their daily lives. Tangerian, as the residents refer to their language, is different from the rest of Morocco, with a lexicon derived from Berber, Spanish, English, and old Tangerian words. \nWritten Arabic is used in government documentation and on road signs together with French. French is used in universities and large businesses. English and Spanish are well understood in all hotels and tourist areas.\n\nEducation\n\nTangier offers four types of education systems: Arabic, French, Spanish and English. Each offers classes starting from pre-Kindergarten up to the 12th grade,as for German in the three last years of high school. \nThe Baccalaureat, or high school diploma are the diplomas offered after clearing the 12 grades.\n\nMany universities are inside and outside the city. Universities like the Institut Superieur International de Tourisme (ISIT), which grants diplomas, offer courses ranging from business administration to hotel management. The institute is one of the most prestigious tourism schools in the country. Other colleges such as the École Nationale de Commerce et de Gestion ([http://www.encgt.ma ENCG-T]) is among the biggest business schools in the country as well as École Nationale des Sciences appliquées ([http://www.ensat.ac.ma ENSA-T]), a rising engineering school for applied sciences.\nUniversity known as Abdelmaled Essaadi holding many what they mainly known as faculties; Law, Economics and Social sciences ([http://www.fdtanger.ma FSJEST]) and the FST of Technical Sciences. and the most attended Institut of ISTA of the OFPPT.\n\nPrimary education\n\nThere are more than a hundred Moroccan primary schools, dispersed across the city. Private and public schools, they offer education in Arabic, French and some school English until the 5th grade. Mathematics, Arts, Science Activities and nonreligious modules are commonly taught in the primary school.\n\nInternational primary institutions\n\n* The American School of Tangier\n* École Adrien Berchet (French primary school)\n* Groupe scolaire Le Détroit (French school)\n* Colegio Ramón y Cajal (Spanish primary school)\n* English College of Tangier\n* Tangier Anglo Moroccan School\n\nInternational high schools\n\n* The American School of Tangier\n* Lycée Regnault de Tanger (French high school)\n* Groupe scolaire Le Détroit (French school)\n* Instituto Español Severo Ochoa (Spanish high school)\n* English College of Tangier\n* Mohammed Fatih Turkish School of Tangier\n* Tangier Anglo Moroccan School\n\nIn popular culture\n\nNotable people\n\n* Yasser Harrak – Writer and human rights activist. \n* Ibn Battuta – Moroccan scholar and traveler who went on a worldwide quest. \n* Ralph Benmergui – Canadian TV and radio host at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation\n* Paul Bowles – American writer, composer and ethnomusicologist\n* William S. Burroughs – Beat Generation Writer, wrote Naked Lunch during the 1950s in Tangier.\n* Alexandre Rey Colaço – Portuguese pianist\n* Ion Perdicaris – Greek-American became the unofficial head of Tangier's foreign community\n* Karim Debbagh – Moroccan Film producer\n* Roger Elliott – first British Governor of Gibraltar\n* Antonio Fuentes – Painter described as the 'Picasso of Tangier'[1]\n* Sanaa Hamri – Moroccan music video director.\n* Emmanuel Hocquard – French poet\n* Jean-Luc Mélenchon – French politician, currently MEP\n* Alexander Spotswood – American Lieutenant-Colonel and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia\n* Heinz Tietjen – German music composer\n* Abderrahmane Youssoufi – former Prime Minister of Morocco\n* Abdullah al-Ghumari – Muslim cleric\n* Ahmed Yacoubi – international painter extraordinaire\n\nTwin towns – sister cities\n\nTangier is twinned with:",
"Casablanca (, ad-Dār al-Bayḍa’; ; local informal name: Kaẓa) is the largest city of Morocco, located in the central-western part of the country on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the largest city in the Maghreb, as well as one of the largest and most important cities in Africa, both economically and demographically.\n\nCasablanca is Morocco's chief port and one of the largest financial centers on the African continent. The 2012 census, adjusted with recent numbers, recorded a population of about 4 million in the prefecture of Casablanca. Casablanca is considered the economic and business center of Morocco, while the national political capital is Rabat.\n\nThe leading Moroccan companies and international corporations doing business there have their headquarters and main industrial facilities in Casablanca. Recent industrial statistics show Casablanca retains its historical position as the main industrial zone of the country. The Port of Casablanca is one of the largest artificial ports in the world, and the largest port of North Africa. It is also the primary naval base for the Royal Moroccan Navy.\n\nEtymology \n\nThe original name of the city was Anfa, in Berber language, by at least the seventh century BC. After the Portuguese took control of Anfa in the 15th century AD, they rebuilt it, changing the name to Casa Branca. It derives from the Portuguese word combination meaning \"White House\" (' \"white\", ' \"house\"). The present name, which is the Spanish version, came when the Portuguese kingdom was integrated to the Spanish kingdom. During the French protectorate in Morocco, the name remained Casablanca, pronounced \"[kɑzɑblɑnkɑ]\" (in French accent) by the French. In the 18th century, an earthquake destroyed most of the town. It had been rebuilt by the Sultan who changed the name into the local Arabic which is A-ddar Al Baidaa, although Arabic also has its own version of Casablanca (كازابلانكا, Kāzāblānkā). The city is still nicknamed Casa by many locals and outsiders to the city. In many other cities with a different dialect, it is called A-ddar Al-Bida, instead.\n\nA famous boulevard inside Casablanca City is called \"Anfa Boulevard\". Anfa is generally considered the early \"old original city\" of Casablanca; it is legally a prefecture (district) with half a million city inhabitants.\n\nHistory \n\nEarly history \n\nThe area which is today Casablanca was founded and settled by Berbers by at least the seventh century BC. It was used as a port by the Phoenicians and later the Romans. In his book Wasf Afriquia, Al-Hassan al-Wazzan refers to ancient Casablanca as \"Anfa\", a great city founded in the Berber kingdom of Barghawata in 744 AD. He believed Anfa was the most \"prosperous city on the Atlantic Coast because of its fertile land.\" Barghawata rose as an independent state around this time, and continued until it was conquered by the Almoravids in 1068. Following the defeat of the Barghawata in the 12th century, Arab tribes of Hilal and Sulaym descent settled in the region, mixing with and the local Berbers, which had led to a global Arabicizing. During the 14th century, under the Merinids, Anfa rose in importance as a port. The last of the Merinids was ousted by a popular revolt in 1465. \n\nPortugal conquest and Spanish influence \n\nIn the early 15th century, the town became an independent state once again, and emerged as a safe harbour for pirates and privateers, leading to it being targeted by the Portuguese, who bombarded the town which had led to its destruction in 1468. The Portuguese used the ruins of Anfa to build a military fortress in 1515. The town that grew up around it was called Casa Branca, meaning \"white house\" in Portuguese.\n\nBetween 1580 and 1640, the Crown of Portugal was integrated to the Crown of Spain, so Casablanca and all other areas occupied by the Portuguese were under Spanish control, though maintaining an autonomous Portuguese administration. As Portugal broke ties with Spain in 1640, Casablanca came under fully Portuguese control once again. The Europeans eventually abandoned the area completely in 1755 following an earthquake which destroyed most of the town. \n\nThe town was finally reconstructed by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah (1756–1790), the grandson of Moulay Ismail and an ally of George Washington, with the help of Spaniards from the nearby emporium. The town was called الدار البيضاء ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʼ, the Arabic translation of the Spanish Casa Blanca.\n\nFrench conquest \n\nIn the 19th century, the area's population began to grow as it became a major supplier of wool to the booming textile industry in Britain and shipping traffic increased (the British, in return, began importing Morocco's national drink, gunpowder tea). By the 1860s, around 5,000 residents were there, and the population grew to around 10,000 by the late 1880s. Casablanca remained a modestly sized port, with a population reaching around 12,000 within a few years of the French conquest and arrival of French colonialists in the town, at first administrators within a sovereign sultanate, in 1906. By 1921, this rose to 110,000, largely through the development of shanty towns.\n\nFrench rule and influence \n\nIn June 1907, the French attempted to build a light railway near the port and passing through a graveyard. As act of resistance and protestation, the locals attacked the French, riots ensued, causing a few soldiers to be wounded and one general to be killed. In response, the French attacked by ship, bombarding the city from the coast, and landing troops inside the town, which caused severe damage to the town and 15,000 dead and wounded bodies. The French claimed that it was to restore order there. This effectively began the process of colonization, although French control of Casablanca was not formalised until 1910. Under the French rule, Muslim anti-Jewish riots occurred in 1908. \n\nThe famous 1942 film Casablanca (starring Humphrey Bogart) underlined the city's colonial status at the time—depicting it as the scene of a power struggle between competing European powers. The film has a cosmopolitan cast of characters (American, French, German, Spaniard, Czech, Norwegian, Austrian, Bulgarian, Russian, and some other nationalities).\n\nEuropeans formed almost half the population. During the 1940s and 1950s, Casablanca was a major centre of anti-French rioting. A bomb attack on 25 December 1953 (Christmas Day) caused 16 deaths. \n\nWorld War II \n\nOperation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African campaign of World War II, which started on 8 November 1942.\n\nThe Americans attacked at three different locations in French North Africa, one of the three being the landings at Casablanca because of its important port and the major administrative centers. \n\nCasablanca was an important strategic port during World War II and hosted the Casablanca Conference in 1943, in which Churchill and Roosevelt discussed the progress of the war. Casablanca was the site of a large American air base, which was the staging area for all American aircraft for the European Theater of Operations during World War II.\n\nSince independence \n\nIn October 1930, Casablanca hosted a Grand Prix, held at the new Anfa Racecourse. In 1958, the race was held at Ain-Diab circuit (see Moroccan Grand Prix). Morocco gained independence from France on 2 March 1956. In 1983, Casablanca hosted the Mediterranean Games. The city is now developing a tourism industry. Casablanca has become the economic and business capital of Morocco, while Rabat is the political capital.\n\nIn March 2000, more than 60 women's groups organized demonstrations in Casablanca proposing reforms to the legal status of women in the country. About 40,000 women attended, calling for a ban on polygamy and the introduction of divorce law (divorce being a purely religious procedure at that time). Although the counter-demonstration attracted half a million participants, the movement for change started in 2000 was influential on King Mohammed VI, and he enacted a new mudawana, or family law, in early 2004, meeting some of the demands of women's rights activists. \n\nOn 16 May 2003, 33 civilians were killed and more than 100 people were injured when Casablanca was hit by a multiple suicide bomb attack carried out by Moroccans and claimed by some to have been linked to al-Qaeda. Twelve suicide bombers struck five locations in the city. \n\nA string of suicide bombings struck the city in early 2007. A suspected militant blew himself up at a Casablanca internet cafe on 11 March 2007. On 10 April, three suicide bombers blew themselves up during a police raid of their safe house. Two days later, police set up barricades around the city and detained two more men who had escaped the raid. On 14 April, two brothers blew themselves up in downtown Casablanca, one near the American Consulate, and one a few blocks away near the American Language Center. Only one person was injured aside from the bombers, but the Consulate was closed for more than a month.\n\nAs calls for reform spread through the Arab world in 2011, Moroccans joined in, but concessions by the ruler led to acceptance. However, in December, thousands of people demonstrated in several parts of the city, especially the city center near la Fontaine, desiring more significant political reforms.\n\nGeography and climate \n\nCasablanca is located in the Chawiya Plain which has historically been the breadbasket of Morocco. Apart from the Atlantic coast, the Bouskoura forest is the only natural attraction in the city. The forest was planted in the 20th century and consists mostly of eucalyptus, palm, and pine trees. It is located halfway to the city's international airport.\n\nThe only watercourse in Casablanca is oued Bouskoura, a small seasonal creek that until 1912 reached the Atlantic Ocean near the actual port. Most of oued Bouskoura's bed has been covered due to urbanization and only the part south of El Jadida road can now be seen. The closest permanent river to Casablanca is Oum Rabia, 70 km to the south-east.\n\nClimate\n\nCasablanca has a warm summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb). The cool Canary Current off the Atlantic coast moderates temperature variation, which results in a climate remarkably similar to that of coastal Los Angeles, with similar temperature ranges. The city has an annual average of 72 days with significant precipitation, which amounts to 412 mm per year. The highest and lowest temperatures ever recorded in the city are and , respectively. The highest amount of rainfall recorded in a single day is 178 mm on 30 November 2010.\n\nEconomy \n\nThe Grand Casablanca region is considered the locomotive of the development of the Moroccan economy. It attracts 32% of the country's production units and 56% of industrial labor. The region uses 30% of the national electricity production. With MAD 93 billion, the region contributes to 44% of the industrial production of the kingdom. About 33% of national industrial exportations, MAD 27 billion, comes from the Grand Casablanca; 30% of the Moroccan banking network is concentrated in Casablanca. \n\nOne of the most important Casablancan exports is phosphate. Other industries include fishing, fish canning, sawmills, furniture production, building materials, glass, textiles, electronics, leather work, processed food, spirits, soft drinks, and cigarettes. \n\nThe Casablanca and Mohammedia seaports activity represent 50% of the international commercial flows of Morocco. Almost the entire Casablanca waterfront is under development, mainly the construction of huge entertainment centres between the port and Hassan II Mosque, the Anfa Resort project near the business, entertainment and living centre of Megarama, the shopping and entertainment complex of Morocco Mall, as well as a complete renovation of the coastal walkway. The Sindbad park is planned to be totally renewed with rides, games and entertainment services. \n\nRoyal Air Maroc has its head office at the Casablanca-Anfa Airport. In 2004, it announced that it was moving its head office from Casablanca to a location in Province of Nouaceur, close to Mohammed V International Airport. The agreement to build the head office in Nouaceur was signed in 2009. \n\nThe biggest CBD of Casablanca and Maghreb is in the North of the town in Sidi Maarouf near the mosque of Hassan II and the biggest project of skycrapers of Maghreb and Africa Casablanca Marina.\n\nAdministrative divisions \n\nCasablanca is a commune, part of the region of Casablanca-Settat. The commune is divided into eight districts or prefectures, which are themselves divided into 16 subdivisions or arrondissements and one municipality. The districts and their subdivisions are: \n\n# Aïn Chock (عين الشق) – Aïn Chock (عين الشق)\n# Aïn Sebaâ - Hay Mohammadi (عين السبع الحي المحمدي) – Aïn Sebaâ (عين السبع), Hay Mohammadi (الحي المحمدي), Roches Noires (روش نوار).\n# Anfa (أنفا) – Anfa (أنفا), Maârif (المعاريف), Sidi Belyout (سيدي بليوط).\n# Ben M'Sick (بن مسيك) – Ben M'Sick (بن مسيك), Sbata (سباته).\n# Sidi Bernoussi (سيدي برنوصي) – Sidi Bernoussi (سيدي برنوصي), Sidi Moumen (سيدي مومن).\n# Al Fida - Mers Sultan (الفداء – مرس السلطان) – Al Fida (الفداء); Mechouar (المشور) (municipality), Mers Sultan (مرس السلطان).\n# Hay Hassani (الحي الحسني) – Hay Hassani (الحي الحسني).\n# Moulay Rachid (مولاي رشيد) – Moulay Rachid (مولاي رشيد), Sidi Othmane (سيدي عثمان).\n\nNeighborhoods \n\nThe list of neighborhoods is indicative and not complete:\n\n* 2 Mars\n* Ain Chock\n* Ain Diab\n* Ain Sebaa\n* Belvédère\n* Beausejour\n* Bouchentouf\n* Bourgogne\n* Californie\n* Centre Ville (downtown)\n* C.I.L.\n* Derb Ghalaf\n* Derb Sultan Al Fida\n* Derb TaZI\n* Al Hank\n* Hay Al Mohammadi\n* Ghandi\n* Gauthier\n* Habous\n* Hay Dakhla (\"Derb Lihoudi\")\n* Hay Farah\n* Hay El Hana\n* Hay Moulay Rachid\n* La Colline\n* Bouskoura\n* Laimoun (Hay Hassani)\n* Lissasfa\n* Maârif\n* Palmiers\n* Old Madina (Mdina Qdima)\n* Mers Sultan\n* Nassim\n* Oasis\n* Walfa\n* Polo\n* Racine\n* Riviera\n* Roches Noires\n* Salmia II\n* Sbata\n* Sidi Bernoussi\n* Sidi Maarouf\n* Sidi Moumen\n* Sidi Othman\n\nDemographics \n\nThe population of Grand Casablanca was estimated in 2005 to be 3.85 million. About 98% live in urban areas. Around 25% of them are under 15 and 9% are over 60 years old. The population of the city is about 11% of the total population of Morocco. Grand Casablanca is also the largest urban area in the Maghreb. The number of inhabitants is, however, disputed by the locals, who point to a number between 5 and 6 million, citing recent drought years as a reason for many people moving into the city to find work. 99.9% of the population of Morocco are Arab and Berber Muslims. \nDuring the French protectorate in Morocco, European Christians formed almost half the population. Later after the independence in 1956, the European population has decreased substantially.\n\nJudaism in Casablanca \n\nA Sephardic Jewish community was in Anfa up to the destruction of the city, by the Portuguese in 1468. Jews were slow to return to the town, but by 1750, the Rabbi Elijah Synagogue was built as the first Jewish synagogue in Casablanca. It was destroyed along with much of the town in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Today, the Jewish cemetery of Casablanca is one of the major cemeteries of the city.\n\nMain sites \n\nThe French period Ville Nouvelle (New Town) of Casablanca was designed by the French architect Henri Prost, and was a model of a new town at that time. The main streets radiate south and east from Place des Nations Unies, previously the main market of Anfa. Former administrative buildings and modern hotels populate the area. Their style is a combination of Hispano-Moorish and Art Deco.\n\nCasablanca is home to the Hassan II Mosque, designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau. It is situated on a promontory on the Atlantic Ocean. The mosque has room for 25,000 worshippers inside, and a further 80,000 can be accommodated in the mosque's courtyard. Its minaret is the world's tallest at 210 m. The mosque is also the largest in North Africa, and the third-largest in the world. \n\nWork on the mosque started in 1980, and was intended to be completed for the 60th birthday of the former Moroccan king, Hassan II, in 1989. However, the building was not inaugurated until 1993. Authorities spent an estimated $800 million in the construction of the building.\n\nThe Parc de la Ligue Arabe (formally called Lyautey) is the city's largest public park. On its edge is the Casablanca Cathedral (Cathédrale Sacré-Coeur). It is no longer in use for religious purposes, but it is open to visitors and a splendid example of Mauresque architecture. The Old Medina (the part of town antedating the French protectorate) attracts fewer tourists than the medinas of cities such as Fes and Marrakech. However, it has undergone some restoration in recent years. Included in this project have been the western walls of the medina, its skala, or bastion, and its colonial-period clock tower.\n\nA popular site among locals is the small island Marabout de Sidi Abderrahmane. It is possible to walk across to the rocky island at low tide. This outcrop contains the tomb of Sidi Abderrhamane Thaalibi, a Sufi from Baghdad and the founder of Algiers. He is considered a saint in Morocco. Because of this, many Moroccans make informal pilgrimages to this site \"to reflect on life and to seek religious enlightenment\". Some believe that the saint possessed magical powers, so his tomb still possesses these powers. People come and seek this magic to be cured. Non-Muslims may not enter the shrine.\n\nEducation\n\nColleges and universities\n\nPublic: University of Hassan II Casablanca\n\nPrivate:\n*Université Mundiapolis\n*Université Internationale de Casablanca\n\nPrimary and secondary schools\n\nInternational schools:\n* Belgium: École Belge de Casablanca\n* French:\n**Collège Anatole France\n**Lycée Lyautey\n**Groupe Scolaire Louis Massignon\n**Lycée La Résidence\n**Lycée Maïmonide (FR)\n**Lycée Léon l'Africain\n**École Normale Hébraïque\n* Italian: Scuola \"Enrico Mattei\"\n* Spanish: Instituto Español Juan Ramón Jiménez\n* American:\n** Casablanca American School\n** American Academy Casablanca\n** George Washington Academy\n\nSports \n\nHosting\n\nCasablanca staged the 1961 Pan Arab Games, the 1983 Mediterranean Games, and games during the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations. Morocco was scheduled to host the 2015 African Nations Cup, but decided to decline due to Ebola fears. Morocco was expelled and the tournament was held in Equatorial Guinea. \n\nVenues \n\n* Stade Larbi Zaouli\n* Stade Mohamed V\n* Stade Sidi Bernoussi\n* Complexe Al Amal de Casablanca\n\nThe Grand Stade de Casablanca is the proposed title of the planned football stadium to be built in the city. Once completed in 2014, it will be used mostly for football matches and will serve as the home of Raja Casablanca, Wydad Casablanca, and the Morocco national football team. The stadium was designed with a capacity of 80,000 spectators, making it one of the highest-capacity stadiums in Africa. Once completed, it will replace the Stade Mohamed V. The initial idea of the stadium was for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, for which Morocco lost their bid to South Africa. Nevertheless, the Moroccan government supported the decision to go ahead with the plans. It will be completed in 2014, ready for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.\n\nAssociation football \n\nCasablanca is home to two popular football clubs, Wydad Casablanca and Raja Casablanca. Raja's symbol is an eagle and Wydad's symbol is a goose. These two popular clubs have produced some of Morocco's best players, such as: Salaheddine Bassir, Abdelmajid Dolmy, Baddou Zaki, Aziz Bouderbala, and Noureddine Naybet. Other football teams on top of these two major teams based in the city of Casablanca include Rachad Bernoussi, TAS de Casablanca, Majd Al Madina, and Racing Casablanca.\n\nTennis \n\nCasablanca hosts The Grand Prix Hassan II, a professional men's tennis tournament of the ATP tour. It first began in 1986, and is played on clay courts type at Complexe Al Amal.\n\nNotable winners of the Hassan II Grand-Prix are Thomas Muster in 1990, Hicham Arazi in 1997, Younes El Aynaoui in 2002, and Stanislas Wawrinka in 2010.\n\nTransport \n\nTram \n\nThe Casablanca tramway is the rapid transit tram system in Casablanca. The route is 31 km long, with 49 stops, and Y-shaped; further lines are planned. \n\nAir \n\nCasablanca's main airport is Mohammed V International Airport, Morocco's busiest airport. Regular domestic flights serve Marrakech, Rabat, Agadir, Oujda, Tangier, Al Hoceima, and Laayoune, as well as other cities.\n\nCasablanca is well-served by international flights to Europe, especially French and Spanish airports, and has regular connections to North American, Middle Eastern and sub-Saharan African destinations. New York City, Montreal, Paris, London and Dubai are important primary destinations.\n\nThe older, smaller Casablanca-Anfa Airport to the west of the city, served certain destinations including Damascus, and Tunis, and was largely closed to international civilian traffic in 2006. It has been closed and destroyed to build the \"Casablanca Finance City\", the new heart of the city of Casablanca. Casablanca Tit Mellil Airport is located in the nearby community of Tit Mellil.\n\nCoaches \n\nCTM coaches (intercity buses) and various private lines run services to most notable Moroccan towns, as well as a number of European cities. These run from the Gare Routière on Rue Léon l'Africain in downtown Casablanca.\n\nMetro \n\nSee also: Casablanca RER or Casablanca metro\n\nSince the 1970s, Casablanca had planned to build a metro system to offer some relief to the problems of traffic congestion and poor air quality. However, the city council voted to abandon the metro project in 2014 due to high costs, and decided to continue expanding the already operating tram system instead. \n\nTaxis \n\nRegistered taxis in Casablanca are coloured red and known as petit taxis (small taxis), or coloured white and known as grands taxis (big taxis). As is standard Moroccan practice, petits taxis, typically small-four door Dacia Logan, Peugeot 207, or similar cars, provide metered cab service in the central metropolitan areas. Grands taxis, generally older Mercedes-Benz sedans, provide shared mini-bus like service within the city on predefined routes, or shared intercity service. Grands taxis may also be hired for private service by the hour or day.\n\nTrains \n\nCasablanca is served by three principal railway stations run by the national rail service, the ONCF.\n\n is the main intercity station, from which trains run south to Marrakech or El Jadida and north to Mohammedia and Rabat, and then on either to Tangier or Meknes, Fes, Taza and Oujda/Nador. A dedicated airport shuttle service to Mohammed V International Airport also has its primary in-city stop at this station, for connections on to further destinations.\n\n serves primarily commuter trains such as the Train Navette Rapide (TNR or Aouita) operating on the Casablanca – Kenitra rail corridor, with some connecting trains running on to Gare de Casa-Voyageurs. The station provides a direct interchange between train and shipping services, and is located near several port-area hotels. It is the nearest station to the old town of Casablanca, and to the modern city centre, around the landmark Casablanca Twin Center. Casa-Port station is being rebuilt in a modern and enlarged configuration. During the construction, the station is still operational. From 2013, it will provide a close connection from the rail network to the city's new tram network.\n\nCasa-Oasis was originally a suburban commuter station which was fully redesigned and rebuilt in the early 21st century, and officially reopened in 2005 as a primary city rail station. Owing to its new status, all southern intercity train services to and from Casa-Voyageurs now call at Casa-Oasis. ONCF stated in 2005 that the refurbishment and upgrading of Casa-Oasis to intercity standards was intended to relieve passenger congestion at Casa-Voyageurs station.\n\nNotable people \n\n* Salaheddine Bassir – Moroccan footballer\n* Noureddine Naybet – Moroccan footballer\n* Larbi Benbarek – Moroccan footballer\n* French Montana - Moroccan-American rapper\n* La Fouine - Moroccan-French rapper\n* El Haqed - Moroccan rapper\n* Dizzy DROS - Moroccan rapper\n* Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes – French footballer\n* Jean-Charles de Castelbajac – French fashion designer\n* Merieme Chadid – Moroccan astronomer\n* Gad Elmaleh – Moroccan-French one man show humorist/actor\n* Serge Haroche – French physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics\n* Shatha Hassoun – Moroccan/Iraqi singer\n* Abdesalam Laraki – designer and founder of the automaker Laraki\n* Hicham Mesbahi – Moroccan boxer\n* Nawal El Moutawakel – Olympic champion\n* Mostafa Nissaboury – Moroccan poet\n* Hakim Noury – Moroccan film director\n* Haim Louk - Moroccan-Israeli singer\n* Maurice Ohana – French composer\n* Jean Reno – French Hollywood actor\n* Daniel Sivan – professor \n* Alain Souchon – French songwriter\n* Frank Stephenson – award winning automobile designer.\n* Sidney Taurel – Naturalized American CEO of Eli Lilly and Company from 1998 to 2008\n* Richard Virenque – French cyclist\n* Abdallah Zrika – Moroccan poet\n* Soufiane Choubani – Founder of the Moroccan National Debate Team\n* Frida Boccara – French Singer, Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1969\n* Abdelfatah Mouttaqui African Diplomat \n* Dr. Samuel Torjman Thomas - Moroccan-American Andalus musician and Sephardi studies professor\n* Abdelfatah Mouttaqui - Deputy Secretary General at O.A.B.D \n \n\nIn popular culture \n\n* Casablanca is the setting of the 1942 film of the same name starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The film has achieved worldwide popularity since then. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, it won three, including Best Picture.\n* A Night in Casablanca (1946) was the 12th Marx Brothers' movie. The film stars Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx. It was directed by Archie Mayo and written by Joseph Fields and Roland Kibbee. The film contains the song \"Who's Sorry Now?\", with music by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. It is sung in French by Lisette Verea playing the part of Beatrice Rheiner, and then later sung in English. Liszt's \"Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2\" is played twice, once by Chico on piano as an introduction to the \"Beer Barrel Polka\", and again by Harpo on the harp.\n* The city is featured in The Mysterious Caravan (1975), volume 54 in the original Hardy Boys series.\n* Casablanca is the setting for several chapters in Doubleshot, a 2000 James Bond novel by Raymond Benson. In the novel, one of the characters mentions that the 1942 film was shot in Hollywood and not on location.\n* Casablanca is one of the key locations in the 2006 video game Dreamfall, as it is where the primary protagonist of the game, Zoë Castillo, lives. Although the city is imagined in the year 2219, much of the present-day architecture is used for inspiration.\n\nInternational relations \n\nSee also List of twin towns and sister cities in Morocco\n\nTwin towns – sister cities \n\nCasablanca is twinned with:"
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Who was the Egyptian president who was assassinated in 1981?
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"The President of the Arab Republic of Egypt () is the head of state of Egypt. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and head of the executive branch of the Egyptian government.\n\nHistory\n\nThe first president of Egypt was Muhammad Naguib, one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. He took office on 18 June 1953, the day on which the constitutional monarchy of Egypt was overthrown.\n\nFollowing the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Hosni Mubarak, who held office from 14 October 1981 until 11 February 2011, was forced to resign following calls for his removal from office. On 10 February 2011 Mubarak transferred presidential powers to then-Vice President Omar Suleiman, briefly making Suleiman de facto president. Following Mubarak's resignation, the position of President of Egypt was officially vacated and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, assumed executive control of the state. On 30 June 2012, Mohamed Morsi was sworn in as President of Egypt, having won the 2012 Egyptian presidential election on 24 June. \n\nOld electoral system\n\nThe Egyptian Constitution has had various forms since its 1953 change to become a republic. Under the 1980 amendments of the 1971 Egyptian Constitution, the president of the republic was elected indirectly in a two-stage system unique to Egypt. The People’s Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, nominated one of a number of candidates for presidency. The presidential candidate required at least a two-thirds majority in the People’s Assembly in order to proceed to the second stage of the elections, in which the candidate was confirmed by popular plebiscite.\n\n2005/2007 constitutional amendments\n\nIn 2005 and 2007, constitutional amendments were made. Principles in the amended constitution include:\n* The election of the president of the republic by direct secret ballot from among all citizens who have the right to vote.\n* Ensuring that multiple candidates be put forward for the people to choose from.\n* Ensuring the credibility of the nomination process.\n* Providing the opportunity for political parties to put forward one of their leaders to contest the first presidential elections to be held in light of the amendment.\n* The establishment of a presidential election commission that would enjoy complete independence to supervise the election process.\n* Carrying out the election in a single day.\n* Ensuring judicial supervision over the voting process.\n\nThe following provisions regarding the election process are stipulated in Article 76 as amended:\n\nA successful candidate must be elected by the majority of the votes. If no candidate attains such a majority, elections will be repeated after at least seven days between the two candidates having the highest votes. In case of a tie between the candidate who attained the second highest votes and a third candidate, the third candidate shall participate in the second round. The candidate who receives the highest votes in the second round shall be declared president.\n\nThe amendment also provides that a law will be passed to regulate the relevant election procedures. This law is expected to regulate the various aspects of the election process itself, including campaign funding, equal access to the media, and guarantees of fair competition.\n\nAs required by the amendment, the law will be submitted to the Supreme Constitutional Court to opine on its constitutionality. This establishes an important precedent in Egypt’s legal tradition, by which the Supreme Constitutional Court shall have the right of prior review of national legislation to decide on its compatibility with the Constitution. This differs from the practice thus far by which the review process undertaken by the Court on national legislation was done by judicial review subsequent to the passage of legislation.\n\nPresidential powers\n\nUnder the system created by the 1980 constitutional amendments, the president is the pre-eminent executive figure, who names the Prime Minister of Egypt. During martial law, the president also anoints deans of faculties and majors, and can also enlist or oust people in the private sector. Egypt had been under martial law since 1981. After the revolution in 2011 - 2012, the martial law was suspended.\n\nRequirements to hold office\n\nArticle 141 of the Egyptian Constitution establishes the requirements one must meet in order to become president. The president of the republic should: be an Egyptian citizen, be born to Egyptian parents (never having dual nationality), have participated in the military or be exempted from it and cannot be less than 40 years old.\n\nElection\n\nElection procedures are taken before the end of the incumbent president’s term by 60 days.\n\nCandidacy\n\nAdditional requirements were provisioned in Article 142 of the Egyptian constitution concerning candidates for the president's office.\n* Candidates must have the recommendation of 20 members of the House of Representatives or the endorsement of 25,000 people across 15 governorates, with at least 1,000 signatures from each.\n\nPresidential campaign\n\nPresidential Election Commission\n\nThe amendment to Article 76 of the constitution provides for the establishment of a “Presidential Election Commission” that would have complete independence, and would be charged with the supervision of the presidential election process.\n\nThe Commission will be composed of 10 members, presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court and four other ex officio members of the judiciary who are the most senior serving Deputy President of each of the Supreme Constitutional, the Court of Cassation, and the High Administrative Court, and the president of the Cairo Court of Appeal.\n\nThe rest of the Commission will be made up from five independent and neutral public figures: three to be selected by the Peoples Assembly and two to be selected by the Shoura Council.\n\nDecisions of this Committee shall be passed by a majority of seven votes. This Commission will have a term of five years and will be exclusively competent to supervise the presidential election process, including accepting nominations, announcing the names of accepted candidates, supervision of election procedures, vote counting and announcement of the results.\n\nIt will also have final judicial competence to rule on any contesting or challenge submitted in relation to the presidential elections, and its decision will be final and subject to no appeal. The Committee will issue its own regulations and shall be competent to establish general sub-committees from among members of the judiciary, to monitor the various phases of the election process, under its supervision. The election process will be completed in one day.\n\nInauguration and oath of office\n\nIn accordance with Article 79 of the constitution, the president must take the following oath or affirmation before exercising his functions:\n\"I swear by Allah The Almighty to sincerely maintain the Republican system, to respect the Constitution and law, to fully care about the interests of the people, and to maintain the independence and territorial integrity of the Homeland.\"\n\nTerm(s) of office\n\nUnder the Constitution, the president serves four Gregorian years starting from the date of the announcement of result of the plebiscite. The president of the republic may be re-elected once.\n\nThe constitution specifies the number of terms a president shall remain in office to be limited to two terms.\n\nIf the president-elect is announced before the end of the incumbent president’s term, the incumbent president continues in office until the end of his term.\n\nSuccession\n\nIn the case of temporary incapacitation of the president, the constitution provides the president to relinquish his powers to the Prime Minister. However the person who takes office is limited in power as the new president can not dissolve the parliament, propose constitutional amendments or remove the cabinet from office.\n\nIn case of the vacancy of the presidential office or the permanent incapacitation of the President, the Speaker of the People’s Assembly shall temporarily assume the presidency. In case the People’s Assembly is dissolved at such a time the President of the Supreme Constitutional Court shall take over the presidency on condition that neither shall nominate himself for the presidency. Both are also limited in power as in they can not dissolve the parliament, remove the cabinet, or propose constitutional amendments.\n\nThe People’s Assembly shall then proclaim the vacancy of the office of President, and a new president shall be chosen within a maximum period of sixty days from the date of the vacancy of the office.\n\nThe constitution does not directly stipulate any role for the Prime Minister in the process of presidential succession, when the former post of Vice President still existed it was a tradition for the People's Assembly to nominate the vice-president for the vacant office of the president. Both Sadat and Mubarak served as vice-presidents at the time the presidential office became vacant, however on Mubarak's succession in 1981 as president he did not appoint a vice-president until 29 January 2011 when during substantial protests demanding reforms he appointed Omar Suleiman to the role. \n\nResignation\n\nPresident Gamal Abdel Nasser submitted his resignation after the overwhelming Egyptian defeat in 1967 war with Israel, before returning to office after mass demonstrations by the Egyptian public. President Mubarak also resigned on 11 February 2011 after eighteen days of protest against his regime.\n\nThe president may resign by delivering his resignation to the People's Assembly under the 2012 and 2014 Constitutions. \n\nOfficial residences\n\nThe Presidency in Egypt controls 8 presidential residences in addition to other presidential guest houses. Egypt's official residence and office of the president is Heliopolis Palace in Cairo. Other presidential palaces include:\n* Abdeen Palace, in Old Cairo, Cairo. \n* Koubbeh Palace, in Cairo.\n* Ras Al-Teen Palace, in Alexandria\n* Montaza Palace, in Alexandria\n* Al-Tahra Palace, in Cairo\n* Al-Oroba Palace, in Cairo",
"The assassination of Anwar Sadat occurred on 6 October 1981. Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Operation Badr (1973), during which the Egyptian Army had crossed the Suez Canal and taken back a small part of the Sinai Peninsula from Israel at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. A fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the US for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The assassination was undertaken by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. \n\nBackground\n\nFollowing the Camp David Accords, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. But the subsequent 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was received with controversy among Arab nations, particularly the Palestinians. Egypt's membership in the Arab League was suspended (and not reinstated until 1989). PLO Leader Yasser Arafat said \"Let them sign what they like. False peace will not last.\" In Egypt, various jihadist groups, such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, used the Camp David Accords to rally support for their cause. Previously sympathetic to Sadat's attempt to integrate them into Egyptian society, Egypt's Islamists now felt betrayed and publicly called for the overthrow of the Egyptian president and the replacement of the nation's system of government with a government based on Islamic theocracy. \n\nThe last months of Sadat's presidency were marked by internal uprising. Sadat dismissed allegations that the rioting was incited by domestic issues, believing that the Soviet Union was recruiting its regional allies in Libya and Syria to incite an uprising that would eventually force him out of power. Following a failed military coup in June 1981, Sadat ordered a major crackdown that resulted in the arrest of numerous opposition figures. Though Sadat still maintained high levels of popularity in Egypt, it has been said that he was assassinated \"at the peak\" of his unpopularity.\n\nEgyptian Islamic Jihad\n\nEarlier in his presidency, Islamists had benefited from the 'rectification revolution' and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser but Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch \"a complete overthrow of the existing order\" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose \"plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing—he expected—a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country.\"\n\nIn February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes. All non-government press was banned as well. The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.\n\nAccording to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but his organization, known in English as the \"Islamic Group\", that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Majlis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat. \n\nAssassination\n\nOn 6 October 1981, a victory parade was held in Cairo to commemorate the eighth anniversary of Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. Sadat was protected by four layers of security and eight bodyguards, and the army parade should have been safe due to ammunition-seizure rules. As Egyptian Air Force Mirage jets flew overhead, distracting the crowd, Egyptian Army soldiers and troop trucks towing artillery paraded by. One truck contained the assassination squad, led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli. As it passed the tribune, Islambouli forced the driver at gunpoint to stop. From there, the assassins dismounted and Islambouli approached Sadat with three hand grenades concealed under his helmet. Sadat stood to receive his salute (Anwar's nephew Talaat El Sadat later said, \"The president thought the killers were part of the show when they approached the stands firing, so he stood saluting them\"), whereupon Islambouli threw all his grenades at Sadat, only one of which exploded (but fell short), and additional assassins rose from the truck, indiscriminately firing AK-47 assault rifles into the stands until they had exhausted their ammunition and then attempted to flee. After Sadat was hit and fell to the ground, people threw chairs around him to shield him from the hail of bullets.\n\nThe attack lasted about two minutes. Sadat and ten others were killed outright or suffered fatal wounds, including the Cuban ambassador to Egypt, an Omani general, and a Coptic Orthodox bishop. Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers. Security forces were momentarily stunned but reacted within 45 seconds. One of the attackers was killed, and the three others injured and arrested. Sadat was airlifted to a military hospital, where eleven doctors operated on him. He died nearly two hours after he was taken to the hospital. Sadat's death was attributed to \"violent nervous shock and internal bleeding in the chest cavity, where the left lung and major blood vessels below it were torn.\" \n\nAftermath\n\nIn conjunction with the assassination, an insurrection was organized in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Rebels took control of the city for a few days and 68 policemen and soldiers were killed in the fighting. Government control was not restored until paratroopers from Cairo arrived. Most of the militants convicted of fighting received light sentences and served only three years in prison. \n\nBurial\n\nSadat was buried in the Unknown Soldier Memorial, located in the Nasr City district of Cairo. The inscription on his grave reads: \"hero of war and peace\".\n\nAt first, Sadat was succeeded by Sufi Abu Taleb as Acting President of Egypt for eight days until 14 October 1981, when Sadat's Vice President, Hosni Mubarak, became the new Egyptian President for nearly 30 years until resigning as a result of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.\n\nAssassins\n\nIslambouli and the other assassins were tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in April 1982. \n\nIn 2012, Khaled Al-Islambouli's mother spoke highly of her son's actions to the Iranian Fars News Agency. She said \"I am very proud that my son killed Anwar Al-Sadat… The government called him a terrorist, a criminal, and a murderer.\"",
"Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat ( ' Egyptian; 25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as President in 1970.\n\nIn his eleven years as president, he changed Egypt's trajectory, departing from many of the political and economic tenets of Nasserism, re-instituting a multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. As President, he led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty; this won him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making Sadat the first Muslim Nobel laureate. Though reaction to the treaty—which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt—was generally favorable among Egyptians,[http://countrystudies.us/egypt/44.htm Peace with Israel] it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and leftists in particular, who felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a Palestinian state. With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongly opposed Sadat's efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states. His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination.\n\nEarly life and revolutionary activities\n\nAnwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor Nubian family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. One of his brothers, Atef Sadat, later became a pilot and was killed in action during the October War of 1973. His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat was an Upper Egyptian, and his mother, Sit Al-Berain, was a Sudanese from her father. Thus, he faced insults by his Arab opponents in Egypt for not looking \"Egyptian enough\" and \"Nasser's black poodle.\"\n\t\nHe graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed to the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted to Sudan (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers, a movement committed to freeing Egypt and Sudan from British domination, and royal corruption.\n\nDuring the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Anwar Sadat was active in many political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt, the pro-palace Iron Guard of Egypt, and the secret military group called the Free Officers. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk on 23 July of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks.\n\nDuring Nasser's presidency\n\nDuring the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed minister of State in 1954. He was also appointed editor of the newly founded daily Al Gomhuria. In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then vice president and member of the presidential council in 1964. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.\n\nPresidency\n\n \nSome of the major events of the Sadat's presidency were his \"Corrective Revolution\" to consolidate power, the break with Egypt's long-time ally and aid-giver the USSR, the 1973 October War with Israel, the Camp David peace treaty with Israel, the \"opening up\" (or Infitah) of Egypt's economy, and lastly his assassination in 1981.\n\nSadat succeeded Nasser as president after the latter's death in October 1970. Sadat's presidency was widely expected to be short-lived. Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former president, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right. On 15 May 1971, Sadat announced his Corrective Revolution, purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement, which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them \"considerable cultural and ideological autonomy\" in exchange for political support. \n\nIn 1971, three years into the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring, which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then.\n\nCorrective Revolution\n\nShortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures in the regime, Vice President Ali Sabri, who had close ties with Soviet officials, and Sharawy Gomaa, the Interior Minister, who controlled the secret police. Sadat's rising popularity would accelerate after he cut back the powers of the hated secret police, expelled Soviet military from the country and reformed the Egyptian army for a renewed confrontation with Israel.\n\nYom Kippur War\n\nOn 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War (and less commonly as the Ramadan War), a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake these respective Egyptian and Syrian territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six Day War six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war astonished both Israel, and the Arab World. The most striking achievement (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain.\n\nAs the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, trying to encircle first the Egyptian Second Army, and, when this failed, the Egyptian Third Army. Prompted by an agreement between the United States of America, and the Soviet Union, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338 on 22 October 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Although agreed upon, the ceasefire was immediately broken. Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, cancelled an official meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen to travel to Egypt where he tried to persuade Sadat to sign a peace treaty. During Kosygin's two-day long stay it is unknown if he and Sadat ever met in person. The Israeli military then continued their drive to encircle the Egyptian army. The encirclement was completed on 24 October, three days after the ceasefire was broken. This development prompted superpower tension, but a second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on 25 October to end the war. At the conclusion of hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.\n\nPeace with Israel\n\nThe initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World and, for many years after, Sadat was known as the \"Hero of the Crossing\". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process. His new peace policy led to the conclusion of two agreements on disengagement of forces with the Israeli government. The first of these agreements was signed on 18 January 1974, and the second on 4 September 1975.\n\nOne major aspect of Sadat's peace policy was to gain some religious support for his efforts. Already during his visit to the US in October–November 1975, he invited Evangelical pastor Billy Graham for an official visit, which was held a few days after Sadat's visit. In addition to cultivating relations with Evangelical Christians in the US, he also built some cooperation with the Vatican. On 8 April 1976, he visited the Vatican for the first time, and got a message of support from Pope Paul VI regarding achieving peace with Israel, to include a just solution to the Palestinian issue. Sadat, on his part, extended to the Pope a public invitation to visit Cairo. \n\nSadat also used the media to promote his purposes. In an interview he gave to the Lebanese paper El Hawadeth in early February 1976, he claimed he had secret commitment from the US government to put pressure on the Israeli government for a major withdrawal in Sinai and the Golan Heights. This statement caused some concern to the Israeli government, but Kissinger denied such a promise was ever made. \n\nIn January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. The riots lasted for two days and included hundreds of thousands in Cairo. 120 buses and hundreds of buildings were destroyed in Cairo alone. The riots ended with the deployment of the army and the re-institution of the subsidies/price controls. During this time, Sadat was also taking a new approach towards improving relations with the West.\n\nThe United States and the Soviet Union agreed on 1 October 1977, on principles to govern a Geneva conference on the Middle East. Syria continued to resist such a conference. Not wanting either Syria or the Soviet Union to influence the peace process, Sadat decided to take more progressive stance towards building a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel.\n\nOn 19 November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes \"that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision\".\n\nThe Peace treaty was finally signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long-awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis:\nLet us put an end to wars, let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women, and children around the world that you are today honoring. And these hundreds of millions will judge to what extent every responsible leader in the Middle East has responded to the hopes of mankind.\n\nThe main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.\n\nThe agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.\n\nThe treaty was extremely unpopular in most of the Arab World and the wider Muslim World. His predecessor Nasser had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that appeared to be sidelined by an Egyptian orientation following the 1973 war (see Egypt). The neighboring Arab countries believed that in signing the accords, Sadat had put Egypt's interests ahead of Arab unity, betraying Nasser's pan-Arabism, and destroyed the vision of a united \"Arab front\" for the support of the Palestinians against the \"Zionist Entity\". However, Sadat decided early on that peace is the solution. Sadat's shift towards a strategic relationship with the US was also seen as a betrayal by many Arabs. In the United States his peace moves gained him popularity among some Evangelical circles. He was awarded the Prince of Peace Award by Pat Robertson.\n\nIn 1979, the Arab League suspended Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian–Israel peace agreement, and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Arab League member states believed in the elimination of the \"Zionist Entity\" and Israel at that time. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in phases, completing its withdrawal from the entire territory except the town of Taba by 25 April 1982 (withdrawal from which did not occur until 1989). The improved relations Egypt gained with the West through the Camp David Accords soon gave the country resilient economic growth. By 1980, however, Egypt's strained relations with the Arab World would result in a period of rapid inflation.\n\nRelationship with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran\n\nThe relationship between Iran and Egypt had fallen into open hostility during Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency. Following his death in 1970, President Sadat turned this around quickly into an open and close friendship.\n\nIn 1971, Sadat addressed the Iranian parliament in Tehran in fluent Persian, describing the 2,500-year-old historic connection between the two lands.\n\nOvernight, the Egyptian and Iranian governments were turned from bitter enemies into fast friends. The relationship between Cairo and Tehran became so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his \"dear brother\".\n\nAfter the 1973 war with Israel, Iran assumed a leading role in cleaning up and reactivating the blocked Suez Canal with heavy investment. The country also facilitated the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Sinai Peninsula by promising to substitute the loss of the oil to the Israelis with free Iranian oil if they withdrew from the Egyptian oil wells in western Sinai.\n\nAll these added more to the personal friendship between Sadat and the Shah of Iran. (The Shah's first wife was Princess Fawzia of Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I) and his second wife Nazli Sabri.)\n\nAfter his overthrow, the deposed Shah spent the last months of his life in exile in Egypt. When the Shah died, Sadat ordered that he be given a state funeral and be interred at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, the resting place of Egyptian Khedive Isma'il Pasha, his mother Khushyar Hanim, and numerous other members of the royal family of Egypt and Sudan. \n\nAssassination\n\nThe last months of Sadat's presidency were marked by internal uprising. Sadat dismissed allegations that the rioting was incited by domestic issues, believing that the Soviet Union was recruiting its regional allies in Libya and Syria to incite an uprising that would eventually force him out of power. Following a failed military coup in June 1981, Sadat ordered a major crackdown that resulted in the arrest of numerous opposition figures. Though Sadat still maintained high levels of popularity in Egypt, it has been said that he was assassinated \"at the peak\" of his unpopularity. \n\nEarlier in his presidency, Islamists had benefited from the 'rectification revolution' and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser but Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch \"a complete overthrow of the existing order\" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose \"plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing—he expected—a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country\". \n\nIn February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes. All non-government press was banned as well. The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October. \n\nAccording to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but his organization, known in English as the \"Islamic Group\", that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Majlis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat. \n\nOn 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. Islambouli emptied his assault rifle into Sadat's body while in the front of the grandstand, mortally wounding the President. In addition to Sadat, eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general, a Coptic Orthodox bishop and Samir Helmy, the head of Egypt's Central Auditing Agency (CAA). Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers.\n\nThe assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman. Islambouli was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in April 1982.\n\nAftermath\n\nSadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former US presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Only 3 of 24 states in the Arab League — Oman, Somalia and Sudan — sent representatives at all. Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, considered Sadat a personal friend and insisted on attending the funeral. Begin even walked throughout the funeral procession so as not to desecrate the Sabbath. Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated.\n\nOver three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including future al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984. His brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri was imprisoned from 2000 until 17 March 2011, and then re-arrested on 20 March 2011. Abboud al-Zomor and Tareq al-Zomor, two Islamic Jihad leaders imprisoned in connection with the assassination, were released on 11 March 2011. \n\nDespite these facts, the nephew of the late president, Talaat Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: \"No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial,\" he said. \n\nMedia portrayals of Anwar Sadat\n\nIn 1983, Sadat, a miniseries based on the life of Anwar Sadat, aired on US television with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. in the title role. The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, over allegations of historical inaccuracies. A civil lawsuit was brought by Egypt's artists' and film unions against Columbia Pictures and the film's directors, producers and scriptwriters before a court in Cairo, but was dismissed; the court held, \"the distortions and the slanders found in the film took place outside the country,\" so that \"the crimes were not within the Egyptian courts' jurisdiction.\" \n\nWestern authors attributed the film's poor reception to racism – Gossett being African American – in the Egyptian government or Egypt in general.Benjamin P. Bowser, Racism and Anti-Racism in World Perspective (Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13), (Sage Publications, Inc: 1995), p. 108[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res\nF40F1FF63C5F0C718CDDAB0894DC484D81 Upset by 'Sadat,' Egypt Bars Columbia Films] Either way, one Western source wrote that Sadat's portrayal by Gossett \"bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat\". – The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination in the United States.\n\nThe first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when Ayyam El Sadat (English: Days of Sadat) was released in Egyptian cinemas. This movie, by contrast, was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmed Zaki's greatest performance to date. \n\nThe BBC also produced a film on Sadat titled \"Why Was Cairo Calm?\". Film director and blogger Adam Curtis summarizes the documentary: \"It tells the story of Sadat's presidency—and how the American TV networks created a fantasy vision of him as a wise democratic leader who had opened up the Egyptian economy to the free market, and was loved by his people for making peace for Israel. As the film shows—this was a complete illusion.\" \n\nThe young Sadat is a major character in Ken Follett's thriller The Key to Rebecca, taking place in World War II Cairo. Sadat, at the time a young officer in the Egyptian Army and involved in anti-British revolutionary activities, is presented quite sympathetically; his willingness to cooperate with German spies is clearly shown to derive from his wish to find allies against British domination of his country, rather than from support of Nazi ideology. Some of the scenes in the book, such as Sadat's arrest by the British, closely follow the information provided in Sadat's own autobiography.\n\nIn the 2009 film \"I Love You Man\", Jason Segal has a dog named Anwar Sadat. He claims it is because they share such a similar resemblance. \n\nSadat was a recurring character on Saturday Night Live, played by Garrett Morris, who bore a resemblance to Sadat.\n\nHonour\n\nForeign honour\n\n* : Honorary Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (1965)"
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Which country was called Upper Volta until 1984?
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tc_215
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Republic of Upper Volta () was a landlocked west-African country established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960, it attained full independence from France.\n\nOverview\n\nThomas Sankara came to power through a military coup d'état on August 4, 1983. After the coup, he formed the National Council for the Revolution (CNR), with himself as president. Under the direction of Sankara, the country changed its name on August 4, 1984, from the Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means \"Land of Incorruptible People\".\n\nThe name Upper Volta indicated that the country contains the upper part of the Volta River. The river is divided into three parts—the Black Volta, White Volta, and Red Volta, which form the colors of the national flag corresponding to parts of the river.",
"Burkina Faso ( ;) is a landlocked country in West Africa around 274200 km2 in size. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north; Niger to the east; Benin to the southeast; Togo and Ghana to the south; and Ivory Coast to the southwest. Its capital is Ouagadougou. In 2014, its population was estimated at just over 17.3 million. Burkina Faso is a francophone country. It has a population of 18.7 million as of 2016.\n\nFormerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, the country was renamed \"Burkina Faso\" on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara. Residents of Burkina Faso are known as Burkinabé ( ). French is an official language of government and business.\n\nBefore the conquest of what is now Burkina Faso by the French and other colonial powers during the late 19th century the country was ruled by various ethnic groups including the Mossi kingdoms. After gaining independence from France in 1960, the country underwent many governmental changes. Blaise Compaoré was the most recent president and ruled the country from 1987 until he was ousted from power by the popular youth upheaval of 31 October 2014. This resulted in a semi-presidential republic which lasted from October 2014 to September 2015. On 17 September 2015 the provisional government was in turn toppled by an apparent military coup d'état carried out by the Regiment of Presidential Security. On 24 September 2015, after pressure from the African Union, ECOWAS, and the armed forces, the military junta agreed to step down, and Michel Kafando was reinstated as Acting President. \n\nHistory\n\nPrehistory\n\nThe northwestern part of today's Burkina Faso was populated by hunter-gatherers between 14,000 and 5000 BC. Their tools, including scrapers, chisels and arrowheads, were discovered in 1973 through archeological excavations. Agricultural settlements were established between 3600 and 2600 BC. The Bura culture was an Iron-Age civilization centered in the southwest portion of modern-day Niger and in the southeast part of contemporary Burkina Faso. Iron industry, in smelting and forging for tools and weapons, had developed in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BC. \n\nEarly history\n\nHistorians debate the exact dates when Burkina Faso's many ethnic groups arrived. The Proto-Mossi arrived in the far eastern part of what is today Burkina Faso sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, the Samo arrived around the 15th century, the Dogon lived in Burkina Faso's north and northwest regions until sometime in the 15th or 16th centuries, and many of the other ethnic groups that make up the country's population arrived in the region during this time.\n\nDuring the Middle Ages the Mossi established several separate kingdoms including those of Tenkodogo, Yatenga, Gourma, Zandoma, and Ouagadougou. Sometime between 1328 and 1338 Mossi warriors raided Timbuktu but the Mossi were defeated by Sonni Ali of Songhai at the Battle of Kobi in Mali in 1483. \n\nDuring the early 16th century the Songhai conducted many slave raids into what is today Burkina Faso. During the 18th century the Gwiriko Empire was established at Bobo Dioulasso and ethnic groups such as the Dyan, Lobi, and Birifor settled along the Black Volta. \n\nFrom colony to independence (1890s–1958)\n\nStarting in the early 1890s a series of British, French and German military officers made attempts to claim parts of what is today Burkina Faso. At times these colonialists and their armies fought the local peoples; at times they forged alliances with them and made treaties. The colonialist officers and their home governments also made treaties amongst themselves. Through a complex series of events what is Burkina Faso eventually became a French protectorate in 1896. \n\nThe eastern and western regions, where a standoff against the forces of the powerful ruler Samori Ture complicated the situation, came under French occupation in 1897. By 1898, the majority of the territory corresponding to Burkina Faso was nominally conquered; however, French control of many parts remained uncertain.\n\nThe Franco-British Convention of 14 June 1898 created the country's modern borders. In the French territory, a war of conquest against local communities and political powers continued for about five years. In 1904, the largely pacified territories of the Volta basin were integrated into the Upper Senegal and Niger colony of French West Africa as part of the reorganization of the French West African colonial empire. The colony had its capital in Bamako.\n\nThe French imposed their own language as the official one for colonial administration and generally appointed French colonists or nationals to prominent positions. The French started some schools and selected top students for additional education in France.\n\nDraftees from the territory participated in the European fronts of World War I in the battalions of the Senegalese Rifles. Between 1915 and 1916, the districts in the western part of what is now Burkina Faso and the bordering eastern fringe of Mali became the stage of one of the most important armed oppositions to colonial government: the Volta-Bani War. \n\nThe French government finally suppressed the movement but only after suffering defeats. It also had to organize its largest expeditionary force of its colonial history to send into the country to suppress the insurrection. Armed opposition wracked the Sahelian north when the Tuareg and allied groups of the Dori region ended their truce with the government.\n\nFrench Upper Volta was established on 1 March 1919. The French feared a recurrence of armed uprising and had related economic considerations. To bolster its administration, the colonial government separated the present territory of Burkina Faso from Upper Senegal and Niger.\n\nThe new colony was named Haute Volta, and François Charles Alexis Édouard Hesling became its first governor. Hesling initiated an ambitious road-making program to improve infrastructure and promoted the growth of cotton for export. The cotton policy – based on coercion – failed, and revenue generated by the colony stagnated. The colony was dismantled on 5 September 1932, being split between the French colonies of Ivory Coast, French Sudan and Niger. Ivory Coast received the largest share, which contained most of the population as well as the cities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso.\n\nFrance reversed this change during the period of intense anti-colonial agitation that followed the end of World War II. On 4 September 1947, it revived the colony of Upper Volta, with its previous boundaries, as a part of the French Union. The French designated its colonies as departments of metropole France on the European continent.\n\nOn 11 December 1958 the colony achieved self-government as the Republic of Upper Volta; it joined the Franco-African Community. A revision in the organization of French Overseas Territories had begun with the passage of the Basic Law (Loi Cadre) of 23 July 1956. This act was followed by reorganization measures approved by the French parliament early in 1957 to ensure a large degree of self-government for individual territories. Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French community on 11 December 1958. Full independence from France was received in 1960.\n\nUpper Volta (1958–1984)\n\nThe Republic of Upper Volta () was established on 11 December 1958 as a self-governing colony within the French Community. The name Upper Volta related to the nation's location along the upper reaches of the Volta River. The river's three tributaries are called the Black, White and Red Volta. These were expressed in the three colors of the former national flag.\n\nBefore attaining autonomy, it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On 5 August 1960, it attained full independence from France. The first president, Maurice Yaméogo, was the leader of the Voltaic Democratic Union (UDV). The 1960 constitution provided for election by universal suffrage of a president and a national assembly for five-year terms. Soon after coming to power, Yaméogo banned all political parties other than the UDV. The government lasted until 1966. After much unrest, including mass demonstrations and strikes by students, labor unions, and civil servants, the military intervened.\n\nLamizana's rule and multiple coups\n\nThe 1966 military coup deposed Yaméogo, suspended the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, and placed Lt. Col. Sangoulé Lamizana at the head of a government of senior army officers. The army remained in power for four years. On 14 June 1976, the Voltans ratified a new constitution that established a four-year transition period toward complete civilian rule. Lamizana remained in power throughout the 1970s as president of military or mixed civil-military governments. Lamizana's rule coincided with the beginning of the Sahel drought and famine which had a devastating impact on Upper Volta and neighboring countries. After conflict over the 1976 constitution, a new constitution was written and approved in 1977. Lamizana was reelected by open elections in 1978.\n\nLamizana's government faced problems with the country's traditionally powerful trade unions, and on 25 November 1980, Col. Saye Zerbo overthrew President Lamizana in a bloodless coup. Colonel Zerbo established the Military Committee of Recovery for National Progress as the supreme governmental authority, thus eradicating the 1977 constitution.\n\nColonel Zerbo also encountered resistance from trade unions and was overthrown two years later by Maj. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo and the Council of Popular Salvation (CSP) in the 1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état. The CSP continued to ban political parties and organizations, yet promised a transition to civilian rule and a new constitution.\n\n1983 coup d'état\n\nInfighting developed between the right and left factions of the CSP. The leader of the leftists, Capt. Thomas Sankara, was appointed prime minister in January 1983, but subsequently arrested. Efforts to free him, directed by Capt. Blaise Compaoré, resulted in a military coup d'état on 4 August 1983.\n\nThe coup brought Sankara to power and his government began to implement a series of revolutionary programs which included mass-vaccinations, infrastructure improvements, the expansion of women's rights, encouragement of domestic agricultural consumption, and anti-desertification projects. \n\nBurkina Faso (Since 1984)\n\nOn 4 August 1984, on President Sankara's initiative, the country's name was changed from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso (land of the upright/honest people). \n\nSankara's government formed the National Council for the Revolution (CNR), with Sankara as its president, and established popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) to \"mobilize the masses\" and implement the CNR's revolutionary programs. The regime created a youth program (the Pioneers of the Revolution) for educating children about Marxist ideals. The government also armed and deputized CDR members who began a campaign to weed out suspected anti-revolutionaries, causing discontent amongst the country's population and increasing domestic opposition to Sankara's regime. \n\nA more positive reading of Thomas Sankara's presidency is given by the Liberation News:\n\n`Burkina Faso became food self-sufficient in the span of four years. Sankara rejected the imperialist aid industry and encouraged local production and trade. He nationalized Burkina Faso’s land and mineral wealth against the broaching power of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).\nAlongside the economic revolution, he instated a vast social-cultural transformation wherein civil servants were forbidden from driving Mercedes vehicles and required to wear cotton tunics indigenous to the country. The women of Burkina Faso partook in the revolution with action centering on their rights. Sankara outlawed female genital mutilation and polygamy, and more women joined the military and were appointed to government positions. \n\nSankara's revolution took place within the context of the Cold War, and his visits to the Soviet Union and Cuba, calls for the cancellation of African debts held by Western governments and institutions and Marxist political regime were controversial, in particular in France and the United States as well as in most of Burkina Faso's immediate neighbors, all of which were generally western-oriented or else cautious towards the Soviet bloc with the exception of Togo.\n\nOn 15 October 1987, Sankara along with twelve other officials were killed in a coup d'état organized by Blaise Compaoré, Sankara's former colleague and Burkina Faso's president until October 2014. After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days. A majority of Burkinabé citizens hold that France's foreign ministry, the Quai d'Orsay, was behind Compaoré in organizing the coup.\n\nDeterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one of the reasons given by Compaoré for the coup. Compaoré argued that Sankara had jeopardised foreign relations with the former colonial power France and neighbouring Ivory Coast (both of which supported the change in government). Following the coup Compaoré immediately reversed the nationalizations, overturned nearly all of Sankara's policies, returned the country back into the IMF fold, and ultimately spurned most of Sankara's legacy. Limited democratic reforms were introduced in 1990 by Compaoré. Under the new constitution, Compaoré was re-elected without opposition in 1991. In 1998 Compaoré won election in a landslide. In 2004 13 people were tried for plotting a coup against President Compaoré and the coup's alleged mastermind was sentenced to life imprisonment. , Burkina Faso remains one of the least developed countries in the world.\n\nCompaoré's government had played the role of negotiator in several West-African disputes including the 2010–11 Ivorian crisis, the Inter-Togolese Dialogue, and the 2012 Malian Crisis.\n\nBetween February and April 2011, the death of a schoolboy provoked protests throughout the country, coupled with a military mutiny and a magistrates' strike.\n\nOctober 2014 protests\n\nStarting on 28 October 2014 protesters began to march and demonstrate in Ouagadougou against President Blaise Compaore who appeared ready to amend the constitution and extend his 27 year rule. On 30 October, some protesters set fire to the parliament and took over the national TV headquarters. Ouagadougou International Airport was closed and MPs suspended the vote on changing the constitution to allow Compaoré to stand for re-election in 2015. Later in the day, the military dissolved all government institutions and set a curfew. \n\nOn 31 October 2014, President Compaoré, facing mounting pressure, resigned after 27 years in office. Lt. Col. Isaac Zida said that he would lead the country during its transitional period before the planned 2015 presidential election but there were concerns over his close ties to the former president. In November 2014 opposition parties, civil society groups and religious leaders adopted a plan for a transitional authority to guide Burkina Faso to elections. Under the plan Michel Kafando was made the transitional President of Burkina Faso and Lt. Col. Zida became the acting Prime Minister and Defense Minister.\n\n2015 coup d'état\n\nIn September 2015, the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP) seized the country's president and prime minister, and declared the National Council for Democracy the new national government. However, on 22 September 2015, the coup leader, Gilbert Diendéré, apologized and promised to restore the civilian government. On 23 September 2015, the prime minister and interim president were restored to power. \n\nGovernment and politics\n\nWith French help, Blaise Compaoré seized power in a coup d'état in 1987. He overthrew his long-time friend and ally Thomas Sankara, who was killed in the coup. \n\nThe constitution of 2 June 1991 established a semi-presidential government: its parliament could be dissolved by the President of the Republic, who was to be elected for a term of seven years. In 2000, the constitution was amended to reduce the presidential term to five years and set term limits to two, preventing successive re-election. The amendment took effect during the 2005 elections. If passed beforehand, it would have prevented Compaoré from being reelected.\n\nOther presidential candidates challenged the election results. But in October 2005, the constitutional council ruled that, because Compaoré was the sitting president in 2000, the amendment would not apply to him until the end of his second term in office. This cleared the way for his candidacy in the 2005 election. On 13 November 2005, Compaoré was reelected in a landslide, because of a divided political opposition.\n\nIn the 2010 Presidential elections, President Compaoré was re-elected. Only 1.6 million Burkinabés voted, out of a total population 10 times that size.\n\nThe 2011 Burkinabè protests were a series of popular protests that called for the resignation of Compaoré, democratic reforms, higher wages for troops and public servants and economic freedom. As a result, Governors were replaced and wages for public servants were raised. \n\nThe parliament consisted of one chamber known as the National Assembly which had 111 seats with members elected to serve five-year terms. There was also a constitutional chamber, composed of ten members, and an economic and social council whose roles were purely consultative. The 1991 constitution created a bicameral parliament but the upper house (Chamber of Representatives) was abolished in 2002.\n\nThe Compaoré administration had worked to decentralize power by devolving some of its powers to regions and municipal authorities. But the widespread distrust of politicians and lack of political involvement by many residents complicated this process. Critics described this as a hybrid decentralisation. \n\nPolitical freedoms are severely restricted in Burkina Faso. Human rights organizations had criticised the Compaoré administration for numerous acts of state-sponsored violence against journalists and other politically active members of society.\n\nIn mid-September 2015 the Kafando government, along with the rest of the post-October 2014 political order, was temporarily overthrown in a coup attempt by the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP). They installed Gilbert Diendéré as chairman of the new National Council for Democracy. On 23 September 2015, the prime minister and interim president were restored to power. The national elections were subsequently rescheduled for 29 November.\n\nKaboré won the election in the first round of voting, receiving 53.5% of the vote against 29.7% for the second place candidate, Zephirin Diabré. He was sworn in as President on 29 December 2015. \n\nForeign relations\n\nBurkina Faso is a member of the African Union, Community of Sahel-Saharan States, La Francophonie, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Economic Community of West African States, and United Nations.\n\nMilitary\n\nThe army consists of some 6,000 men in voluntary service, augmented by a part-time national People's Militia composed of civilians between 25 and 35 years of age who are trained in both military and civil duties. According to Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessment, Burkina Faso's Army is undermanned for its force structure and poorly equipped, but has wheeled light-armour vehicles, and may have developed useful combat expertise through interventions in Liberia and elsewhere in Africa.\n\nIn terms of training and equipment, the regular Army is believed to be neglected in relation to the élite Regiment of Presidential Security ( – RSP). Reports have emerged in recent years of disputes over pay and conditions. There is an air force with some 19 operational aircraft, but no navy, as the country is landlocked. Military expenses constitute approximately 1.2% of the nation’s GDP.\n\nIn April 2011, there was an army mutiny; the president named new chiefs of staff, and a curfew was imposed in Ouagadougou. \n\nLaw enforcement\n\nBurkina Faso employs numerous police and security forces, generally modeled after organizations used by French police. France continues to provide significant support and training to police forces. The Gendarmerie Nationale is organized along military lines, with most police services delivered at the brigade level. The Gendarmerie operates under the authority of the Minister of Defence, and its members are employed chiefly in the rural areas and along borders. \n\nThere is a municipal police force controlled by the Ministry of Territorial Administration; a national police force controlled by the Ministry of Security; and an autonomous Regiment of Presidential Security (Régiment de la Sécurité Présidentielle, or RSP), a ‘palace guard’ devoted to the protection of the President of the Republic. Both the gendarmerie and the national police are subdivided into both administrative and judicial police functions; the former are detailed to protect public order and provide security, the latter are charged with criminal investigations.\n\nAll foreigners and citizens are required to carry photo ID passports, or other forms of identification or risk a fine, and police spot identity checks are commonplace for persons traveling by auto, bush-taxi, or bus. \n\nGeography and climate\n\nGeography\n\nBurkina Faso lies mostly between latitudes 9° and 15°N (a small area is north of 15°), and longitudes 6°W and 3°E.\n\nIt is made up of two major types of countryside. The larger part of the country is covered by a peneplain, which forms a gently undulating landscape with, in some areas, a few isolated hills, the last vestiges of a Precambrian massif. The southwest of the country, on the other hand, forms a sandstone massif, where the highest peak, Ténakourou, is found at an elevation of 749 m. The massif is bordered by sheer cliffs up to 150 m high. The average altitude of Burkina Faso is 400 m and the difference between the highest and lowest terrain is no greater than 600 m. Burkina Faso is therefore a relatively flat country.\n\nThe country owes its former name of Upper Volta to three rivers which cross it: the Black Volta (or Mouhoun), the White Volta (Nakambé) and the Red Volta (Nazinon). The Black Volta is one of the country's only two rivers which flow year-round, the other being the Komoé, which flows to the southwest. The basin of the Niger River also drains 27% of the country's surface.\n\nThe Niger's tributaries – the Béli, Gorouol, Goudébo, and Dargol – are seasonal streams and flow for only four to six months a year. They still can flood and overflow, however. The country also contains numerous lakes – the principal ones are Tingrela, Bam, and Dem. The country contains large ponds, as well, such as Oursi, Béli, Yomboli, and Markoye. Water shortages are often a problem, especially in the north of the country.\n\nAdministrative divisions\n\nThe country is divided into 13 administrative regions. These regions encompass 45 provinces and 301 departments. Each region is administered by a Governor.\n\nClimate\n\nBurkina Faso has a primarily tropical climate with two very distinct seasons. In the rainy season, the country receives between 60 and of rainfall; in the dry season, the harmattan – a hot dry wind from the Sahara – blows. The rainy season lasts approximately four months, May/June through September, and is shorter in the north of the country. Three climatic zones can be defined: the Sahel, the Sudan-Sahel, and the Sudan-Guinea. The Sahel in the north typically receives less than 60 cm of rainfall per year and has high temperatures, 5 –.\n\nA relatively dry tropical savanna, the Sahel extends beyond the borders of Burkina Faso, from the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, and borders the Sahara to its north and the fertile region of the Sudan to the South. Situated between 11°3' and 13°5' north latitude, the Sudan-Sahel region is a transitional zone with regards to rainfall and temperature. Further to the south, the Sudan-Guinea zone receives more than 90 cm of rain each year and has cooler average temperatures.\n\nBurkina Faso's natural resources include gold, manganese, limestone, marble, phosphates, pumice, and salt.\n\nWildlife and the environment\n\nBurkina Faso has a larger number of elephants than many countries in West Africa. Lions, leopards and buffalo can also be found here, including the dwarf or red buffalo, a smaller reddish-brown animal which looks like a fierce kind of short-legged cow. Other large predators live in Burkina Faso, such as the cheetah, the caracal or African lynx, the spotted hyena and the African wild dog, one of the continent’s most endangered species. \n\nBurkina Faso's fauna and flora are protected in four national parks:\n* The W National Park in the east which passes Burkina Faso, Benin, and Niger\n* The Arly Wildlife Reserve (Arly National Park in the east)\n* The Léraba-Comoé Classified Forest and Partial Reserve of Wildlife in the west\n* The Mare aux Hippopotames in the west\n\nand several reserves: see List of national parks in Africa and Nature reserves of Burkina Faso.\n\nEconomy and Infrastructure\n\nThe value of Burkina Faso's exports fell from $2.77 billion in 2011 to $754 million in 2012. Agriculture represents 32% of its gross domestic product and occupies 80% of the working population. It consists mostly of rearing livestock. Especially in the south and southwest, the people grow crops of sorghum, pearl millet, maize (corn), peanuts, rice and cotton, with surpluses to be sold. A large part of the economic activity of the country is funded by international aid.\n\nBurkina Faso was ranked the 111th safest investment destination in the world in the March 2011 Euromoney Country Risk rankings. Remittances used to be an important source of income to Burkina Faso until the 1990s, when unrest in Ivory Coast, the main destination for Burkinabe emigrants, forced many to return home. Remittances now account for less than 1% of GDP.\n\nBurkina Faso is part of the West African Monetary and Economic Union (UMEOA) and has adopted the CFA Franc. This is issued by the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO), situated in Dakar, Senegal. The BCEAO manages the monetary and reserve policy of the member states, and provides regulation and oversight of financial sector and banking activity. A legal framework regarding licensing, bank activities, organizational and capital requirements, inspections and sanctions (all applicable to all countries of the Union) is in place, having been reformed significantly in 1999. Micro-finance institutions are governed by a separate law, which regulates micro-finance activities in all WAEMU countries. The insurance sector is regulated through the Inter-African Conference on Insurance Markets (CIMA). \n\nThere is mining of copper, iron, manganese, gold, cassiterite (tin ore), and phosphates. These operations provide employment and generate international aid. Gold production increased 32% in 2011 at six gold mine sites, making Burkina Faso the fourth-largest gold producer in Africa, after South Africa, Mali and Ghana. \n\nBurkina Faso also hosts the International Art and Craft Fair, Ouagadougou. It is better known by its French name as SIAO, Le Salon International de l' Artisanat de Ouagadougou, and is one of the most important African handicraft fairs.\n\nBurkina Faso is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). \n\nWhile services remain underdeveloped, the National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA), a state-owned utility company run along commercial lines, is emerging as one of the best-performing utility companies in Africa.Peter Newborne 2011. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120526073427/http://www.odi.org.uk/work/regions-countries/details.asp?id\n222&titleburkina-faso Pipes and People: Progress in Water Supply in Burkina Faso's Cities], London: Overseas Development Institute High levels of autonomy and a skilled and dedicated management have driven ONEA's ability to improve production of and access to clean water.\n\nSince 2000, nearly 2 million more people have access to water in the four principal urban centres in the country; the company has kept the quality of infrastructure high (less than 18% of the water is lost through leaks – one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa), improved financial reporting, and increased its annual revenue by an average of 12% (well above inflation). Challenges remain, including difficulties among some customers in paying for services, with the need to rely on international aid to expand its infrastructure. The state-owned, commercially run venture has helped the nation reach its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets in water-related areas, and has grown as a viable company.\n\nThe growth rate in Burkina Faso is high although it continues to be plagued by corruption and incursions from terrorist groups from Mali and Niger. \n\nTransport\n\nTransport in Burkina Faso is hampered by a largely underdeveloped infrastructure.\n\nThe main airport is at Ouagadougou and as of June 2014 it had regularly scheduled flights to many destinations in West Africa as well as Paris, Brussels and Istanbul. There is another international airport at Bobo Dioulasso which has flights to Ouagadougou and Abidjan.\n\nRail transport in Burkina Faso consists of a single line which runs from Kaya to Abidjan in Ivory Coast via Ouagadougou, Koudougou, Bobo Dioulasso and Banfora. Sitarail operates a passenger train three times a week along the route. \n\nThere are 12,506 kilometres of highway in Burkina Faso, of which 2,001 kilometres are paved.\n\nSociety\n\nDemographics\n\nBurkina Faso is an ethnically integrated, secular state. Most of Burkina's people are concentrated in the south and center of the country, where their density sometimes exceeds 48 persons per square kilometer (125/sq. mi.). Hundreds of thousands of Burkinabe migrate regularly to Ivory Coast and Ghana, mainly for seasonal agricultural work. These flows of workers are affected by external events; the September 2002 coup attempt in Ivory Coast and the ensuing fighting meant that hundreds of thousands of Burkinabe returned to Burkina Faso. The regional economy suffered when they were unable to work.\n\nThe total fertility rate of Burkina Faso is 5.93 children born per woman (2014 estimates), the sixth highest in the world.\n\nIn 2009 the U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report reported that slavery in Burkina Faso continued to exist and that Burkinabè children were often the victims. Slavery in the Sahel states in general, is an entrenched institution with a long history that dates back to the Arab slave trade. \n\nEthnic groups\n\nBurkina Faso's 17.3 million people belong to two major West African ethnic cultural groups—the Voltaic and the Mande (whose common language is Dioula). The Voltaic Mossi make up about one-half of the population. The Mossi claim descent from warriors who migrated to present-day Burkina Faso from the area of Ghana Empire about 1100 AD. They established an empire that lasted more than 800 years. Predominantly farmers, the Mossi kingdom is led by the Mogho Naba, whose court is in Ouagadougou.[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2834.htm \"Burkina Faso\"], U.S. Department of State, June 2008.\n\nLanguages\n\nBurkina Faso is a multilingual country. An estimated 69 languages are spoken there, of which about 60 languages are indigenous. The Mossi language () is spoken by about 40% of the population, mainly in the central region around the capital, Ouagadougou, along with other, closely related Gurunsi languages scattered throughout Burkina.\n\nIn the west, Mande languages are widely spoken, the most predominant being Dyula (also known as Jula or Dioula), others including Bobo, Samo, and Marka. The Fula language (, ) is widespread, particularly in the north. The Gourmanché language is spoken in the east, while the Bissa language is spoken in the south.\n\nThe official language is French, which was introduced during the colonial period. French is the principal language of administrative, political and judicial institutions, public services, and the press. It is the only language for laws, administration and courts.\n\nReligion\n\nStatistics on religion in Burkina Faso are inexact because Islam and Christianity are often practiced in tandem with indigenous religious beliefs. The Government of Burkina Faso 2006 census reported that 60.5% of the population practice Islam, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch,[http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2010/148665.htm International Religious Freedom Report 2010: Burkina Faso]. United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (17 November 2010). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. while a small minority adheres to Shia Islam. There are also large concentrations of the Ahmadiyya Muslims. \n\nA significant number of Sunni Muslims identify with the Tijaniyah Sufi order. The government estimated that 23.2% of the population are Christians (19% being Roman Catholics and 4.2% members of Protestant denominations); 15.3% follow traditional indigenous beliefs, 0.6% have other religions, and 0.4% have none.\n\nHealth\n\nIn 2012, the average life expectancy was estimated at 57 for male and 59 for female. The under five mortality rate and the infant mortality rate were respectively 102 and 66 per 1000 live births. In 2014, the median age of its inhabitants is 17 and the estimated population growth rate is 3.05%.[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uv.html Burkina Faso]. CIA World Factbook\n\nIn 2011, health expenditures was 6.5% of GDP; the maternal mortality ratio was estimated at 300 deaths per 100000 live births and the physician density at 0.05 per 1000 population in 2010. In 2012, it was estimated that the adult HIV prevalence rate (ages 15–49) was 1.0%. According to the 2011 UNAIDS Report, HIV prevalence is declining among pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics. According to a 2005 World Health Organization report, an estimated 72.5% of Burkina Faso's girls and women have had female genital mutilation, administered according to traditional rituals. \n\nCentral government spending on health was 3% in 2001. , studies estimated there were as few as 10 physicians per 100,000 people. In addition, there were 41 nurses and 13 midwives per 100,000 people. Demographic and Health Surveys has completed three surveys in Burkina Faso since 1993, and had another in 2009. \n\nEducation\n\nEducation in Burkina Faso is divided into primary, secondary and higher education. High school costs approximately CFA 25,000 ($50 USD) per year, which is far above the means of most Burkinabè families. Boys receive preference in schooling; as such, girls' education and literacy rates are far lower than their male counterparts. An increase in girls' schooling has been observed because of the government's policy of making school cheaper for girls and granting them more scholarships.\n\nTo proceed from elementary to middle school, middle to high school or high school to college, national exams must be passed. Institutions of higher education include the University of Ouagadougou, The Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso, and the University of Koudougou, which is also a teacher training institution. There are some small private colleges in the capital city of Ouagadougou but these are affordable to only a small portion of the population.\n\nThere is also the International School of Ouagadougou (ISO), an American-based private school located in Ouagadougou.\n\nThe 2008 UN Development Program Report ranked Burkina Faso as the country with the lowest level of literacy in the world, despite a concerted effort to double its literacy rate from 12.8% in 1990 to 25.3% in 2008. \n\nCulture\n\nLiterature in Burkina Faso is based on the oral tradition, which remains important. In 1934, during French occupation, Dim-Dolobsom Ouedraogo published his Maximes, pensées et devinettes mossi (Maximes, Thoughts and Riddles of the Mossi), a record of the oral history of the Mossi people. \n\nThe oral tradition continued to have an influence on Burkinabè writers in the post-independence Burkina Faso of the 1960s, such as Nazi Boni and Roger Nikiema. The 1960s saw a growth in the number of playwrights being published. Since the 1970s, literature has developed in Burkina Faso with many more writers being published. \n\nThe theatre of Burkina Faso combines traditional Burkinabè performance with the colonial influences and post-colonial efforts to educate rural people to produce a distinctive national theatre. Traditional ritual ceremonies of the many ethnic groups in Burkina Faso have long involved dancing with masks. Western-style theatre became common during colonial times, heavily influenced by French theatre. With independence came a new style of theatre inspired by forum theatre aimed at educating and entertaining Burkina Faso's rural people.\n\nArts and crafts\n\nIn addition to several rich traditional artistic heritages among the peoples, there is a large artist community in Burkina Faso, especially in Ouagadougou. Much of the crafts produced are for the growing tourist industry.\n\nCuisine\n\nTypical of West African cuisine, Burkina Faso's cuisine is based on staple foods of sorghum, millet, rice, maize, peanuts, potatoes, beans, yams and okra. The most common sources of animal protein are chicken, chicken eggs and fresh water fish. A typical Burkinabè beverage is Banji or Palm Wine, which is fermented palm sap; and Zoom kom, or \"grain water\" purportedly the national drink of Burkina Faso. Zoom-kom is milky-looking and whitish, having a water and cereal base, best drunk with ice cubes. \n\nCinema\n\nThe cinema of Burkina Faso is an important part of West African and African film industry. Burkina's contribution to African cinema started with the establishment of the film festival FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou), which was launched as a film week in 1969. Many of the nation's filmmakers are known internationally and have won international prizes.\n\nFor many years the headquarters of the Federation of Panafrican Filmmakers (FEPACI) was in Ouagadougou, rescued in 1983 from a period of moribund inactivity by the enthusiastic support and funding of President Sankara. (In 2006 the Secretariat of FEPACI moved to South Africa, but the headquarters of the organization is still in Ouagaoudougou.) Among the best known directors from Burkina Faso are Gaston Kaboré, Idrissa Ouedraogo and Dani Kouyate. Burkina produces popular television series such as Les Bobodiouf. The internationally known filmmakers such as Ouedraogo, Kabore, Yameogo, and Kouyate make popular television series.\n\nSports\n\nSport in Burkina Faso is widespread and includes football (soccer), basketball, cycling, Rugby union, handball, tennis, boxing and martial arts. Football is very popular in Burkina Faso, played both professionally, and informally in towns and villages across the country. The national team is nicknamed \"Les Etalons\" (\"the Stallions\") in reference to the legendary horse of Princess Yennenga.\n\nIn 1998, Burkina Faso hosted the Africa Cup of Nations for which the Omnisport Stadium in Bobo-Dioulasso was built. In 2013, Burkina Faso qualified for the African Cup of Nations in South Africa, reached the final, but then lost to Nigeria by the score of 0 to 1. The country is currently ranked 71st in the FIFA World Rankings. \n\nBasketball is another sport which enjoys much popularity for both men and women. The country's national team had its most successful year in 2013 when it qualified for the AfroBasket, the continent's prime basketball event.\n\nMedia\n\nThe nation's principal media outlet is its state-sponsored combined television and radio service, Radiodiffusion-Télévision Burkina (RTB). RTB broadcasts on two medium-wave (AM) and several FM frequencies. Besides RTB, there are privately owned sports, cultural, music, and religious FM radio stations. RTB maintains a worldwide short-wave news broadcast (Radio Nationale Burkina) in the French language from the capital at Ouagadougou using a 100 kW transmitter on 4.815 and 5.030 MHz. \n\nAttempts to develop an independent press and media in Burkina Faso have been intermittent. In 1998, investigative journalist Norbert Zongo, his brother Ernest, his driver, and another man were assassinated by unknown assailants, and the bodies burned. The crime was never solved. However, an independent Commission of Inquiry later concluded that Norbert Zongo was killed for political reasons because of his investigative work into the death of David Ouedraogo, a chauffeur who worked for François Compaoré, President Blaise Compaoré's brother. \n\nIn January 1999, François Compaoré was charged with the murder of David Ouedraogo, who had died as a result of torture in January 1998. The charges were later dropped by a military tribunal after an appeal. In August 2000, five members of the President's personal security guard detail (Régiment de la Sécurité Présidentielle, or RSP) were charged with the murder of Ouedraogo. RSP members Marcel Kafando, Edmond Koama, and Ousseini Yaro, investigated as suspects in the Norbert Zongo assassination, were convicted in the Ouedraogo case and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.\n\nSince the death of Norbert Zongo, several protests regarding the Zongo investigation and treatment of journalists have been prevented or dispersed by government police and security forces. In April 2007, popular radio reggae host Karim Sama, whose programs feature reggae songs interspersed with critical commentary on alleged government injustice and corruption, received several death threats. \n\nSama's personal car was later burned outside the private radio station Ouaga FM by unknown vandals. In response, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote to President Compaoré to request his government investigate the sending of e-mailed death threats to journalists and radio commentators in Burkina Faso who were critical of the government. In December 2008, police in Ouagadougou questioned leaders of a protest march that called for a renewed investigation into the unsolved Zongo assassination. Among the marchers was Jean-Claude Meda, the president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina Faso. \n\nCultural Festivals and Events\n\nEvery two years, Ouagadougou hosts the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the largest African cinema festival on the continent(February, odd years).\n\nHeld every two years since 1988, the International Art and Craft Fair, Ouagadougou (SIAO), is one of Africa's most important trade shows for art and handicrafts (late October-early November, even years).\n\nAlso every two years, the Symposium de sculpture sur granit de Laongo takes place on a site located about 35 km from Ouagadougou, in the province of Oubritenga.\n\nThe National Culture Week of Burkina Faso, better known by its French name La Semaine Nationale de la culture (SNC), is one of the most important cultural activities of\n\nBurkina Faso. It is a biennial event which takes place every two years in Bobo Dioulasso, the second-largest city in the country.\n\nFood security \n\nBurkina Faso is faced with high levels of food insecurity. As defined by the 1996 World Food Summit, \"food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle. There has not been much successful improvement on this issue of food security within recent years. Burkina Faso's rapidly growing population (around 3.6% annually) continues to put a strain on the country's resources and infrastructure, which can further limit accessibility to food. Because the country is landlocked and prone to Natural disasters, including drought and floods, many families struggle to protect themselves from severe hunger. While recent harvest productions have improved some, much of the population is still having a hard time overcoming the continuous food and nutrition crises of the past decade. Malnutrition is especially common in women and children, with large amounts of the population suffering from stunted growth and micronutrient deficiencies such as anemia. Food insecurity has grown to be a structural problem in Burkina Faso, only to be intensified by high food prices. All of these factors combined with high poverty levels have left Burkina Faso vulnerable to chronic high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. \n\nCauses of food insecurity \n\nSocial and economic \n\nPoverty continues to be strongly linked to food insecurity. As one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso has around 44.5% of its population living under the poverty line and ranked 183 out of 187 countries on the UNDP Human Development Index in 2014. The Human Development Index is a measure of quality of life, taking into account three main areas of human development: longevity, education, and economic standard of living. These high levels of poverty found in Burkina Faso, combined with the soaring food prices of the global food crisis continue to contribute to Burkina Faso's issue of food insecurity. The global food crisis of 2007–2008 was a drastic surge in food prices that lead to high rates of hunger, malnutrition, and political and economic instability in nations across the globe. This strongly affected Burkina Faso because around 80% of Burkina's population is rural, relying on subsistence farming to make a living. For instance, when natural disasters such as floods, droughts, or locust attacks occur and cause crops to fail, farmers in Burkina Faso become dependent on grain purchases. Because of the global food crisis, local grain prices dramatically increased, limiting farmers' access to grain through market exchanges.\n\nEnvironmental \n\nGeographic and environmental causes can also play a significant role in contributing to Burkina Faso's issue of food insecurity. As the country is situated in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso experiences some of the most radical climatic variation in the world, ranging from severe flooding to extreme drought. The unpredictable climatic shock that Burkina Faso citizens often face results in strong difficulties in being able to rely on and accumulate wealth through agricultural means. Burkina Faso's climate also renders its crops vulnerable to insect attacks, including attacks from locusts and crickets, which destroy crops and further inhibit food production. Not only is most of the population of Burkina Faso dependent on agriculture as a source of income, but they also rely on the agricultural sector for food that will directly feed the household. Due to the vulnerability of agriculture, more and more families are having to look for other sources of non-farm income, and oftentimes have to travel outside of their regional zone to find work. \n\nCurrent statistics \n\nAccording to the Global Hunger Index, a multidimensional tool used to measure and track a country's hunger levels, Burkina Faso ranked 65 out of 78 countries in 2013. It is estimated that there are currently over 1.5 million children who are at risk of food insecurity in Burkina Faso, with around 350,000 children who are in need of emergency medical assistance. However, only about a third of these children will actually receive adequate medical attention. Only 11.4 percent of children under the age of two receive the daily recommended number of meals. Stunted growth as a result of food insecurity is a severe problem in Burkina Faso, affecting at least a third of the population from 2008 to 2012. Additionally, stunted children, on average, tend to complete less school than children with normal growth development, further contributing to the low levels of education of the Burkina Faso population. \n\nThe European Commission expects that approximately 500,000 children under age 5 in Burkina Faso will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2015, including around 149,000 who will suffer from its most life-threatening form. Rates of micronutrient deficiencies are also high. According to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2010), 49 percent of women and 88 percent of children under the age of five suffer from anemia. Forty percent of infant deaths can be attributed to malnutrition, and in turn, these infant mortality rates have decreased Burkina Faso's total work force by 13.6 percent, demonstrating how food security affects more aspects of life beyond health.\n\nThese high rates of food insecurity and the accompanying effects are even more prevalent in rural populations compared to urban ones, as access to health services in rural areas is much more limited and awareness and education of children's nutritional needs is lower. \n\nApproaches to improving food security \n\nWorld Food Programme \n\nThe World Food Programme has several projects it is working on that are geared towards increasing food security in Burkina Faso.\nThe Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation 200509 (PRRO) was formed to respond to the high levels of malnutrition in Burkina Faso, following the food and nutrition crisis in 2012. The efforts of this project are mostly geared towards the treatment and prevention of malnutrition and include take home rations for the caretakers of those children who are being treated for malnutrition. Additionally, the activities of this operation contribute to families' abilities to withstand future food crises. Better nutrition among the two most vulnerable groups, young children and pregnant women, prepares them to be able to respond better in times when food security is compromised, such as in droughts.\n\nThe Country Programme (CP) has two parts: food and nutritional assistance to people with HIV/AIDS, and a school feeding program for all primary schools in the Sahel region. The HIV/AIDS nutrition program aims to better the nutritional recovery of those who are living with HIV/AIDS and to protect at-risk children and orphans from malnutrition and food security. As part of the school feeding component, the Country Programme's goals are to increase enrollment and attendance in schools in the Sahel region, where enrollment rates are below the national average. Furthermore, the program aims at improving gender parity rates in these schools, by providing girls with high attendance in the last two years of primary school with take-home rations of cereals as an incentive to households, encouraging them to send their girls to school.\n\nWorld Bank \n\nThe World Bank was established in 1944, and comprises five institutions whose shared goals are to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to promote shared prosperity by fostering income growth of the lower forty percent of every country. One of the main projects the World Bank is working on to reduce food insecurity in Burkina Faso is the Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project. According to the World Bank, the objective of this project is to \"improve the capacity of poor producers to increase food production and to ensure improved availability of food products in rural markets.\" The Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project has three main parts. Its first component is to work towards the improvement of food production, including financing grants and providing 'voucher for work' programs for households who cannot pay their contribution in cash. The project's next component involves improving the ability of food products, particularly in rural areas. This includes supporting the marketing of food products, and aims to strengthen the capabilities of stakeholders to control the variability of food products and supplies at local and national levels. Lastly, the third component of this project focuses on institutional development and capacity building. Its goal is to reinforce the capacities of service providers and institutions who are specifically involved in project implementation. The project's activities aim to build capacities of service providers, strengthen the capacity of food producer organizations, strengthen agricultural input supply delivery methods, and manage and evaluate project activities."
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Who was the Egyptian king whose tomb an treasures were discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922?
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tc_218
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"Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently. Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer (commonly referred to as Menes). The history of ancient Egypt occurred in a series of stable Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.\n\nEgypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, during the Ramesside period, where it rivalled the Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire and Mitanni Empire, after which it entered a period of slow decline. Egypt was invaded or conquered by a succession of foreign powers, such as the Canaanites/Hyksos, Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, Babylonians, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Macedonians in the Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period of Egypt. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established himself as the new ruler of Egypt. This Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. \n\nThe success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to defeat foreign enemies and assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. \n\nThe many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known planked boats, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with the Hittites. Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Europeans and Egyptians led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy. \n\nHistory\n\nThe Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization. Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the river region.\n\nPredynastic period\n\nIn Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. \n\nBy about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Southern) Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper. \n\nThe Badari was followed by the Amratian (Naqada I) and Gerzeh (Naqada II) cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast. Over a period of about 1,000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. Establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the white crown of Egypt and falcon. \n\nThe Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. \n\nEarly Dynastic Period (c. 3050–2686 BC)\n\n The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia and of ancient Elam. The third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. He chose to begin his official history with the king named \"Meni\" (or Menes in Greek) who was believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt (around 3100 BC). \n\nThe transition to a unified state happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers represented, and there is no contemporary record of Menes. Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have been the pharaoh Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial Narmer Palette, in a symbolic act of unification. In the Early Dynastic Period about 3150 BC, the first of the Dynastic pharaohs solidified control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which he could control the labour force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the pharaohs during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified pharaoh after his death. The strong institution of kingship developed by the pharaohs served to legitimize state control over the land, labour, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization.\n\nOld Kingdom (2686–2181 BC)\n\nMajor advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration. Some of ancient Egypt's crowning achievements, the Giza pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order. \n\nAlong with the rising importance of a central administration arose a new class of educated scribes and officials who were granted estates by the pharaoh in payment for their services. Pharaohs also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the pharaoh after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic power of the pharaoh, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration. As the power of the pharaoh diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the pharaoh. This, coupled with severe droughts between 2200 and 2150 BC, is assumed to have caused the country to enter the 140-year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period. \n\nFirst Intermediate Period (2181–1991 BC)\n\nAfter Egypt's central government collapsed at the end of the Old Kingdom, the administration could no longer support or stabilize the country's economy. Regional governors could not rely on the king for help in times of crisis, and the ensuing food shortages and political disputes escalated into famines and small-scale civil wars. Yet despite difficult problems, local leaders, owing no tribute to the pharaoh, used their new-found independence to establish a thriving culture in the provinces. Once in control of their own resources, the provinces became economically richer—which was demonstrated by larger and better burials among all social classes. In bursts of creativity, provincial artisans adopted and adapted cultural motifs formerly restricted to the royalty of the Old Kingdom, and scribes developed literary styles that expressed the optimism and originality of the period. \n\nFree from their loyalties to the pharaoh, local rulers began competing with each other for territorial control and political power. By 2160 BC, rulers in Herakleopolis controlled Lower Egypt in the north, while a rival clan based in Thebes, the Intef family, took control of Upper Egypt in the south. As the Intefs grew in power and expanded their control northward, a clash between the two rival dynasties became inevitable. Around 2055 BC the northern Theban forces under Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II finally defeated the Herakleopolitan rulers, reuniting the Two Lands. They inaugurated a period of economic and cultural renaissance known as the Middle Kingdom. \n\nMiddle Kingdom (2134–1690 BC)\n\nThe pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's prosperity and stability, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Mentuhotep II and his Eleventh Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming kingship at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty around 1985 BC, shifted the nation's capital to the city of Itjtawy, located in Faiyum. From Itjtawy, the pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region. Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia that was rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the \"Walls-of-the-Ruler\", to defend against foreign attack. \n\nWith the pharaohs' having secured military and political security and vast agricultural and mineral wealth, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom experienced an increase in expressions of personal piety and what could be called a democratization of the afterlife, in which all people possessed a soul and could be welcomed into the company of the gods after death. Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style. The relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured\nsubtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical perfection. \n\nThe last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Semitic-speaking Canaanite settlers from the Near East into the delta region to provide a sufficient labour force for his especially active mining and building campaigns. These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with severe Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties. During this decline, the Canaanite settlers began to seize control of the delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos. \n\nSecond Intermediate Period (1674–1549 BC) and the Hyksos\n\nAround 1785 BC, as the power of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs weakened, a Western Asian people called the Hyksos had already settled in the Eastern Delta town of Avaris, seized control of Egypt, and forced the central government to retreat to Thebes. The pharaoh was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute. The Hyksos (\"foreign rulers\") retained Egyptian models of government and identified as pharaohs, thus integrating Egyptian elements into their culture. They and other invaders introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot. \n\nAfter their retreat, the native Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Canaanite Hyksos ruling the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south of Egypt. After years of vassalage, Thebes gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that lasted more than 30 years, until 1555 BC. The pharaohs Seqenenre Tao II and Kamose were ultimately able to defeat the Nubians to the south of Egypt, but failed to defeat the Hyksos. That task fell to Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. He established a new dynasty. In the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the pharaohs seeking to expand Egypt's borders and attempting to gain mastery of the Near East. \n\nNew Kingdom (1549–1069 BC)\n\nThe New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan. Military campaigns waged under Tuthmosis I and his grandson Tuthmosis III extended the influence of the pharaohs to the largest empire Egypt had ever seen. Between their reigns, Hatshepsut generally promoted peace and restored trade routes lost during the Hyksos occupation, as well as expanding to new regions. When Tuthmosis III died in 1425 BC, Egypt had an empire extending from Niya in north west Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia, cementing loyalties and opening access to critical imports such as bronze and wood. \n\nThe New Kingdom pharaohs began a large-scale building campaign to promote the god Amun, whose growing cult was based in Karnak. They also constructed monuments to glorify their own achievements, both real and imagined. The Karnak temple is the largest Egyptian temple ever built. The pharaoh Hatshepsut used such hyperbole and grandeur during her reign of almost twenty-two years. Her reign was very successful, marked by an extended period of peace and wealth-building, trading expeditions to Punt, restoration of foreign trade networks, and great building projects, including an elegant mortuary temple that rivaled the Greek architecture of a thousand years later, a colossal pair of obelisks, and a chapel at Karnak. Despite her achievements, Amenhotep II, the heir to Hatshepsut's nephew-stepson Tuthmosis III, sought to erase her legacy near the end of his father's reign and throughout his, touting many of her accomplishments as his. He also tried to change many established traditions that had developed over the centuries, which some suggest was a futile attempt to prevent other women from becoming pharaoh and to curb their influence in the kingdom.\n\nAround 1350 BC, the stability of the New Kingdom seemed threatened further when Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and instituted a series of radical and chaotic reforms. Changing his name to Akhenaten, he touted the previously obscure sun deity Aten as the supreme deity, suppressed the worship of most other deities, and attacked the power of the temple that had become dominated by the priests of Amun in Thebes, whom he saw as corrupt. Moving the capital to the new city of Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna), Akhenaten turned a deaf ear to events in the Near East (where the Hittites, Mitanni, and Assyrians were vying for control). He was devoted to his new religion and artistic style. After his death, the cult of the Aten was quickly abandoned, the priests of Amun soon regained power and returned the capital to Thebes. Under their influence the subsequent pharaohs Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb worked to erase all mention of Akhenaten's heresy, now known as the Amarna Period. \n\nAround 1279 BC, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ascended the throne, and went on to build more temples, erect more statues and obelisks, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in history. A bold military leader, Ramesses II led his army against the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh (in modern Syria) and, after fighting to a stalemate, finally agreed to the first recorded peace treaty, around 1258 BC. With both the Egyptians and Hittite Empire proving unable to gain the upper hand over one another, and both powers also fearful of the expanding Middle Assyrian Empire, Egypt withdrew from much of the Near East. The Hittites were thus left to compete unsuccessfully with the powerful Assyrians and the newly arrived Phrygians.\n\nEgypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a conjectured. Quote: \"First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term \"Sea Peoples\" encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). [Footnote: The modern term \"Sea Peoples\" refers to peoples that appear in several New Kingdom Egyptian texts as originating from \"islands\" (tables 1-2; Adams and Cohen, this volume; see, e.g., Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term \"Sea Peoples\" in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation \"of the sea\" appears only in relation to the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Hencefore the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]\"[https://books.google.com/books?idbFpK6aXEWN8C&pg\nPA48&lpg=PA48 The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C., Robert Drews, p48–61] Quote: \"The thesis that a great \"migration of the Sea Peoples\" occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, \"eins ist aber sicher: Nach den agyptischen Texten haben wir es nicht mit einer 'Volkerwanderung' zu tun.\" Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but on their interpretation.\" confederation of seafarers from the Aegean Sea. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Caanan, much of it falling to the Assyrians. The effects of external threats were exacerbated by internal problems such as corruption, tomb robbery, and civil unrest. After regaining their power, the high priests at the temple of Amun in Thebes accumulated vast tracts of land and wealth, and their expanded power splintered the country during the Third Intermediate Period. \n\nThird Intermediate Period (1069–653 BC)\n\nFollowing the death of Ramesses XI in 1078 BC, Smendes assumed authority over the northern part of Egypt, ruling from the city of Tanis. The south was effectively controlled by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, who recognized Smendes in name only. During this time, Berber tribes from what was later to be called Libya had been settling in the western delta, and the chieftains of these settlers began increasing their autonomy. Libyan princes took control of the delta under Shoshenq I in 945 BC, founding the Libyan Berber, or Bubastite, dynasty that ruled for some 200 years. Shoshenq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions.\n\nIn the mid-ninth century BC, Egypt made a failed attempt to once more gain a foothold in Western Asia. Osorkon II of Egypt, along with a large alliance of nations and peoples, including Persia, Israel, Hamath, Phoenicia/Caanan, the Arabs, Arameans, and neo Hittites among others, engaged in the Battle of Karkar against the powerful Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BC. However, this coalition of powers failed and the Neo Assyrian Empire continued to dominate Western Asia.\n\nLibyan Berber control began to erode as a rival native dynasty in the delta arose under Leontopolis. Also, the Nubians of the Kushites threatened Egypt from the lands to the south. \n\nDrawing on millennia of interaction (trade, acculturation, occupation, assimilation, and war ) with Egypt, the Kushite king Piye left his Nubian capital of Napata and invaded Egypt around 727 BC. Piye easily seized control of Thebes and eventually the Nile Delta. He recorded the episode on his stela of victory. Piye set the stage for subsequent Twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs, such as Taharqa, to reunite the \"Two lands\" of Northern and Southern Egypt. The Nile valley empire was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom.\n\nThe Twenty-fifth dynasty ushered in a renaissance period for ancient Egypt. Religion, the arts, and architecture were restored to their glorious Old, Middle, and New Kingdom forms. Pharaohs, such as Taharqa, built or restored temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, Jebel Barkal, etc. It was during the Twenty-fifth dynasty that there was the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in modern Sudan) in the Nile Valley since the Middle Kingdom. \n\nPiye made various unsuccessful attempts to extend Egyptian influence in the Near East, then controlled by Assyria. In 720 BC, he sent an army in support of a rebellion against Assyria, which was taking place in Philistia and Gaza. However, Piye was defeated by Sargon II and the rebellion failed. In 711 BC, Piye again supported a revolt against Assyria by the Israelites of Ashdod and was once again defeated by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Subsequently, Piye was forced from the Near East. \n\nFrom the 10th century BC onwards, Assyria fought for control of the southern Levant. Frequently, cities and kingdoms of the southern Levant appealed to Egypt for aid in their struggles against the powerful Assyrian army. Taharqa enjoyed some initial success in his attempts to regain a foothold in the Near East. Taharqa aided the Judean King Hezekiah when Hezekiah and Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib. Scholars disagree on the primary reason for Assyria's abandonment of their siege on Jerusalem. Reasons for the Assyrian withdrawal range from conflict with the Egyptian/Kushite army to divine intervention to surrender to disease. Henry Aubin argues that the Kushite/Egyptian army saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians and prevented the Assyrians from returning to capture Jerusalem for the remainder of Sennacherib's life (20 years). Some argue that disease was the primary reason for failing to actually take the city; however, Senacherib's annals claim Judah was forced into tribute regardless. \n\nSennacherib had been murdered by his own sons for destroying the rebellious city of Babylon, a city sacred to all Mesopotamians, the Assyrians included. In 674 BC Esarhaddon launched a preliminary incursion into Egypt; however, this attempt was repelled by Taharqa. However, in 671 BC, Esarhaddon launched a full-scale invasion. Part of his army stayed behind to deal with rebellions in Phoenicia, and Israel. The remainder went south to Rapihu, then crossed the Sinai, and entered Egypt. Esarhaddon decisively defeated Taharqa, took Memphis, Thebes and all the major cities of Egypt, and Taharqa was chased back to his Nubian homeland. Esarhaddon now called himself \"king of Egypt, Patros, and Kush\", and returned with rich booty from the cities of the delta; he erected a victory stele at this time, and paraded the captive Prince Ushankhuru, the son of Taharqa in Nineveh. Esarhaddon stationed a small army in northern Egypt and describes how \"All Ethiopians (read Nubians/Kushites) I deported from Egypt, leaving not one left to do homage to me\". He installed native Egyptian princes throughout the land to rule on his behalf. The conquest by Esarhaddon effectively marked the end of the short lived Kushite Empire.\n\nHowever, the native Egyptian rulers installed by Esarhaddon were unable to retain full control of the whole country for long. Two years later, Taharqa returned from Nubia and seized control of a section of southern Egypt as far north as Memphis. Esarhaddon prepared to return to Egypt and once more eject Taharqa; however, he fell ill and died in his capital, Nineveh, before he left Assyria. His successor, Ashurbanipal, sent an Assyrian general named Sha-Nabu-shu with a small, but well trained army, which conclusively defeated Taharqa at Memphis and once more drove him from Egypt. Taharqa died in Nubia two years later.\n\nHis successor, Tanutamun, also made a failed attempt to regain Egypt for Nubia. He successfully defeated Necho, the native Egyptian puppet ruler installed by Ashurbanipal, taking Thebes in the process. The Assyrians then sent a large army southwards. Tantamani (Tanutamun) was heavily routed and fled back to Nubia. The Assyrian army sacked Thebes to such an extent it never truly recovered. A native ruler, Psammetichus I was placed on the throne, as a vassal of Ashurbanipal, and the Nubians were never again to pose a threat to either Assyria or Egypt. \n\nLate Period (672–332 BC)\n\nWith no permanent plans for conquest, the Assyrians left control of Egypt to a series of vassals who became known as the Saite kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. By 653 BC, the Saite king Psamtik I (taking advantage of the fact that Assyria was involved in a fierce war conquering Elam and that few Assyrian troops were stationed in Egypt) was able to free Egypt relatively peacefully from Assyrian vassalage with the help of Lydian and Greek mercenaries, the latter of whom were recruited to form Egypt's first navy. Psamtik and his successors however were careful to maintain peaceful relations with Assyria. Greek influence expanded greatly as the city of Naukratis became the home of Greeks in the delta.\n\nIn 609 BC Necho II went to war with Babylonia, the Chaldeans, the Medians and the Scythians in an attempt to save Assyria, which after a brutal civil war was being overrun by this coalition of powers. However, the attempt to save Egypt's former masters failed. The Egyptians delayed intervening too long, and Nineveh had already fallen and King Sin-shar-ishkun was dead by the time Necho II sent his armies northwards. However, Necho easily brushed aside the Israelite army under King Josiah but he and the Assyrians then lost a battle at Harran to the Babylonians, Medes and Scythians. Necho II and Ashur-uballit II of Assyria were finally defeated at Carchemish in Aramea (modern Syria) in 605 BC. The Egyptians remained in the area for some decades, struggling with the Babylonian kings Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II for control of portions of the former Assyrian Empire in The Levant. However, they were eventually driven back into Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar II even briefly invaded Egypt itself in 567 BC. The Saite kings based in the new capital of Sais witnessed a brief but spirited resurgence in the economy and culture, but in 525 BC, the powerful Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the battle of Pelusium. Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from his home of Susa in Persia (modern Iran), leaving Egypt under the control of a satrapy. A few temporarily successful revolts against the Persians marked the fifth century BC, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians. \n\nFollowing its annexation by Persia, Egypt was joined with Cyprus and Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) in the sixth satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This first period of Persian rule over Egypt, also known as the Twenty-seventh dynasty, ended after more than one-hundred years in 402 BC, and from 380–343 BC the Thirtieth Dynasty ruled as the last native royal house of dynastic Egypt, which ended with the kingship of Nectanebo II. A brief restoration of Persian rule, sometimes known as the Thirty-first Dynasty, began in 343 BC, but shortly after, in 332 BC, the Persian ruler Mazaces handed Egypt over to the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great without a fight. \n\nPtolemaic Period\n\nIn 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. The administration established by Alexander's successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Kingdom, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria. The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city—as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority. \n\nHellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs. Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV. In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country. Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful Syriac opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire. \n\nRoman Period\n\nEgypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, following the defeat of Marc Antony and Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium. The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the Emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period. Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome. \n\nAlthough the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued. The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship. Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians.\n\nFrom the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt and it was originally seen as another cult that could be accepted. However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from Egyptian Religion and Greco-Roman religion and threatened popular religious traditions. This led to the persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in 303, but eventually Christianity won out. In 391 the Christian Emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples. Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed. As a consequence, Egypt's native religious culture was continually in decline. While the native population certainly continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished. The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert. \n\nGovernment and economy\n\nAdministration and commerce\n\nThe pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The king was the supreme military commander and head of the government, who relied on a bureaucracy of officials to manage his affairs. In charge of the administration was his second in command, the vizier, who acted as the king's representative and coordinated land surveys, the treasury, building projects, the legal system, and the archives. At a regional level, the country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes each governed by a nomarch, who was accountable to the vizier for his jurisdiction. The temples formed the backbone of the economy. Not only were they houses of worship, but were also responsible for collecting and storing the nation's wealth in a system of granaries and treasuries administered by overseers, who redistributed grain and goods. \n\nMuch of the economy was centrally organized and strictly controlled. Although the ancient Egyptians did not use coinage until the Late period, they did use a type of money-barter system, with standard sacks of grain and the deben, a weight of roughly 91 g of copper or silver, forming a common denominator. Workers were paid in grain; a simple laborer might earn 5½ sacks (200 kg or 400 lb) of grain per month, while a foreman might earn 7½ sacks (250 kg or 550 lb). Prices were fixed across the country and recorded in lists to facilitate trading; for example a shirt cost five copper deben, while a cow cost 140 deben. Grain could be traded for other goods, according to the fixed price list. During the fifth century BC coined money was introduced into Egypt from abroad. At first the coins were used as standardized pieces of precious metal rather than true money, but in the following centuries international traders came to rely on coinage. \n\nSocial status\n\nEgyptian society was highly stratified, and social status was expressly displayed. Farmers made up the bulk of the population, but agricultural produce was owned directly by the state, temple, or noble family that owned the land. Farmers were also subject to a labor tax and were required to work on irrigation or construction projects in a corvée system. Artists and craftsmen were of higher status than farmers, but they were also under state control, working in the shops attached to the temples and paid directly from the state treasury. Scribes and officials formed the upper class in ancient Egypt, known as the \"white kilt class\" in reference to the bleached linen garments that served as a mark of their rank. The upper class prominently displayed their social status in art and literature. Below the nobility were the priests, physicians, and engineers with specialized training in their field. Slavery was known in ancient Egypt, but the extent and prevalence of its practice are unclear.\n\nThe ancient Egyptians viewed men and women, including people from all social classes except slaves, as essentially equal under the law, and even the lowliest peasant was entitled to petition the vizier and his court for redress. Although, slaves were mostly used as indentured servants. They were able to buy and sell, or work their way to freedom or nobility, and usually were treated by doctors in the workplace.[http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/slavery.htm Slavery in Ancient Egypt]from http://www.reshafim.org.il. Retrieved August 28, 2012. Both men and women had the right to own and sell property, make contracts, marry and divorce, receive inheritance, and pursue legal disputes in court. Married couples could own property jointly and protect themselves from divorce by agreeing to marriage contracts, which stipulated the financial obligations of the husband to his wife and children should the marriage end. Compared with their counterparts in ancient Greece, Rome, and even more modern places around the world, ancient Egyptian women had a greater range of personal choices and opportunities for achievement. Women such as Hatshepsut and Cleopatra VI even became pharaohs, while others wielded power as Divine Wives of Amun. Despite these freedoms, ancient Egyptian women did not often take part in official roles in the administration, served only secondary roles in the temples, and were not as likely to be as educated as men. \n\nLegal system\n\nThe head of the legal system was officially the pharaoh, who was responsible for enacting laws, delivering justice, and maintaining law and order, a concept the ancient Egyptians referred to as Ma'at. Although no legal codes from ancient Egypt survive, court documents show that Egyptian law was based on a common-sense view of right and wrong that emphasized reaching agreements and resolving conflicts rather than strictly adhering to a complicated set of statutes. Local councils of elders, known as Kenbet in the New Kingdom, were responsible for ruling in court cases involving small claims and minor disputes. More serious cases involving murder, major land transactions, and tomb robbery were referred to the Great Kenbet, over which the vizier or pharaoh presided. Plaintiffs and defendants were expected to represent themselves and were required to swear an oath that they had told the truth. In some cases, the state took on both the role of prosecutor and judge, and it could torture the accused with beatings to obtain a confession and the names of any co-conspirators. Whether the charges were trivial or serious, court scribes documented the complaint, testimony, and verdict of the case for future reference. \n\nPunishment for minor crimes involved either imposition of fines, beatings, facial mutilation, or exile, depending on the severity of the offense. Serious crimes such as murder and tomb robbery were punished by execution, carried out by decapitation, drowning, or impaling the criminal on a stake. Punishment could also be extended to the criminal's family. Beginning in the New Kingdom, oracles played a major role in the legal system, dispensing justice in both civil and criminal cases. The procedure was to ask the god a \"yes\" or \"no\" question concerning the right or wrong of an issue. The god, carried by a number of priests, rendered judgment by choosing one or the other, moving forward or backward, or pointing to one of the answers written on a piece of papyrus or an ostracon. \n\nAgriculture\n\n \n\nA combination of favorable geographical features contributed to the success of ancient Egyptian culture, the most important of which was the rich fertile soil resulting from annual inundations of the Nile River. The ancient Egyptians were thus able to produce an abundance of food, allowing the population to devote more time and resources to cultural, technological, and artistic pursuits. Land management was crucial in ancient Egypt because taxes were assessed based on the amount of land a person owned. \n\nFarming in Egypt was dependent on the cycle of the Nile River. The Egyptians recognized three seasons: Akhet (flooding), Peret (planting), and Shemu (harvesting). The flooding season lasted from June to September, depositing on the river's banks a layer of mineral-rich silt ideal for growing crops. After the floodwaters had receded, the growing season lasted from October to February. Farmers plowed and planted seeds in the fields, which were irrigated with ditches and canals. Egypt received little rainfall, so farmers relied on the Nile to water their crops. From March to May, farmers used sickles to harvest their crops, which were then threshed with a flail to separate the straw from the grain. Winnowing removed the chaff from the grain, and the grain was then ground into flour, brewed to make beer, or stored for later use. \n\nThe ancient Egyptians cultivated emmer and barley, and several other cereal grains, all of which were used to make the two main food staples of bread and beer. Flax plants, uprooted before they started flowering, were grown for the fibers of their stems. These fibers were split along their length and spun into thread, which was used to weave sheets of linen and to make clothing. Papyrus growing on the banks of the Nile River was used to make paper. Vegetables and fruits were grown in garden plots, close to habitations and on higher ground, and had to be watered by hand. Vegetables included leeks, garlic, melons, squashes, pulses, lettuce, and other crops, in addition to grapes that were made into wine. \n\nAnimals\n\nThe Egyptians believed that a balanced relationship between people and animals was an essential element of the cosmic order; thus humans, animals and plants were believed to be members of a single whole. Animals, both domesticated and wild, were therefore a critical source of spirituality, companionship, and sustenance to the ancient Egyptians. Cattle were the most important livestock; the administration collected taxes on livestock in regular censuses, and the size of a herd reflected the prestige and importance of the estate or temple that owned them. In addition to cattle, the ancient Egyptians kept sheep, goats, and pigs. Poultry such as ducks, geese, and pigeons were captured in nets and bred on farms, where they were force-fed with dough to fatten them. The Nile provided a plentiful source of fish. Bees were also domesticated from at least the Old Kingdom, and they provided both honey and wax. \n\nThe ancient Egyptians used donkeys and oxen as beasts of burden, and they were responsible for plowing the fields and trampling seed into the soil. The slaughter of a fattened ox was also a central part of an offering ritual. Horses were introduced by the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, and the camel, although known from the New Kingdom, was not used as a beast of burden until the Late Period. There is also evidence to suggest that elephants were briefly utilized in the Late Period, but largely abandoned due to lack of grazing land. Dogs, cats and monkeys were common family pets, while more exotic pets imported from the heart of Africa, such as lions, were reserved for royalty. Herodotus observed that the Egyptians were the only people to keep their animals with them in their houses. During the Predynastic and Late periods, the worship of the gods in their animal form was extremely popular, such as the cat goddess Bastet and the ibis god Thoth, and these animals were bred in large numbers on farms for the purpose of ritual sacrifice. \n\nNatural resources\n\nEgypt is rich in building and decorative stone, copper and lead ores, gold, and semiprecious stones. These natural resources allowed the ancient Egyptians to build monuments, sculpt statues, make tools, and fashion jewelry. Embalmers used salts from the Wadi Natrun for mummification, which also provided the gypsum needed to make plaster. Ore-bearing rock formations were found in distant, inhospitable wadis in the eastern desert and the Sinai, requiring large, state-controlled expeditions to obtain natural resources found there. There were extensive gold mines in Nubia, and one of the first maps known is of a gold mine in this region. The Wadi Hammamat was a notable source of granite, greywacke, and gold. Flint was the first mineral collected and used to make tools, and flint handaxes are the earliest pieces of evidence of habitation in the Nile valley. Nodules of the mineral were carefully flaked to make blades and arrowheads of moderate hardness and durability even after copper was adopted for this purpose. Ancient Egyptians were among the first to use minerals such as sulfur as cosmetic substances. \n\nThe Egyptians worked deposits of the lead ore galena at Gebel Rosas to make net sinkers, plumb bobs, and small figurines. Copper was the most important metal for toolmaking in ancient Egypt and was smelted in furnaces from malachite ore mined in the Sinai. Workers collected gold by washing the nuggets out of sediment in alluvial deposits, or by the more labor-intensive process of grinding and washing gold-bearing quartzite. Iron deposits found in upper Egypt were utilized in the Late Period. High-quality building stones were abundant in Egypt; the ancient Egyptians quarried limestone all along the Nile valley, granite from Aswan, and basalt and sandstone from the wadis of the eastern desert. Deposits of decorative stones such as porphyry, greywacke, alabaster, and carnelian dotted the eastern desert and were collected even before the First Dynasty. In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, miners worked deposits of emeralds in Wadi Sikait and amethyst in Wadi el-Hudi. \n\nTrade\n\nThe ancient Egyptians engaged in trade with their foreign neighbors to obtain rare, exotic goods not found in Egypt. In the Predynastic Period, they established trade with Nubia to obtain gold and incense. They also established trade with Palestine, as evidenced by Palestinian-style oil jugs found in the burials of the First Dynasty pharaohs. An Egyptian colony stationed in southern Canaan dates to slightly before the First Dynasty. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan and exported back to Egypt. \n\nBy the Second Dynasty at latest, ancient Egyptian trade with Byblos yielded a critical source of quality timber not found in Egypt. By the Fifth Dynasty, trade with Punt provided gold, aromatic resins, ebony, ivory, and wild animals such as monkeys and baboons. Egypt relied on trade with Anatolia for essential quantities of tin as well as supplementary supplies of copper, both metals being necessary for the manufacture of bronze. The ancient Egyptians prized the blue stone lapis lazuli, which had to be imported from far-away Afghanistan. Egypt's Mediterranean trade partners also included Greece and Crete, which provided, among other goods, supplies of olive oil. In exchange for its luxury imports and raw materials, Egypt mainly exported grain, gold, linen, and papyrus, in addition to other finished goods including glass and stone objects. \n\nLanguage\n\nHistorical development\n\nThe Egyptian language is a northern Afro-Asiatic language closely related to the Berber and Semitic languages. It has the second longest history of any language (after Sumerian), having been written from c. 3200 BC to the Middle Ages and remaining as a spoken language for longer. The phases of ancient Egyptian are Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian (Classical Egyptian), Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic. Egyptian writings do not show dialect differences before Coptic, but it was probably spoken in regional dialects around Memphis and later Thebes. \n\nAncient Egyptian was a synthetic language, but it became more analytic later on. Late Egyptian develops prefixal definite and indefinite articles, which replace the older inflectional suffixes. There is a change from the older verb–subject–object word order to subject–verb–object. The Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts were eventually replaced by the more phonetic Coptic alphabet. Coptic is still used in the liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and traces of it are found in modern Egyptian Arabic. \n\nSounds and grammar\n\nAncient Egyptian has 25 consonants similar to those of other Afro-Asiatic languages. These include pharyngeal and emphatic consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless fricatives and voiced and voiceless affricates. It has three long and three short vowels, which expanded in Later Egyptian to about nine. The basic word in Egyptian, similar to Semitic and Berber, is a triliteral or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the person. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is ', 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb: ', 'the woman hears'.\n\nAdjectives are derived from nouns through a process that Egyptologists call nisbation because of its similarity with Arabic. The word order is in verbal and adjectival sentences, and in nominal and adverbial sentences. The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun. Verbs and nouns are negated by the particle n, but nn is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. Stress falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC). \n\nWriting\n\nHieroglyphic writing dates from c. 3000 BC, and is composed of hundreds of symbols. A hieroglyph can represent a word, a sound, or a silent determinative; and the same symbol can serve different purposes in different contexts. Hieroglyphs were a formal script, used on stone monuments and in tombs, that could be as detailed as individual works of art. In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, called hieratic, which was quicker and easier. While formal hieroglyphs may be read in rows or columns in either direction (though typically written from right to left), hieratic was always written from right to left, usually in horizontal rows. A new form of writing, Demotic, became the prevalent writing style, and it is this form of writing—along with formal hieroglyphs—that accompany the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone. \n\nAround the first century AD, the Coptic alphabet started to be used alongside the Demotic script. Coptic is a modified Greek alphabet with the addition of some Demotic signs. Although formal hieroglyphs were used in a ceremonial role until the fourth century, towards the end only a small handful of priests could still read them. As the traditional religious establishments were disbanded, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was mostly lost. Attempts to decipher them date to the Byzantine and Islamic periods in Egypt, but only in 1822, after the discovery of the Rosetta stone and years of research by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, were hieroglyphs almost fully deciphered. \n\nLiterature\n\nWriting first appeared in association with kingship on labels and tags for items found in royal tombs. It was primarily an occupation of the scribes, who worked out of the Per Ankh institution or the House of Life. The latter comprised offices, libraries (called House of Books), laboratories and observatories. Some of the best-known pieces of ancient Egyptian literature, such as the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, were written in Classical Egyptian, which continued to be the language of writing until about 1300 BC. Later Egyptian was spoken from the New Kingdom onward and is represented in Ramesside administrative documents, love poetry and tales, as well as in Demotic and Coptic texts. During this period, the tradition of writing had evolved into the tomb autobiography, such as those of Harkhuf and Weni. The genre known as Sebayt (\"instructions\") was developed to communicate teachings and guidance from famous nobles; the Ipuwer papyrus, a poem of lamentations describing natural disasters and social upheaval, is a famous example.\n\nThe Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be the classic of Egyptian literature. Also written at this time was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. The Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of near-eastern literature. Towards the end of the New Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often employed to write popular pieces like the Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. The former tells the story of a noble who is robbed on his way to buy cedar from Lebanon and of his struggle to return to Egypt. From about 700 BC, narrative stories and instructions, such as the popular Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, as well as personal and business documents were written in the demotic script and phase of Egyptian. Many stories written in demotic during the Greco-Roman period were set in previous historical eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great pharaohs such as Ramesses II. \n\nCulture\n\nDaily life\n\nMost ancient Egyptians were farmers tied to the land. Their dwellings were restricted to immediate family members, and were constructed of mud-brick designed to remain cool in the heat of the day. Each home had a kitchen with an open roof, which contained a grindstone for milling grain and a small oven for baking the bread. Walls were painted white and could be covered with dyed linen wall hangings. Floors were covered with reed mats, while wooden stools, beds raised from the floor and individual tables comprised the furniture. \n\nThe ancient Egyptians placed a great value on hygiene and appearance. Most bathed in the Nile and used a pasty soap made from animal fat and chalk. Men shaved their entire bodies for cleanliness; perfumes and aromatic ointments covered bad odors and soothed skin. Clothing was made from simple linen sheets that were bleached white, and both men and women of the upper classes wore wigs, jewelry, and cosmetics. Children went without clothing until maturity, at about age 12, and at this age males were circumcised and had their heads shaved. Mothers were responsible for taking care of the children, while the father provided the family's income. \n\nMusic and dance were popular entertainments for those who could afford them. Early instruments included flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes developed later and became popular. In the New Kingdom, the Egyptians played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes and lyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-like musical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.\n\nThe ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of leisure activities, including games and music. Senet, a board game where pieces moved according to random chance, was particularly popular from the earliest times; another similar game was mehen, which had a circular gaming board. Juggling and ball games were popular with children, and wrestling is also documented in a tomb at Beni Hasan. The wealthy members of ancient Egyptian society enjoyed hunting and boating as well.\n\nThe excavation of the workers' village of Deir el-Madinah has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world that spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organisation, social interactions, working and living conditions of a community were studied in such detail. \n\nCuisine\n\nEgyptian cuisine remained remarkably stable over time; indeed, the cuisine of modern Egypt retains some striking similarities to the cuisine of the ancients. The staple diet consisted of bread and beer, supplemented with vegetables such as onions and garlic, and fruit such as dates and figs. Wine and meat were enjoyed by all on feast days while the upper classes indulged on a more regular basis. Fish, meat, and fowl could be salted or dried, and could be cooked in stews or roasted on a grill. \n\nArchitecture\n\nThe architecture of ancient Egypt includes some of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Pyramids of Giza and the temples at Thebes. Building projects were organized and funded by the state for religious and commemorative purposes, but also to reinforce the power of the pharaoh. The ancient Egyptians were skilled builders; using simple but effective tools and sighting instruments, architects could build large stone structures with accuracy and precision. \n\nThe domestic dwellings of elite and ordinary Egyptians alike were constructed from perishable materials such as mud bricks and wood, and have not survived. Peasants lived in simple homes, while the palaces of the elite were more elaborate structures. A few surviving New Kingdom palaces, such as those in Malkata and Amarna, show richly decorated walls and floors with scenes of people, birds, water pools, deities and geometric designs. Important structures such as temples and tombs that were intended to last forever were constructed of stone instead of bricks. The architectural elements used in the world's first large-scale stone building, Djoser's mortuary complex, include post and lintel supports in the papyrus and lotus motif.\n\nThe earliest preserved ancient Egyptian temples, such as those at Giza, consist of single, enclosed halls with roof slabs supported by columns. In the New Kingdom, architects added the pylon, the open courtyard, and the enclosed hypostyle hall to the front of the temple's sanctuary, a style that was standard until the Greco-Roman period. The earliest and most popular tomb architecture in the Old Kingdom was the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular structure of mudbrick or stone built over an underground burial chamber. The step pyramid of Djoser is a series of stone mastabas stacked on top of each other. Pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but most later rulers abandoned them in favor of less conspicuous rock-cut tombs. The Twenty-fifth dynasty was a notable exception, as all Twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs constructed pyramids.\n\nArt\n\nThe ancient Egyptians produced art to serve functional purposes. For over 3500 years, artists adhered to artistic forms and iconography that were developed during the Old Kingdom, following a strict set of principles that resisted foreign influence and internal change. These artistic standards—simple lines, shapes, and flat areas of color combined with the characteristic flat projection of figures with no indication of spatial depth—created a sense of order and balance within a composition. Images and text were intimately interwoven on tomb and temple walls, coffins, stelae, and even statues. The Narmer Palette, for example, displays figures that can also be read as hieroglyphs. Because of the rigid rules that governed its highly stylized and symbolic appearance, ancient Egyptian art served its political and religious purposes with precision and clarity. \n\nAncient Egyptian artisans used stone to carve statues and fine reliefs, but used wood as a cheap and easily carved substitute. Paints were obtained from minerals such as iron ores (red and yellow ochres), copper ores (blue and green), soot or charcoal (black), and limestone (white). Paints could be mixed with gum arabic as a binder and pressed into cakes, which could be moistened with water when needed. \n\nPharaohs used reliefs to record victories in battle, royal decrees, and religious scenes. Common citizens had access to pieces of funerary art, such as shabti statues and books of the dead, which they believed would protect them in the afterlife. During the Middle Kingdom, wooden or clay models depicting scenes from everyday life became popular additions to the tomb. In an attempt to duplicate the activities of the living in the afterlife, these models show laborers, houses, boats, and even military formations that are scale representations of the ideal ancient Egyptian afterlife. \n\nDespite the homogeneity of ancient Egyptian art, the styles of particular times and places sometimes reflected changing cultural or political attitudes. After the invasion of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, Minoan-style frescoes were found in Avaris. The most striking example of a politically driven change in artistic forms comes from the Amarna period, where figures were radically altered to conform to Akhenaten's revolutionary religious ideas. This style, known as Amarna art, was quickly and thoroughly erased after Akhenaten's death and replaced by the traditional forms. \n\nReligious beliefs\n\nBeliefs in the divine and in the afterlife were ingrained in ancient Egyptian civilization from its inception; pharaonic rule was based on the divine right of kings. The Egyptian pantheon was populated by gods who had supernatural powers and were called on for help or protection. However, the gods were not always viewed as benevolent, and Egyptians believed they had to be appeased with offerings and prayers. The structure of this pantheon changed continually as new deities were promoted in the hierarchy, but priests made no effort to organize the diverse and sometimes conflicting myths and stories into a coherent system. These various conceptions of divinity were not considered contradictory but rather layers in the multiple facets of reality. \n\nGods were worshiped in cult temples administered by priests acting on the king's behalf. At the center of the temple was the cult statue in a shrine. Temples were not places of public worship or congregation, and only on select feast days and celebrations was a shrine carrying the statue of the god brought out for public worship. Normally, the god's domain was sealed off from the outside world and was only accessible to temple officials. Common citizens could worship private statues in their homes, and amulets offered protection against the forces of chaos. After the New Kingdom, the pharaoh's role as a spiritual intermediary was de-emphasized as religious customs shifted to direct worship of the gods. As a result, priests developed a system of oracles to communicate the will of the gods directly to the people. \n\nThe Egyptians believed that every human being was composed of physical and spiritual parts or aspects. In addition to the body, each person had a šwt (shadow), a ba (personality or soul), a ka (life-force), and a name. The heart, rather than the brain, was considered the seat of thoughts and emotions. After death, the spiritual aspects were released from the body and could move at will, but they required the physical remains (or a substitute, such as a statue) as a permanent home. The ultimate goal of the deceased was to rejoin his ka and ba and become one of the \"blessed dead\", living on as an akh, or \"effective one\". For this to happen, the deceased had to be judged worthy in a trial, in which the heart was weighed against a \"feather of truth\". If deemed worthy, the deceased could continue their existence on earth in spiritual form. \n\nBurial customs\n\nThe ancient Egyptians maintained an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death. These customs involved preserving the body by mummification, performing burial ceremonies, and interring with the body goods the deceased would use in the afterlife. Before the Old Kingdom, bodies buried in desert pits were naturally preserved by desiccation. The arid, desert conditions were a boon throughout the history of ancient Egypt for burials of the poor, who could not afford the elaborate burial preparations available to the elite. Wealthier Egyptians began to bury their dead in stone tombs and use artificial mummification, which involved removing the internal organs, wrapping the body in linen, and burying it in a rectangular stone sarcophagus or wooden coffin. Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, some parts were preserved separately in canopic jars. \n\nBy the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had perfected the art of mummification; the best technique took 70 days and involved removing the internal organs, removing the brain through the nose, and desiccating the body in a mixture of salts called natron. The body was then wrapped in linen with protective amulets inserted between layers and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin. Mummies of the Late Period were also placed in painted cartonnage mummy cases. Actual preservation practices declined during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, while greater emphasis was placed on the outer appearance of the mummy, which was decorated.\n\nWealthy Egyptians were buried with larger quantities of luxury items, but all burials, regardless of social status, included goods for the deceased. Beginning in the New Kingdom, books of the dead were included in the grave, along with shabti statues that were believed to perform manual labor for them in the afterlife. Rituals in which the deceased was magically re-animated accompanied burials. After burial, living relatives were expected to occasionally bring food to the tomb and recite prayers on behalf of the deceased. \n\nMilitary\n\nThe ancient Egyptian military was responsible for defending Egypt against foreign invasion, and for maintaining Egypt's domination in the ancient Near East. The military protected mining expeditions to the Sinai during the Old Kingdom and fought civil wars during the First and Second Intermediate Periods. The military was responsible for maintaining fortifications along important trade routes, such as those found at the city of Buhen on the way to Nubia. Forts also were constructed to serve as military bases, such as the fortress at Sile, which was a base of operations for expeditions to the Levant. In the New Kingdom, a series of pharaohs used the standing Egyptian army to attack and conquer Kush and parts of the Levant. \n\nTypical military equipment included bows and arrows, spears, and round-topped shields made by stretching animal skin over a wooden frame. In the New Kingdom, the military began using chariots that had earlier been introduced by the Hyksos invaders. Weapons and armor continued to improve after the adoption of bronze: shields were now made from solid wood with a bronze buckle, spears were tipped with a bronze point, and the Khopesh was adopted from Asiatic soldiers. The pharaoh was usually depicted in art and literature riding at the head of the army; it has been suggested that at least a few pharaohs, such as Seqenenre Tao II and his sons, did do so. However, it has also been argued that \"kings of this period did not personally act as frontline war leaders, fighting alongside their troops.\" Soldiers were recruited from the general population, but during, and especially after, the New Kingdom, mercenaries from Nubia, Kush, and Libya were hired to fight for Egypt. \n\nTechnology, medicine, and mathematics\n\nTechnology\n\nIn technology, medicine and mathematics, ancient Egypt achieved a relatively high standard of productivity and sophistication. Traditional empiricism, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri (c. 1600 BC), is first credited to Egypt. The Egyptians created their own alphabet and decimal system.\n\nFaience and glass\n\nEven before the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had developed a glassy material known as faience, which they treated as a type of artificial semi-precious stone. Faience is a non-clay ceramic made of silica, small amounts of lime and soda, and a colorant, typically copper. The material was used to make beads, tiles, figurines, and small wares. Several methods can be used to create faience, but typically production involved application of the powdered materials in the form of a paste over a clay core, which was then fired. By a related technique, the ancient Egyptians produced a pigment known as Egyptian Blue, also called blue frit, which is produced by fusing (or sintering) silica, copper, lime, and an alkali such as natron. The product can be ground up and used as a pigment. \n\nThe ancient Egyptians could fabricate a wide variety of objects from glass with great skill, but it is not clear whether they developed the process independently. It is also unclear whether they made their own raw glass or merely imported pre-made ingots, which they melted and finished. However, they did have technical expertise in making objects, as well as adding trace elements to control the color of the finished glass. A range of colors could be produced, including yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and white, and the glass could be made either transparent or opaque. \n\nMedicine\n\nThe medical problems of the ancient Egyptians stemmed directly from their environment. Living and working close to the Nile brought hazards from malaria and debilitating schistosomiasis parasites, which caused liver and intestinal damage. Dangerous wildlife such as crocodiles and hippos were also a common threat. The lifelong labors of farming and building put stress on the spine and joints, and traumatic injuries from construction and warfare all took a significant toll on the body. The grit and sand from stone-ground flour abraded teeth, leaving them susceptible to abscesses (though caries were rare). \n\nThe diets of the wealthy were rich in sugars, which promoted periodontal disease. Despite the flattering physiques portrayed on tomb walls, the overweight mummies of many of the upper class show the effects of a life of overindulgence. Adult life expectancy was about 35 for men and 30 for women, but reaching adulthood was difficult as about one-third of the population died in infancy. \n\nAncient Egyptian physicians were renowned in the ancient Near East for their healing skills, and some, such as Imhotep, remained famous long after their deaths. Herodotus remarked that there was a high degree of specialization among Egyptian physicians, with some treating only the head or the stomach, while others were eye-doctors and dentists. Training of physicians took place at the Per Ankh or \"House of Life\" institution, most notably those headquartered in Per-Bastet during the New Kingdom and at Abydos and Saïs in the Late period. Medical papyri show empirical knowledge of anatomy, injuries, and practical treatments. \n\nWounds were treated by bandaging with raw meat, white linen, sutures, nets, pads, and swabs soaked with honey to prevent infection, while opium thyme and belladona were used to relieve pain. The earliest records of burn treatment describe burn dressings that use the milk from mothers of male babies. Prayers were made to the goddess Isis. Moldy bread, honey and copper salts were also used to prevent infection from dirt in burns. Garlic and onions were used regularly to promote good health and were thought to relieve asthma symptoms. Ancient Egyptian surgeons stitched wounds, set broken bones, and amputated diseased limbs, but they recognized that some injuries were so serious that they could only make the patient comfortable until death occurred. \n\nMaritime technology\n\nEarly Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull and had mastered advanced forms of shipbuilding as early as 3000 BC. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that the oldest planked ships known are the Abydos boats. A group of 14 discovered ships in Abydos were constructed of wooden planks \"sewn\" together. Discovered by Egyptologist David O'Connor of New York University, woven straps were found to have been used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally they were all thought to have belonged to him, but one of the 14 ships dates to 3000 BC, and the associated pottery jars buried with the vessels also suggest earlier dating. The ship dating to 3000 BC was 75 ft long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor O'Connor, the 5,000-year-old ship may have even belonged to Pharaoh Aha.\n\nEarly Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, using pitch for caulking the seams. The \"Khufu ship\", a vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2500 BC, is a full-size surviving example that may have filled the symbolic function of a solar barque. Early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints.\n\nLarge seagoing ships are known to have been heavily used by the Egyptians in their trade with the city states of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Byblos (on the coast of modern-day Lebanon), and in several expeditions down the Red Sea to the Land of Punt. In fact one of the earliest Egyptian words for a seagoing ship is a \"Byblos Ship\", which originally defined a class of Egyptian seagoing ships used on the Byblos run; however, by the end of the Old Kingdom, the term had come to include large seagoing ships, whatever their destination. \n\nIn 2011 archaeologists from Italy, the United States, and Egypt excavating a dried-up lagoon known as Mersa Gawasis have unearthed traces of an ancient harbor that once launched early voyages like Hatshepsut's Punt expedition onto the open ocean. Some of the site's most evocative evidence for the ancient Egyptians' seafaring prowess include large ship timbers and hundreds of feet of ropes, made from papyrus, coiled in huge bundles. And in 2013 a team of Franco-Egyptian archaeologists discovered what is believed to be the world's oldest port, dating back about 4500 years, from the time of King Cheops on the Red Sea coast near Wadi el-Jarf (about 110 miles south of Suez). \n\nIn 1977, an ancient north-south canal dating to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt was discovered extending from Lake Timsah to the Ballah Lakes. It was dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt by extrapolating dates of ancient sites constructed along its course. \n\nMathematics\n\nThe earliest attested examples of mathematical calculations date to the predynastic Naqada period, and show a fully developed numeral system. The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor, and grain. Texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus show that the ancient Egyptians could perform the four basic mathematical operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—use fractions, compute the volumes of boxes and pyramids, and calculate the surface areas of rectangles, triangles, and circles. They understood basic concepts of algebra and geometry, and could solve simple sets of simultaneous equations. \n\nMathematical notation was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight times respectively. Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, they had to write fractions as the sum of several fractions. For example, they resolved the fraction two-fifths into the sum of one-third + one-fifteenth. Standard tables of values facilitated this. Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph—the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right. \n\nAncient Egyptian mathematicians had a grasp of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem, knowing, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result:\n\nArea ≈ [()D]2 = ()r 2 ≈ 3.16r 2,\n\na reasonable approximation of the formula πr 2. \n\nThe golden ratio seems to be reflected in many Egyptian constructions, including the pyramids, but its use may have been an unintended consequence of the ancient Egyptian practice of combining the use of knotted ropes with an intuitive sense of proportion and harmony. \n\nPopulation \n\nLegacy\n\nThe culture and monuments of ancient Egypt have left a lasting legacy on the world. The cult of the goddess Isis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome. The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian-style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery. \n\nDuring the Middle Ages and The Renaissance, Egyptian pagan culture was in decline after the rise of Christianity and later Islam, but interest in Egyptian antiquity continued in the writings of medieval scholars such as Dhul-Nun al-Misri and al-Maqrizi. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European travelers and tourists brought back antiquities and wrote stories of their journeys, leading to a wave of Egyptomania across Europe. This renewed interest sent collectors to Egypt, who took, purchased, or were given many important antiquities. \n\nAlthough the European colonial occupation of Egypt destroyed a significant portion of the country's historical legacy, some foreigners left more positive marks. Napoleon, for example, arranged the first studies in Egyptology when he brought some 150 scientists and artists to study and document Egypt's natural history, which was published in the Description de l'Égypte. \n\nIn the 20th century, the Egyptian Government and archaeologists alike recognized the importance of cultural respect and integrity in excavations. The Supreme Council of Antiquities now approves and oversees all excavations, which are aimed at finding information rather than treasure. The council also supervises museums and monument reconstruction programs designed to preserve the historical legacy of Egypt.\n\nFile:Camel and the pyramids.jpg|Tourists riding a camel in front of Giza pyramids\nFile:EgyptFrontispiece.jpg|Frontispiece of Description de l'Égypte, published in 38 volumes between 1809 and 1829.",
"KV62 is the standard Egyptological designation for the tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, now renowned for the wealth of valuable antiquities it contained. The tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, underneath the remains of workmen's huts built during the Ramesside Period; this explains why it was largely spared from desecration and from the tomb clearances at the end of the 20th Dynasty, although the tomb was robbed and resealed twice in the period after its completion.\n\nThe tomb was densely packed with items in great disarray, partly due to its small size, the two robberies, and the apparently hurried nature of its completion. Due to the state of the tomb, and to Carter's meticulous recording technique, the tomb took eight years to empty, the contents all being transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.\n\nTutankhamun's tomb had been entered at least twice, not long after he was buried and well before Carter's discovery. The outermost doors of the shrines enclosing the king's nested coffins were unsealed, though the inner two shrines (three and four) remained intact and sealed.\n\nDiscovery of the tomb \n\nIn 1907, just before his discovery of the tomb of Horemheb, Theodore M. Davis's team uncovered a small site containing funerary artifacts with Tutankhamun's name and some embalming parts. Assuming that this site, numbered finally as KV54, was Tutankhamun's complete tomb, Davis concluded the dig. The details of both findings are documented in Davis's 1912 publication, The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatânkhamanou; the book closes with the comment, \"I fear that the Valley of the Kings is now exhausted.\" But Davis was to be proven spectacularly wrong.\n\nThe British Egyptologist Howard Carter (employed by Lord Carnarvon) hired a crew to help him excavate at the site of KV62. Carter went back to a line of huts that he had abandoned a few seasons earlier. After clearance of the huts and rock debris beneath, they found a stone step cut into the bedrock. A flight of steps was partially uncovered, leading to the top of a mud-plastered doorway stamped with indistinct oval seals, called cartouches. Carter ordered the staircase to be refilled, and sent a telegram to Carnarvon, who arrived two-and-a-half weeks later on 23rd November along with his 21-year-old daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert. \n\nThe excavators cleared the stairway completely, which allowed clearer seals lower down on the door to be read, seals bearing the name of Tutankhamun. However, further examination showed that the door blocking had been breached and resealed on at least two occasions. Clearing the blocking led to a downward corridor that was completely blocked with packed limestone chippings, through which a robbers' tunnel had been excavated and anciently refilled. At the end of the tunnel was a second sealed door that had been breached and re-sealed in antiquity. Carter then made a hole in the door, and used a candle to check for foul gases, before looking inside. \n\n‘At first I could see nothing,’ he would later write, ‘the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold’. \n\nInvestigation\n\nThe first step to the stairs was found on November 4, 1922. The following day saw the exposure of a complete staircase. The end of November saw access to the antechamber and the discovery of the annex, and then the burial chamber and treasury. On November 29, the tomb was opened, and the first announcement and press conference followed the next day. The first item was removed from the tomb on December 27. \n\nOn February 16, 1923, the burial chamber was opened, and on April 5, Lord Carnarvon died.\n\nOn February 12, 1924, the granite lid of the sarcophagus was raised. In April, Carter argued with the Antiquities Service and left the excavation for the United States.\n\nIn January 1925, Carter resumed activities in the tomb, and on October 13, he removed the cover of the first sarcophagus; on October 23, he removed the cover of the second sarcophagus; on October 28, the team removed the cover of the final sarcophagus and exposed the mummy; and on November 11, the examination of the remains of Tutankhamun started.\n\nWork started in the treasury on October 24, 1926, and between October 30 and December 15, 1927, the annex was emptied and examined. On November 10, 1930, eight years after the discovery, the last objects were removed from the tomb. \n\nLayout of tomb\n\nIn design, the tomb appears to have originally been intended for a private individual, not for royalty. There is some evidence to suggest that the tomb was adapted for a royal occupant during its excavation. This may be supported by the fact that only the burial chamber walls were decorated, unlike royal tombs in which nearly all walls were painted with scenes from the Book of the Dead.\n\nStaircase\n\nStarting from a small, level platform, 16 steps descend to the first doorway, which was sealed and plastered – although it had been penetrated by grave robbers at least twice in antiquity.\n\nEntrance corridor\n\nBeyond the first doorway, a descending corridor leads to the second sealed door, and into the room that Carter described as the Antechamber. This was used originally to hold material left over from the funeral and material associated with the embalming of the king. After an initial robbery, this material was either moved into the tomb proper, or to KV54, and the corridor was sealed with packed limestone chippings which covered some debris from the first robbery. A later robbery broke through the outer door and excavated a tunnel through the chippings to the second door. The robbery was discovered and the second door was resealed, the tunnel refilled, and the outer door sealed again.\n\nAntechamber\n\nThe undecorated antechamber was found to be in a state of \"organized chaos\", partly due to ransacking during the robberies, and contained approximately 700 objects (articles 14 to 171 in the Carter catalogue) amongst which were three funeral beds, one decorated with the heads of lions (the Goddess Mehet), one with the heads of spotted cattle (representing the great flood, or Mehet-Uret) and one featuring a composite animal with the body of a lion, the tail of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile (representing the corpse-devourer Ammit). Perhaps the most remarkable item in this room were the components, stacked, of four chariots of which one was possibly used for hunting, one for \"war\" and another two for parades.\n\nBurial chamber\n\nDecoration\n\nThis is the only decorated chamber in the tomb, with scenes from the Opening of the mouth ceremony (showing Ay, Tutankhamun's successor acting as the king's son, despite being older than he is) and Tutankhamun with the goddess Nut on the north wall, the first hour of Amduat (on the west wall), spell one of the Book of the Dead (on the east wall) and representations of the king with various deities (Anubis, Isis, Hathor and others now destroyed) on the south wall. The north wall shows Tutankhamen being followed by his Ka, being welcomed to the underworld by Osiris. \n\nSome of the treasures in Tutankhamun's tomb are noted for their apparent departure from traditional depictions of the boy king. Certain cartouches where a king's name should appear have been altered, as if to reuse the property of a previous pharaoh—has often occurred. However, this instance may simply be the product of \"updating\" the artifacts to reflect the shift from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun. Other differences are less easy to explain, such as the older, more angular facial features of the middle coffin and canopic coffinettes. The most widely accepted theory for these latter variations is that the items were originally intended for Smenkhkare, who may or may not be the mysterious KV55 mummy. This mummy, according to craniological examinations, bears a striking first-order (father-to-son, brother-to-brother) relationship to Tutankhamun. \n\nContents\n\nThe entire chamber was occupied by four gilded wooden shrines which surrounded the king's sarcophagus. The outer shrine ([1] in the cross-section) measured 5.08 x 3.28 x 2.75 m and 32 mm thick, almost entirely filling the room, with only 60 cm at either end and less than 30 cm on the sides. Outside of the shrines were 11 paddles for the \"solar boat\", containers for scents, and lamps decorated with images of the God Hapi.\n\nThe fourth and last shrine ([4]) was 2.90 m long and 1.48 m wide. The wall decorations depict the king's funeral procession, and Nut was painted on the ceiling, \"embracing\" the sarcophagus with her wings.\n\nThis sarcophagus was constructed in granite ([a] in the cross-section). Each corner of the main body and lid were carved from stone of different colours. It appears to have been constructed for another owner, but then recarved for Tutankhamen; the identity of the original owner is not preserved. In each corner a protective goddess (Isis, Nephthys, Serket and Neith) guards the body.\n\nInside, the king's body was placed within three mummiform coffins, the outer two made of gilded wood while the innermost was composed of 110.4 kg of pure gold. The mummy itself was adorned with a gold mask, mummy bands and other funerary items. The funerary mask is made of gold, inlaid with lapis lazuli, carnelian, quartz, obsidian, turquoise and glass and faience, and weighs 11 kg. \n\nTreasury\n\nThe treasury was the burial chamber's only side-room and was accessible by an unblocked doorway. It contained over 5,000 catalogued objects, most of them funerary and ritual in nature. Also found within the chamber were thirty six wine jars, containing the residue of vintage wines. The two largest objects found in this room were the king's elaborate canopic chest and a large statue of Anubis. Other items included numerous shrines containing gilded statuettes of the king and deities, model boats and two more chariots. This room also held two mummies of fetuses that some consider to have been stillborn offspring of the king. \n\nAnnex\n\nThe \"annex\", originally used to store oils, ointments, scents, foods and wine, was the last room to be cleared, from the end of October 1927 to the spring of 1928. Although quite small in size, it contained approximately 280 groups of objects, totaling more than 2,000 individual pieces.\n\nRobberies\n\nDuring the excavation it quickly became apparent that the tomb had been robbed at least twice. The first and second doors had both been breached in the top left-hand corner and subsequently resealed at least twice. The descending corridor had been filled with a packing of limestone chippings, presumably after the first robbery as the inner plaster door was unmarked by the chippings, and this filling had been tunneled through in a later robbery, or series of robberies. \n\nThe robberies had been discovered at some point, and the outer doors had been resealed, and the robbers' tunnel refilled. The limestone chippings in the descending tunnel also covered some fragments of looted articles including jar lids, razors and wood fragments that had been presumably removed from the antechamber and stored in the tunnel during the first robbery. Some remnants appear to have been from a funerary meal, which was discovered by Davis in jars in KV54, which indicates that KV54 may have been used as a store for items recovered after the first re-closing of the tomb.\n\nThe Annexe was probably worst affected by the first robbery. The room was small and full of densely-packed items, which had been ransacked by a robber who had entered through a small hole in the outer door. The robber hurriedly disturbed the contents of the Annexe, emptied boxes and removed items. The robber or robbers seem to have been looking for metals, glass (then a valuable commodity), cloth, oils and cosmetics. The theft of oils and cosmetics suggests that the robbery was fairly contemporary with the burial, as the lifespan of these articles would have been limited. After this robbery was discovered, the doors were resealed and it is likely that the descending tunnel was filled with packed limestone chippings to deter future robberies. \n\nThe second robbery required much more organisation to clear the descending corridor - a tunnel was dug in the top-left-hand corner of the tunnel, and the outer door was penetrated by a large hole in the blocking. Carter estimated that it would have taken a team of men around eight hours to excavate the tunnel by passing back baskets of rubble. The second robbery penetrated the entire tomb, and Carter estimated that around 60% of the jewelry in the Treasury had been looted, along with precious metals. At some point, a knotted scarf containing a number of looted rings was dropped back into a box in the Antechamber, which led Carter to the conclusion that the robbery had perhaps been discovered whilst it was in progress, or that the thieves had been pursued and caught.\n\nThe tomb may have been hurriedly resealed (possibly to avoid drawing attention to the tomb) by the official Maya, as the signature of his assistant Djehutymose was found by Carter on a calcite stand in the Annexe. Upon resealing the tomb,the first and second resealings were marked with the same seal, bearing a design of a jackal over nine bound captives, which may indicate that they both took place within a short time interval after the closure of the tomb. \n\nPossible undiscovered chambers\n\nResearch by prominent Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves (attached to the University of Arizona) suggested, in 2015, that there may be areas of the tomb worthy of further analysis. Reeves investigated high-resolution digital scans of the tomb taken by Madrid-based company Factum Arte that were used in the process of creating a facsimile of the tomb. Reeves noted markings in the plaster of the burial chamber that appeared to suggest the possibility of a small door in the west wall of the burial chamber, of the same dimensions as the Annexe door. According to Reeves, markings on the north wall could also suggest that the wall itself may partly be a blocking wall covering a void, possibly indicating that the \"Antechamber\" continues as a corridor beyond the north wall. Although the \"doors\" may just be uncompleted construction work, one possibility that has been suggested is that Tutankhamun is actually buried in the outer section of a larger tomb complex (similar to the tomb of Amenhotep III) that has been sealed off by the north wall, and that a further burial (possibly that of Nefertiti) may exist elsewhere in undiscovered areas of the tomb. At the moment, this is just unconfirmed speculation, though Reeves has suggested that future work such as the use of ground-penetrating radar might confirm if further areas of the tomb remain to be discovered. In March 2016, a radar scan revealed two empty spaces and what appear to be organic and metallic materials within them. \n\nMeteorite dagger\n\nIn June 2016, a report emerged that attributed the dagger buried with Pharaoh Tutankhamun to an iron meteorite, with similar proportions of metals (iron, nickel and cobalt) to one discovered near and named after Kharga Oasis. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor shower. \n \n\nPresent day\n\nThe tomb is open for visitors, at an additional charge above that of the price of general access to the Valley of the Kings. The number of visitors was limited to 400 per day in 2008. \nIn 2010 the tomb was closed to the public while restoration work was undertaken by the Getty Conservation Institute, and was once again open to the public by 2013. The tomb is expected to be definitively closed to public in the near future, but a reproduction will be placed nearby at the Valley of the Kings and will be available to the public.",
"The Valley of the Kings ( ), the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt). \nThe valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern Luxor), within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley (where the majority of the royal tombs are situated) and West Valley.\nWith the 2005 discovery of a new chamber (KV63), and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers (ranging in size from KV54, a simple pit, to KV5, a complex tomb with over 120 chambers). It was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the Pharaohs.\nThis area has been a focus of archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. In modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (with its rumours of the Curse of the Pharaohs ), and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis. Exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley, and a new tourist centre has recently been opened.\n\nGeology \n\nThe types of soil where the Valley of the Kings is located are an alternating sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock (which form the cliffs in the valley and the nearby Deir el-Bahri) and soft layers of marl. The sedimentary rock was originally deposited between 35–56 million years ago during a time when the precursor to the Mediterranean Sea covered an area that extended much further inland than today. During the Pleistocene the valley was carved out of the plateau by steady rains. There is currently little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional flash floods that hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs. \n\nThe quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely grained to coarse stone, the latter with the potential to be structurally unsound. The occasional layer of shale also caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered.\n\nBuilders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, or were at the edge of rock spurs created by ancient flood channels.\n\nThe problems of tomb construction can be seen with tombs of Ramesses III and his father Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate KV11 but broke into the tomb of Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he instead usurped the tomb of Twosret, KV14. When looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended the part-excavated tomb started by his father. The tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated (following the Esna shale). \n\nBetween 1998 and 2002 the Amarna Royal Tombs Project investigated the valley floor using ground-penetrating radar and found that, below the modern surface, the Valley's cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural \"shelves\", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor. \n\nHydrology \n\nThe area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunder storms, causing flash floods in the valley. Recent studies have shown that there are at least 7 active flood stream beds, leading down into the central area of the valley. This central area appears to have been flooded at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty and buried several tombs under metres of debris. The tombs KV63, KV62 and KV55 are dug into the actual wadi bedrock rather than the debris, showing that the then level of the valley was 5 m below its present level. After this event later dynasties leveled the floor of the valley, making the floods deposit their load further down the valley, and the buried tombs were forgotten and only discovered in the early 20th century. This was the area that was the subject of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project ground scanning radar investigation, which showed several anomalies, one of which was proved to be KV63. \n\nHistory \n\nThe Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or 'The Peak'. It has a pyramid shaped appearance, and it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years prior to the first royal burials carved here. Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special tomb police (the Medjay) were able to guard the necropolis. \n\nWhile the iconic pyramid complexes of the Giza plateau have come to symbolize ancient Egypt, the majority of tombs were cut into rock. Most pyramids and mastabas contain sections which are cut into ground level, and there are full rock-cut tombs in Egypt that date back to the Old Kingdom.\n\nAfter the defeat of the Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I, the Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that would reflect their newfound power. The tombs of Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I (their exact location remains unknown) were probably in the Seventeenth Dynasty necropolis of Dra' Abu el-Naga'. The first royal tombs in the valley were those of Amenhotep I (although this identification is also disputed), and Thutmose I, whose advisor Ineni notes in his tomb that he advised his king to place his tomb in the desolate valley (the identity of this actual tomb is unclear, but it is probably KV20 or KV38).\n\nThe Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains at least 63 tombs, beginning with Thutmose I (or possibly earlier, during the reign of Amenhotep I), and ending with Ramesses X or XI, although non-Royal burials continued in usurped tombs. \n\nDespite the name, the Valley of the Kings also contains the tombs of favorite nobles as well as the wives and children of both nobles and pharaohs, meaning that only about 20 of the tombs actually contain the burials of kings; the burials of nobles and the royal family, together with unmarked pits and embalming caches make up the rest. Around the time of Ramesses I (ca. 1301 BC) construction commenced in the separate Valley of the Queens. \n\nRoyal Necropolis \n\nThe official name for the site in ancient times was The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes (see below for the hieroglyphic spelling), or more usually, Ta-sekhet-ma'at (the Great Field). \n\nG41-G1-Aa1:D21-O1-O29:Y1-A50-s-Z4:Y1-G7-N35-C11-Z2:N35-M4-M4-M4-t:Z2:N35-O29:O1*O1-G7-S34-U28-s-D2:Z1-R14-t:t-N23*Z1:N35-R19-t:O49-G7\n\nAt the start of the Eighteenth Dynasty, only the kings were buried within the valley in large tombs; when a non-royal was buried, it was in a small rock cut chamber, close to the tomb of their master. Amenhotep III's tomb was constructed in the Western Valley, and while his son Akhenaten moved his tomb's construction to Amarna, it is thought that the unfinished WV25 may have originally been intended for him. With the return to religious orthodoxy at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Tutankhamun, Ay and then Horemheb returned to the royal necropolis. \n\nThe Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties saw an increase in the number of burials (both here and in the Valley of the Queens), with Ramesses II and later Ramesses III constructing a massive tomb that was used for the burial of his sons (KV5 and KV3 respectively). There are some kings that are not buried within the valley or whose tomb has not been located: Thutmose II may have been buried in Dra' Abu el-Naga' (although his mummy was in the Deir el-Bahri tomb cache), \nSmenkhkare's burial has never been located, and Ramesses VIII seems to have been buried elsewhere.\n\nIn the Pyramid Age the tomb of the king was associated with a mortuary temple located close to the pyramid. As the tomb of the king was hidden, this mortuary temple was located away from the burial, closer to the cultivation facing towards Thebes. These mortuary temples became places visited during the various festivals held in the Theban necropolis, most notably the Beautiful festival of the valley, where the sacred barques of Amun-Re, his consort Mut and son Khonsu left the temple at Karnak in order to visit the funerary temples of deceased kings on the West Bank and their shrines in the Theban Necropolis. \n\nThe tombs were constructed and decorated by the workers of the village of Deir el-Medina, located in a small wadi between this valley and the Valley of the Queens, facing Thebes. The workers journeyed to the tombs via routes over the Theban hills. The daily lives of these workers are quite well known, recorded in tombs and official documents. Amongst the events document is perhaps the first recorded worker's strike, detailed in the Turin strike papyrus. \n\nExploration of the valley \n\nThe area has been a major area of modern Egyptological exploration for the last two centuries. Before this the area was a site for tourism in antiquity (especially during Roman times). This area illustrates the changes in the study of ancient Egypt, starting as antiquity hunting, and ending as scientific excavation of the whole Theban Necropolis. Despite the exploration and investigation noted below, only eleven of the tombs have actually been completely recorded.\n\nMany of the tombs have graffiti written by these ancient tourists. Jules Baillet located over 2100 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages. The majority of the ancient graffiti are found in KV9, which contains just under a thousand of them. The earliest positively dated graffiti dates to 278 B.C. \n\nIn 1799, members of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt (especially Dominique Vivant) drew maps and plans of the known tombs, and for the first time noted the Western Valley (where Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage located the tomb of Amenhotep III, WV22). The Description de l'Égypte contains two volumes (out a total of 24) on the area around Thebes. \n\nEuropean exploration continued in the area around Thebes during the nineteenth century, boosted by Champollion's translation of hieroglyphs early in the century. Early in the century, the area was visited by Belzoni, working for Henry Salt, who discovered several tombs, including those of Ay in the West Valley (WV23) in 1816 and Seti I (KV17) the next year. At the end of his visits, Belzoni declared that all of the tombs had been found and nothing of note remained to be found. Working at the same time (and a great rival of Belzoni and Salt) was Bernardino Drovetti, the French Consul-General. \n\nWhen Gaston Maspero was reappointed to head the Egyptian Antiquities Service, the nature of the exploration of the valley changed again. Maspero appointed English archaeologist Howard Carter as the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt and the young man discovered several new tombs and explored several others, clearing KV42 and KV20. \n\nAround the start of the 20th century, the American Theodore M. Davis had the excavation permit in the valley, and his team (led mostly by Edward R. Ayrton) discovered several royal and non-royal tombs (including KV43, KV46 and KV57). In 1907 they discovered the possible Amarna Period cache in KV55. After finding what they thought was all that remained of the burial of Tutankhamun (items recovered from KV54 and KV58), it was announced that the valley was completely explored and no further burials were to be found, in Davis's 1912 publication, The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatânkhamanou; the book closes with the comment, \"I fear that the Valley of Kings is now exhausted.\" \n\nAfter Davis's death early in 1915 Lord Carnarvon acquired the concession to excavate the valley and he employed Carter to explore it. After a systematic search they discovered the actual tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in November 1922. \n\nVarious expeditions have continued to explore the valley, adding greatly to the knowledge of the area. In 2001 the Theban Mapping Project designed new signs for the tombs, providing information and plans of the open tombs. \n\nTomb development \n\n \n\n;Location\nThe earliest tombs were located in cliffs at the top of scree slopes, under storm-fed waterfalls (for example KV34 and KV43). As these locations were soon used, burials then descended to the valley floor, gradually moving back up the slopes as the valley bottom filled up with debris. This explains the location of the tombs KV62 and KV63 buried in the valley floor.\n\n;Architecture\n\nThe usual tomb plan consisted of a long inclined rock-cut corridor, descending through one or more halls (possibly mirroring the descending path of the sun-god into the underworld ), to the burial chamber. In the earlier tombs the corridors turn through 90 degrees at least once (such as KV43, the tomb of Thutmose IV), and the earliest had cartouche-shaped burial chambers (for example, KV43, the tomb of Thutmose IV). This layout is known as 'Bent Axis', and after the burial the upper corridors were meant to be filled with rubble, and the entrance to the tomb hidden. After the Amarna Period, the layout gradually straightened, with an intermediate 'Jogged Axis' (the tomb of Horemheb, KV57 is typical of this, and is one of the tombs that is sometimes open to the public), to the generally 'Straight Axis' of the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty tombs (Ramesses III's and Ramesses IX's tombs, KV11 and KV6 respectively). As the tomb's axes straightened, the slope also lessened, and almost disappeared in the late Twentieth Dynasty. Another feature that is common to most tombs is the 'well', which may have originated as an actual barrier intended to stop flood waters entering the lower parts of the tombs. It later seems to have developed a 'magical' purpose as a symbolic shaft. In the later Twentieth Dynasty, the well itself was sometimes not excavated, but the well room was still present. \n\n;Decoration\n\nThe majority of the royal tombs were decorated with religious texts and images. The early tombs were decorated with scenes from Amduat ('That Which is in the Underworld'), which describes the journey of the sun-god through the twelve hours of the night. From the time of Horemheb, tombs were decorated with the Book of Gates, which shows the sun-god passing through the twelve gates that divide the night time, and ensure the tomb owner's own safe passage through the night. These earliest tombs were generally sparsely decorated, and those of a non-royal nature were totally undecorated.\n\nLate in the Nineteenth Dynasty the Book of Caverns, which divided the underworld into massive caverns containing deities and the deceased waiting for the sun to pass through and restore them to life, was placed in the upper parts of tombs; a complete version appears in the tomb of Ramesses VI. The burial of Ramesses III saw the Book of the Earth, where the underworld is divided into 4 sections, climaxing in the sun disc being pulled from the earth by Naunet. \n\nThe ceilings of the burial chambers were decorated (from the burial of Seti I onwards) with what become formalised as the Book of the Heavens, which again describes the sun's journey through the twelve hours of night. Again from Seti I's time, the Litany of Re, a lengthy hymn to the sun god began to appear.\n\n;Tomb equipment\nEach burial was provided with equipment that would enable a continued existence in the afterlife in comfort. Also present in the tombs were ritual magical items, such as Shabtis and divine figurines. Some equipment was that which the king may have used in their lifetime (Tutankhamun's sandals for example), and some was specially constructed for the burial. \n\nTomb numbering \n\nThe modern abbreviation \"KV\" stands for \"Kings' Valley\", and the tombs are numbered in the order of 'discovery' from Ramesses VII (KV1) to KV63 (which was discovered in 2005), although many of the tombs have been open since antiquity, and KV5 was only rediscovered in the 1990s (after being dismissed as unimportant by previous investigators). The West Valley tombs often have the \"WV\" prefix but follow the same numbering system. A number of the tombs are unoccupied, the owners of others remain unknown, and others are merely pits used for storage. Most of the open tombs in the Valley of the Kings are located in the East Valley, and this is where most tourists and facilities can be found.\n\nEighteenth Dynasty \n\nThe Eighteenth Dynasty tombs within the valley vary a good deal in decoration, style and location. At first there seems to have been no fixed plan; indeed the tomb of Hatshepsut is of a unique shape, twisting and turning down over 200 metres from the entrance so that the burial chamber is 97 metres below the surface. The tombs gradually became more regular and formalised, and the tombs of Thutmose III and Thutmose IV, KV34 and KV43 are good examples of Eighteenth Dynasty tombs, both with their bent axis, and simple decoration. \n\nPerhaps the most imposing tomb of this period is that of Amenhotep III, WV22 located in the West Valley. It has been re-investigated in the 1990s (by a team from Waseda University, Japan) but is not open to the public. \n\nAt the same time, powerful and influential nobles started to be buried with the royal family; the most famous of these tombs is the joint tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu, KV46. They were possibly the parents of Queen Tiy, and until the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was the best preserved tomb to be found in the Valley. \n\nAmarna Period \n\nThe return of royal burials to Thebes after the end of Amarna period marks a change to the layout of royal burials, with the intermediate 'jogged axis' gradually giving way to the 'straight axis' of later dynasties. In the Western valley, there is a tomb commencement that is thought to have been started for Akhenaten, but it is no more than a gateway and a series of steps. Close by to this tomb is the tomb of Ay, Tutankhamun's successor. It is likely that this tomb was started for Tutankhamun (its decoration is of a similar style) but later usurped for Ay's burial. This would mean that KV62 may have been Ay's original tomb, which would explain the smaller size and unusual layout for a royal tomb. \n\nThe other Amarna period tombs are located in a smaller, central area in the centre of the East Valley, with a possible mummy cache (KV55) that may contain the burials of several Amarna Period royals—Tiy and Smenkhkare or Akhenaten. \n\nClose to this is the burial of Tutankhamun, which is perhaps the most famous discovery of modern Western archaeology and was made here by Howard Carter on November 4, 1922, with clearance and conservation work continuing until 1932. This was the first royal tomb to be discovered that was still largely intact (although tomb robbers had entered it), and was, until the excavation of KV63 on 10 March 2005, considered the last major discovery in the valley. The opulence of his grave goods notwithstanding, Tutankhamun was a rather minor king and other burials probably had more numerous treasures. \n\nIn the same central area as KV62 and KV63, is 'KV64', a radar anomaly believed to be a tomb or chamber announced on 28 July 2006. It is not an official designation, and indeed the actual existence of a tomb at all is dismissed by the Supreme Council of Antiquities.\n\nThe nearby tomb of Horemheb, (KV57) is rarely open for visitors, but it has many unique features, and is extensively decorated. The decoration shows a transition from the pre-Amarna tombs to those of the 19th dynasty tombs that followed. \n\nNineteenth Dynasty \n\nThe Nineteenth Dynasty saw a further standardisation of tomb layout and decoration. The tomb of the first king of the dynasty Ramesses I was hurriedly finished due to the death of the king and is little more than a truncated descending corridor and a burial chamber; however, KV16 has vibrant decoration, and still contains the sarcophagus of the king. Its central location means that it is one of the frequently visited tombs. It shows the development of the tomb entrance and passage and of decoration. \n\nHis son and successor, Seti I's tomb, KV17 (also known as Belzoni's tomb, the tomb of Apis, or the tomb of Psammis, son of Necho) is usually thought to be the finest tomb in the valley, with extensive relief work and paintings. When it was rediscovered by Belzoni in 1817, he referred to it as \"..a fortunate day..\" \n\nThe son of Seti, Ramesses the Great constructed a massive tomb, KV7, but it is in a ruinous state, and it is currently undergoing excavation and conservation by a Franco-Egyptian team led by Christian Leblanc. It is a vast size, being about the same length, and a larger area, of the tomb of his father.\n\nAt the same time, and just opposite his own tomb, Ramesses enlarged the earlier small tomb of an unknown Eighteenth Dynasty noble (KV5) for his numerous sons. With 120 known rooms and excavation work still underway, it is probably the largest tomb in the valley. Originally opened (and robbed) in antiquity, it is a low-lying structure that has been particularly prone to the flash floods that sometimes hit the area, which washed in tonnes of debris and material over the centuries, ultimately concealing its vast size. It is not currently open to the public. \n\nRamesses II's son and eventual successor, Merenptah's tomb has been open since antiquity; it extends 160 metres, ending in a burial chamber that once contained a set of four nested sarcophagi. Well decorated, it is typically open to the public most years. \n\nThe last kings of the dynasty also constructed tombs in the valley, all of which follow the same general pattern of layout and decoration, notable amongst these is the tomb of Siptah, which is well decorated, especially the ceiling decoration. \n\nTwentieth Dynasty \n\nThe first ruler of the dynasty, Setnakhte, actually had two tombs constructed for himself; he started to excavate the eventual tomb of his son, Ramesses III, but broke into another tomb and abandoned it in order to usurp and complete the tomb of the Nineteenth Dynasty female pharaoh Twosret. This tomb therefore has two burial chambers, the later extensions making the tomb one of the largest of the Royal tombs, at over 150 metres. \n\nThe tomb of Ramesses III (known Bruce's Tomb or The Harper's Tomb due to its decoration) is one of the largest tombs in the valley and is open to the public; it is located close to the central 'rest–area' and its location and superb decoration usually makes this one of the tombs visited by tourists. \n\nThe successors and offspring of Ramesses III constructed tombs that had straight axes and were decorated in much the same manner as each other; notable amongst these is KV2, the tomb of Ramesses IV, which has been open since antiquity, containing a large amount of hieratic graffiti. The tomb is mostly intact and is decorated with scenes from several religious texts. The joint tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI, KV9 (also known as the Tomb of Memnon or La Tombe de la Métempsychose), is decorated with many sunk-relief carvings, depicting illustrated scenes from religious texts. Open since antiquity, it contains over a thousand graffiti in ancient Greek, Latin and Coptic. The spoil from the excavation and later clearance of this tomb, together with later construction of workers huts, covered the earlier burial of KV62 and seems to have been what protected that tomb from earlier discovery and looting. \n\nThe tomb of Ramesses IX, KV6, has been open since antiquity, as can be seen by the graffiti left on its walls by Roman and Coptic visitors. Located in the central part of the valley, it stands between and slightly above KV5 and KV55. The tomb extends a total distance of 105 metres into the hillside, including extensive side chambers that were neither decorated nor finished. The hasty and incomplete nature of the rock-cutting and decorations (it is only decorated for a little over half its length) within the tomb indicate that the tomb was not completed by the time of Ramesses' death, with the completed hall of pillars serving as the burial chamber. \n\nAnother notable tomb from this dynasty is KV19, the tomb of Mentuherkhepshef (son of Ramesses IX). The tomb is small and is simply a converted, unfinished corridor, but the decoration is extensive and the tomb has been newly restored and open for visitors. \n\nTwenty-first Dynasty and the decline of the necropolis \n\nBy the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt had entered a long period of political and economic decline. The priests at Thebes grew in power and effectively administered Upper Egypt, while kings ruling from Tanis controlled Lower Egypt. Some attempt at using the open tombs was made at the start of the Twenty-first Dynasty, with the High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem I, adding his cartouche to KV4. The Valley began to be heavily plundered, so during the Twenty-first Dynasty the priests of Amun opened most of the tombs and moved the mummies into three tombs in order to better protect them, even removing most of their treasure in order to further protect the bodies from robbers. Most of these were later moved to a single cache near Deir el-Bari (known as TT320); located in the cliffs overlooking Hatshepsut's famous temple, this mass reburial contained a large number of royal mummies. They were found in a great state of disorder, many placed in other's coffins, and several are still unidentified. Other mummies were moved to the tomb of Amenhotep II, where over a dozen mummies, many of them royal, were later relocated. \n\nDuring the later Third Intermediate Period and later periods, intrusive burials were introduced into many of the open tombs. In Coptic times, some of the tombs were used as churches, stables and even houses.\n\nMinor tombs in the Valley of the Kings \n\nThe majority of the 65 numbered tombs in the Valley of the Kings can be considered as being minor tombs, either because at present they have yielded little information or because the results of their investigation was only poorly recorded by their explorers, while some have received very little attention or were only cursorily noted. Most of these tombs are small, often only consisting of a single burial chamber accessed by means of a shaft or a staircase with a corridor or a series of corridors leading to the chamber, but some are larger, multiple chambered tombs. These minor tombs served various purposes: some were intended for burials of lesser royalty or for private burials, some contained animal burials and others apparently never received a primary burial. In many cases these tombs also served secondary functions and later intrusive material has been found related to these secondary activities. While some of these tombs have been open since antiquity, the majority were discovered in the 19th and early 20th centuries during the height of exploration in the valley.\n\nTomb robbers \n\nAlmost all of the tombs have been ransacked. Several papyri have been found that describe the trials of tomb robbers; these date mostly from the late Twentieth Dynasty. One of these (Papyrus Mayer B) describes the robbery of the tomb of Ramesses VI and was probably written in Year 9 of Ramesses IX:\n\nThe foreigner Nesamun took us up and showed us the tomb of King Ramesses VI ... And I spent four days breaking into it, we being present all five. We opened the tomb and entered it. ... We found a cauldron of bronze, three wash bowls of bronze ... \n\nThe valley also seems to have suffered an official plundering during the virtual civil war, which started in the reign of Ramesses XI. The tombs were opened, all the valuables removed, and the mummies collected into two large caches. One in the tomb of Amenhotep II, contained sixteen, and others were hidden within Amenhotep I's tomb. A few years later most of them were moved to the Deir el-Bahri cache, contained no less than forty royal mummies and their coffins. Only those tombs whose locations were lost (KV62, KV63 and KV46, although both KV62 and KV46 were robbed soon after their actual closure ) were undisturbed in this period.\n\nTourism \n\nMost of the tombs are not open to the public (18 of the tombs can be opened, but they are rarely open at the same time), and officials occasionally close those that are open for restoration work. The number of visitors to KV62 has led to a separate charge for entry into the tomb. The West Valley has only one open tomb—that of Ay—and a separate ticket is needed to visit this tomb. The tour guides are no longer allowed to lecture inside the tombs and visitors are expected to proceed quietly and in single file through the tombs. This is to minimize time in the tombs and prevent the crowds from damaging the surfaces of the decoration. Photography is no longer allowed in the tombs. \n\nIn 1997, 58 tourists and four Egyptians were massacred at nearby Deir el-Bahri\nby Islamist militants from Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. This led to an overall drop in tourism in the area. \n\nOn most days of the week an average of four to five thousand tourists visit the main valley. On the days that the Nile Cruises arrive, the number can rise to over nine thousand. These levels are expected to rise to 25,000 by 2015. The West Valley is much less visited, as there is only one tomb that is open to the public."
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What are the two main arms of the River Nile called?
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tc_221
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"The Nile (, Eg. en-Nīl, Std. an-Nīl; , P(h)iaro; Ancient Egyptian: Ḥ'pī and Iteru; Biblical Hebrew: היאור, Ha-Ye'or) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is 6,853 km (4,258 miles) long. The Nile is an \"international\" river as its water resources are shared by eleven countries, namely, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan.Mohamed Helmy Mahmoud Moustafa Elsanabary\n\nThe Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself. The Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source still undetermined but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile (, ʿĀbay ) begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.\n\nThe northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along riverbanks.\n\nIn the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥ'pī or Iteru, meaning \"river\", represented by the hieroglyphs shown on the left (literally itrw, and 'waters' determinative). In Coptic, the words piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic) meaning \"the river\" (lit. p(h).iar-o \"the.canal-great\") come from the same ancient name.\n\nThe English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin ' and the Ancient Greek . \"Nile\" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 19. 1911. Hosted at Wikisource. Beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning \"river\". The standard English names \"White Nile\" and \"Blue Nile\", to refer to the river's source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum.\n\nCourse \n\nAbove Khartoum the Nile is also known as the White Nile, a term also used in a limited sense to describe the section between Lake No and Khartoum. At Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia. Both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift.\n\nThe drainage basin of the Nile covers 3254555 km2, about 10% of the area of Africa. The Nile basin is complex, and because of this, the discharge at any given point along the mainstem depends on many factors including weather, diversions, evaporation and evapotranspiration, and groundwater flow.\n\nSources \n\nThe source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. The Kagera River, which flows into Lake Victoria near the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, is the longest feeder, although sources do not agree on which is the longest tributary of the Kagera and hence the most distant source of the Nile itself. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda. The two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.\n\nIn 2010, an exploration party went to a place described as the source of the Rukarara tributary, and by hacking a path up steep jungle-choked mountain slopes in the Nyungwe forest found (in the dry season) an appreciable incoming surface flow for many kilometres upstream, and found a new source, giving the Nile a length of 6758 km\n\nGish Abay is reportedly the place where the \"holy water\" of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. \n\nLost headwaters \n\nFormerly Lake Tanganyika drained northwards along the African Rift Valley into the White Nile, making the Nile about 1400 km longer, until it was blocked in Miocene times by the bulk of the Virunga Volcanoes.\n\nIn Uganda \n\nThe Nile leaves Lake Nyanza (Victoria) at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda, as the Victoria Nile. It flows north for some 130 km, to Lake Kyoga. The last part of the approximately 200 km river section starts from the western shores of the lake and flows at first to the west until just south of Masindi Port, where the river turns north, then makes a great half circle to the east and north until Karuma Falls. For the remaining part it flows merely westernly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta. The lake itself is on the border of DR Congo, but the Nile is not a border river at this point. After leaving Lake Albert, the river continues north through Uganda and is known as the Albert Nile.\n\nIn South Sudan \n\nThe river flows into South Sudan just south of Nimule, where it is known as the Bahr al Jabal (\"Mountain River\"). Just south of the town it has the confluence with the Achwa River. The Bahr al Ghazal, itself 716 km long, joins the Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No, after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the whitish clay suspended in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich silty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf, flows out of the Nile's Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile.\n\nThe flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal at Mongalla, South Sudan is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1048 m3/s. After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region of South Sudan. More than half of the Nile's water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration. The average flow rate of the White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m3/s. From here it soon meets with the Sobat River at Malakal. On an annual basis, the White Nile upstream of Malakal contributes about fifteen percent of the total outflow of the Nile River. \n\nThe average flow of the White Nile at Malakal, just below the Sobat River, is 924 m3/s; the peak flow is approximately 1218 m3/s in October and minimum flow is about 609 m3/s in April. This fluctuation is due the substantial variation in the flow of the Sobat, which has a minimum flow of about 99 m3/s in March and a peak flow of over 680 m3/s in October. During the dry season (January to June) the White Nile contributes between 70 percent and 90 percent of the total discharge from the Nile.\n\nIn Sudan \n\nBelow Renk the White Nile enters Sudan, it flows north to Khartoum and meets the Blue Nile.\n\nThe course of the Nile in Sudan is distinctive. It flows over six groups of cataracts, from the first at Aswan to the sixth at Sabaloka (just north of Khartoum) and then turns to flow southward before again returning to flow north. One name for this is the \"Great Bend\".\n\nIn the north of Sudan the river enters Lake Nasser (known in Sudan as Lake Nubia), the larger part of which is in Egypt.\n\nIn Egypt \n\nBelow the Aswan High Dam, at the northern limit of Lake Nasser, the Nile resumes its historic course.\n\nNorth of Cairo, the Nile splits into two branches (or distributaries) that feed the Mediterranean: the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta to the east, forming the Nile Delta.\n\nTributaries \n\nAtbara River \n\nBelow the confluence with the Blue Nile the only major tributary is the Atbara River, roughly halfway to the sea, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is around 800 km long. The Atbara flows only while there is rain in Ethiopia and dries very rapidly. During the dry period of January to June, it typically dries up. It joins the Nile approximately 300 km north of Khartoum.\n\nBlue Nile \n\nThe Blue Nile (Ge'ez ጥቁር ዓባይ Ṭiqūr ʿĀbbāy (Black Abay) to Ethiopians; ; transliterated: an-Nīl al-Azraq) springs\nfrom Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 kilometres to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form the Nile. Ninety percent of the water and ninety-six percent of the transported sediment carried by the Nile originates in Ethiopia, with fifty-nine percent of the water from the Blue Nile (the rest being from the Tekezé, Atbarah, Sobat, and small tributaries). The erosion and transportation of silt only occurs during the Ethiopian rainy season in the summer, however, when rainfall is especially high on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year, the great rivers draining Ethiopia into the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, Tekezé, and Atbarah) have a weaker flow.\n\nThe flow of the Blue Nile varies considerably over its yearly cycle and is the main contribution to the large natural variation of the Nile flow. During the dry season the natural discharge of the Blue Nile can be as low as 113 m3/s, although upstream dams regulate the flow of the river. During the wet season the peak flow of the Blue Nile often exceeds 5663 m3/s in late August (a difference of a factor of 50).\n\nBefore the placement of dams on the river the yearly discharge varied by a factor of 15 at Aswan. Peak flows of over 8212 m3/s occurred during late August and early September, and minimum flows of about 552 m3/s occurred during late April and early May.\n\nBahr el Ghazal and Sobat River \n\nThe Bahr al Ghazal and the Sobat River are the two most important tributaries of the White Nile in terms of discharge.\n\nThe Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin is the largest of any of the Nile's sub-basins, measuring 520000 km2 in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m3/s annually, due to tremendous volumes of water being lost in the Sudd wetlands.\n\nThe Sobat River, which joins the Nile a short distance below Lake No, drains about half as much land, 225000 km2, but contributes 412 m3/s annually to the Nile. When in flood the Sobat carries a large amount of sediment, adding greatly to the White Nile's color. \n\nYellow Nile \n\nThe Yellow Nile is a former tributary that connected the Ouaddaï Highlands of eastern Chad to the Nile River Valley c. 8000 to c. 1000 BC. Its remains are known as the Wadi Howar. The wadi passes through Gharb Darfur near the northern border with Chad and meets up with the Nile near the southern point of the Great Bend.\n\nHistory \n\nThe Nile (iteru in Ancient Egyptian) has been the lifeline of civilization in Egypt since the Stone Age, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan. Climate change at the end of the most recent ice age led to the formation of the Sahara desert, possibly as long ago as 3400 BC.\n\nEonile \n\nThe present Nile is at least the fifth river that has flowed north from the Ethiopian Highlands. Satellite imagery was used to identify dry watercourses in the desert to the west of the Nile. An Eonile canyon, now filled by surface drift, represents an ancestral Nile called the Eonile that flowed during the later Miocene (23–5.3 million years before present). The Eonile transported clastic sediments to the Mediterranean; several natural gas fields have been discovered within these sediments.\n\nDuring the late-Miocene Messinian salinity crisis, when the Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin and evaporated to the point of being empty or nearly so, the Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred metres below world ocean level at Aswan and 2400 m below Cairo. This created a very long and deep canyon which was filled with sediment when the Mediterranean was recreated. At some point the sediments raised the riverbed sufficiently for the river to overflow westward into a depression to create Lake Moeris.\n\nLake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile until the Virunga Volcanoes blocked its course in Rwanda. The Nile was much longer at that time, with its furthest headwaters in northern Zambia.\n\nIntegrated Nile \n\nThere are two theories about the age of the integrated Nile. One is that the integrated drainage of the Nile is of young age, and that the Nile basin was formerly broken into series of separate basins, only the most northerly of which fed a river following the present course of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan. Said postulated that Egypt itself supplied most of the waters of the Nile during the early part of its history.Said, R. (1981). The geological evolution of the River Nile. Springer Verlag.\n\nThe other theory is that the drainage from Ethiopia via rivers equivalent to the Blue Nile and the Atbara and Takazze flowed to the Mediterranean via the Egyptian Nile since well back into Tertiary times.Williams, M.A.J.; Williams, F. (1980). Evolution of Nile Basin. In M.A.J. Williams and H. Faure (eds). The Sahara and the Nile. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp 207–224.\n\nSalama suggested that during the Paleogene and Neogene Periods (66 million to 2.588 million years ago) a series of separate closed continental basins each occupied one of the major parts of the Sudanese Rift System: Mellut rift, White Nile rift, Blue Nile rift, Atbara rift and Sag El Naam rift.\nThe Mellut Rift Basin is nearly 12 km deep at its central part. This rift is possibly still active, with reported tectonic activity in its northern and southern boundaries. The Sudd swamps which form the central part of the basin may still be subsiding. The White Nile Rift System, although shallower than the Bahr el Arab rift, is about 9 km deep. Geophysical exploration of the Blue Nile Rift System estimated the depth of the sediments to be 5 –. These basins were not interconnected until their subsidence ceased, and the rate of sediment deposition was enough to fill and connect them. The Egyptian Nile connected to the Sudanese Nile, which captures the Ethiopian and Equatorial headwaters during the current stages of tectonic activity in the Eastern, Central and Sudanese Rift Systems.Salama, R.B. (1997). Rift Basins of Sudan. African Basins, Sedimentary Basins of the World. 3. Edited by R.C. Selley (Series Editor K.J. Hsu) pp. 105–149. ElSevier, Amsterdam. The connection of the different Niles occurred during cyclic wet periods. The River Atbara overflowed its closed basin during the wet periods that occurred about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago. The Blue Nile connected to the main Nile during the 70,000–80,000 years B.P. wet period. The White Nile system in Bahr El Arab and White Nile Rifts remained a closed lake until the connection of the Victoria Nile to the main system some 12,500 years ago.\n\nRole in the founding of Egyptian civilization \n\nThe Greek historian Herodotus wrote that \"Egypt was the gift of the Nile\". An unending source of sustenance, it provided a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Silt deposits from the Nile made the surrounding land fertile because the river overflowed its banks annually. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. The Ishango bone is probably an early tally stick. It has been suggested that this shows prime numbers and multiplication, but this is disputed. In the book How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years, Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that \"no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10.\" It was discovered along the headwaters of the Nile (near Lake Edward, in northeastern Congo) and was carbon-dated to 20,000 BC.\n\nWater buffalo were introduced from Asia, and Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BC. These animals were killed for meat, and were domesticated and used for ploughing—or in the camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods.\nThe Nile was an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapy was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death.\n\nAs the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life, the ancient calendar was even based on the 3 cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth. \n\nPeret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains.\n\nSearch for the source of the Nile \n\nJohn Hanning Speke . Speke was the Victorian explorer who first reached Lake Victoria in 1858, returning to establish it as the source of the Nile by 1862.\nHenry Morton Stanley in 1872. Stanley circumnavigated the lake and confirmed Speke's observations in 1875.\nOwing to their failure to penetrate the sudd wetlands of South Sudan, the upper reaches of the Nile remained largely unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Various expeditions failed to determine the river's source. Agatharcides records that in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a military expedition had penetrated far enough along the course of the Blue Nile to determine that the summer floods were caused by heavy seasonal rainstorms in the Ethiopian Highlands, but no European of antiquity is known to have reached Lake Tana.\n\nThe Tabula Rogeriana depicted the source as three lakes in 1154.\n\nEuropeans began to learn about the origins of the Nile in the 15th and 16th centuries, when travelers to Ethiopia visited Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile in the mountains south of the lake. Although James Bruce claimed to be the first European to have visited the headwaters, modern writers give the credit to the Jesuit Pedro Páez. Páez's account of the source of the Nile is a long and vivid account of Ethiopia. It was published in full only in the early 20th century, although it was featured in works of Páez's contemporaries, including Baltazar Téllez, Athanasius Kircher and by Johann Michael Vansleb. \n\nEuropeans had been resident in Ethiopia since the late 15th century, and one of them may have visited the headwaters even earlier without leaving a written trace. The Portuguese João Bermudes published the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his 1565 memoirs, compared them to the Nile Falls alluded to in Cicero's De Republica. Jerónimo Lobo describes the source of the Blue Nile, visiting shortly after Pedro Páez. Telles also used his account.\n\nThe White Nile was even less understood. The ancients mistakenly believed that the Niger River represented the upper reaches of the White Nile. For example, Pliny the Elder wrote that the Nile had its origins \"in a mountain of lower Mauretania\", flowed above ground for \"many days\" distance, then went underground, reappeared as a large lake in the territories of the Masaesyli, then sank again below the desert to flow underground \"for a distance of 20 days' journey till it reaches the nearest Ethiopians.\" A merchant named Diogenes reported that the Nile's water attracted game such as buffalo.\n\nLake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this \"vast expanse of open water\" for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to be the true source of the Nile when Burton regarded this as still unsettled. A very public quarrel ensued, which sparked a great deal of intense debate within the scientific community and interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery. British explorer and missionary David Livingstone pushed too far west and entered the Congo River system instead. It was ultimately Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigating Lake Victoria and reporting the great outflow at Ripon Falls on the Lake's northern shore.\n\nEuropean involvement in Egypt goes back to the time of Napoleon. Laird Shipyard of Liverpool sent an iron steamer to the Nile in the 1830s. With the completion of the Suez Canal and the British takeover of Egypt in the 1870s, more British river steamers followed.\n\nThe Nile is the area's natural navigation channel, giving access to Khartoum and Sudan by steamer. The Siege of Khartoum was broken with purpose-built sternwheelers shipped from England and steamed up the river to retake the city. After this came regular steam navigation of the river. With British Forces in Egypt in the First World War and the inter-war years, river steamers provided both security and sightseeing to the Pyramids and Thebes. Steam navigation remained integral to the two countries as late as 1962. Sudan steamer traffic was a lifeline as few railways or roads were built in that country. Most paddle steamers have been retired to shorefront service, but modern diesel tourist boats remain on the river.\n\nModern era \n\nThe Nile has long been used to transport goods along its length. Winter winds blow south, up river, so ships could sail up river, and down river using the flow of the river.\nWhile most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the 1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil, fundamentally changing farming practices. The Nile supports much of the population living along its banks, enabling Egyptians to live in otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The rivers's flow is disturbed at several points by the Cataracts of the Nile, which are sections of faster-flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, which form an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Sudd wetlands in Sudan also forms a formidable navigation obstacle and impede water flow, to the extent that Sudan had once attempted to canalize (the Jonglei Canal) to bypass the swamps. \n\nNile cities include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor (Thebes), and the Giza - Cairo conurbation. The first cataract, the closest to the mouth of the river, is at Aswan, north of the Aswan Dam. This part of the river is a regular tourist route, with cruise ships and traditional wooden sailing boats known as feluccas. Many cruise ships ply the route between Luxor and Aswan, stopping at Edfu and Kom Ombo along the way. Security concerns have limited cruising on the northernmost portion for many years.\n\nA computer simulation study to plan the economic development of the Nile was directed by H. A. W. Morrice and W. N. Allan, for the Ministry of Hydro-power of the Republic of the Sudan, during 1955–1957 Morrice was their Hydrological Adviser, and Allan his predecessor. M.P. Barnett directed the software development and computer operations. The calculations were enabled by accurate monthly inflow data collected for 50 years. The underlying principle was the use of over-year storage, to conserve water from rainy years for use in dry years. Irrigation, navigation and other needs were considered. Each computer run postulated a set of reservoirs and operating equations for the release of water as a function of the month and the levels upstream. The behavior that would have resulted given the inflow data was modeled. Over 600 models were run. Recommendations were made to the Sudanese authorities. The calculations were run on an IBM 650 computer. Simulation studies to design water resources are discussed further in the article on hydrology transport models, that have been used since the 1980s to analyze water quality.\n\nDespite the development of many reservoirs, drought during the 1980s led to widespread starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan, but Egypt was nourished by water impounded in Lake Nasser. Drought has proven to be a major cause of fatality in the Nile River basin. According to a report by the Strategic Foresight Group around 170 million people have been affected by droughts in the last century with half a million lives lost. From the 70 incidents of drought which took place between 1900 and 2012, 55 incidents took place in Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania.\n\nWater sharing dispute \n\nThe Nile's water has affected the politics of East Africa and the Horn of Africa for many decades. Countries including Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya have complained about Egyptian domination of its water resources. The Nile Basin Initiative promotes a peaceful cooperation among those states. \n\nSeveral attempts have been made to establish agreements between the countries sharing the Nile waters. It is very difficult to have all these countries agree with each other given the self-interest of each country and their political, strategic, and social differences. On 14 May 2010 at Entebbe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda signed a new agreement on sharing the Nile water even though this agreement raised strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan. Ideally, such international agreements should promote equitable and efficient usage of the Nile basin's water resources. Without a better understanding about the availability of the future water resources of the Nile River, we could expect more conflicts between these countries relying on the Nile for their water supply, economic and social developments.\n\nModern achievements and exploration \n\nThe White Nile Expedition, led by South African national Hendrik Coetzee, became the first to navigate the White Nile's entire length of approximately . The expedition began at the White Nile's source, Lake Victoria in Uganda, on January 17, 2004 and arrived safely at the Mediterranean in Rosetta, four and a half months later. \n\nThe Blue Nile Expedition, led by geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown became the first people to descend the entire Blue Nile, from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria on the Mediterranean. Their approximately 5230 km journey took 114 days: from December 25, 2003 to April 28, 2004. Though their expedition included others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to complete the entire journey. Although they descended whitewater manually the team used outboard motors for much of their journey.\n\nOn January 29, 2005 Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner completed the first human powered transit of Ethiopia's Blue Nile. Their journey of over 5000 km took five months. They recount that they paddled through two war zones, regions notorious for bandits, and were arrested at gunpoint. \n\nOn April 30, 2005 a team led by South Africans Peter Meredith and Hendrik Coetzee became the first to navigate the major remote source of the White Nile, the Akagera river that starts as the Ruvyironza in Bururi Province, Burundi, and ends at Lake Victoria, Uganda.\n\nCrossings \n\nCrossings from Khartoum to the Mediterranean Sea \n\nThe following bridges cross the Blue Nile and connect Khartoum to Khartoum North:\n* Mac Nimir Bridge\n* Green Purple Black Red Yellow Nile Road & Railway Bridge\n* Burri Bridge\n* Elmansheya Bridge\n* Soda bridge\n\nThe following bridges cross the White Nile and connect Khartoum to Omdurman:\n* Black Nile Bridge\n* Fitayhab Bridge\n* Al Dabbaseen Bridge (under construction)\n* Omhuraz Bridge (proposed)\n\nthe following bridges cross from Omdurman: to Khartoum North:\n* Shambat Bridge\n* Halfia Bridge\n\nThe following bridges cross to Tuti from Khartoum states three cities\n* Khartoum-tuti Bridge\n* Omdurman-Tuti Suspension Bridge (proposed)\n* Khartoum North-tuti Bridge (proposed)\n\nOther bridges\n* Shandi Bridge, Shendi\n* Atbarah Bridge, Atbarah\n* Merowe Dam, Merowe\n* Merowe Bridge, Merowe\n* Aswan Bridge, Aswan\n* Luxor Bridge, Luxor\n* Suhag Bridge, Suhag\n* Assiut Bridge, Assiut\n* Al Minya Bridge, Minya\n* Al Marazeek Bridge, Helwan\n* First Ring Road Bridge (Moneeb Crossing), Cairo\n* Abbas Bridge, Cairo\n* University Bridge, Cairo\n* Qasr al-Nil Bridge, Cairo\n* 6th October Bridge, Cairo\n* Abu El Ela Bridge, Cairo (removed in 1998)\n* New Abu El Ela Bridge, Cairo\n* Imbaba Bridge, Cairo\n* Rod Elfarag Bridge, Cairo\n* Second Ring Road Bridge, Cairo\n* Banha Bridge, Banha\n* Samanoud Bridge, Samanoud\n* Mansoura 2 Bridges, Mansoura\n* Talkha Bridge, Talkha\n*Shirbine high Bridge\n*Shirbine Bridge\n*Kafr Sad - Farscor Bridge\n*International Coastal Road Bridge\n*Damietta high Bridge, Damietta\n*Damietta Bridge, Damietta\n* Kafr El Zayat Bridges, Kafr El Zayat\n* Zefta Bridge, Zefta\n\nCrossings from Rwanda to Khartoum \n\n* Nalubaale Bridge, Jinja, Uganda (Formerly Owen Falls Bridge)\n* Karuma Bridge, Karuma, Uganda\n* Pakwach Bridge, Uganda\n\nImages and media of the Nile \n\nImage:Nile riverboat, 1900.jpg|Riverboat on the Nile, Egypt 1900\nImage:Nile.jpg|View of the Nile from a cruiseboat, between Luxor and Aswan in Egypt\nImage:EternalNile.JPG|Marsh along the Nile\nImage:Africa11 016.jpg|The Nile in Uganda\nImage:Nile in Uganda - by Michael Shade.jpg|A river boat crossing the Nile in Uganda\nImage:Murchison Falls 573x430.jpg|Murchison Falls in Uganda, between Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga\nImage:Lights along the Nile.jpg|City lights define the river valley as it snakes across the desert\nImage:Aswan_Nile_R02.jpg|The Nile in Aswan\nImage:Luxor_West_Bank_R01.jpg|The Nile in Luxor\nImage:Valley of Nile.jpg|Valley of the Nile near Luxor, Egypt\nImage:Cairo Nile River.jpg|The river Nile flows through Cairo, here contrasting ancient customs of daily life with the modern city of today.\nFile:Nile-River1.ogg|River and mountain scenery on the Nile\nFile:Nile-River-Cruise.ogg|People living on the banks of the Nile"
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In which country did King Hassan II ascend the throne in 1961?
|
tc_223
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"King Hassan II (, MSA: (a)l-ḥasan aṯ-ṯānī, Darija: el-ḥasan ett(s)âni); 9 July 1929 – 23 July 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999. He was the eldest son of Mohammed V, Sultan, then King of Morocco (1909–1961), and his second wife, Lalla Abla bint Tahar (1909–1992). \n\nBiography\n\nYouth and education\n\nKing Hassan was educated at the Imperial College at Rabat, and earned a law degree from the University of Bordeaux.\n\nHe was exiled to Corsica by French authorities on 20 August 1953, together with his father Sultan Mohammed V. They were transferred to Madagascar in January 1954. Prince Moulay Hassan acted as his father's political advisor during the exile. Mohammed V and his family returned from exile on 16 November 1955.\n\nPrince Moulay Hassan participated in the February 1956 negotiations for Morocco's independence with his father, who later appointed him Chief of Staff of the newly founded Royal Armed Forces in April 1956. In the unrest of the same year, he led army contingents battling rebels in the mountains of the Rif. Mohammed V changed the title of the Moroccan sovereign from Sultan to King in 1957. Hassan was proclaimed Crown Prince on 19 July 1957, and became King on 26 February 1961, after his father's death. \n\nRule\n\nHassan's conservative rule, one characterized by a poor human rights record, strengthened the Alaouite dynasty. In Morocco's first constitution of 1963, Hassan II reaffirmed Morocco's choice of a multi-party political system, the only one in the Maghreb at that time. The constitution gave the King large powers he eventually used to strengthen his rule, which provoked strong political protest from the UNFP and the Istiqlal parties that formed the backbone of the opposition. \n\nIn 1965, Hassan dissolved Parliament and ruled directly, although he did not abolish the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. When elections were eventually held, they were mostly rigged in favor of loyal parties. This caused severe discontent among the opposition, and protest demonstrations and riots challenged the King's rule. A US report observed that \"Hassan appears obsessed with the preservation of his power rather than with its application toward the resolution of Morocco's multiplying domestic problems.\" \n\nIn the early 1970s, King Hassan survived two assassination attempts. The first, in 1971, was a coup d'état attempt allegedly supported by Libya, organized by General Mohamed Medbouh and Colonel M'hamed Ababou and carried out by cadets during a diplomatic function at the King's summer palace in Rabat during his forty-second birthday party. Important guests, including the Belgian Ambassador Marcel Dupert, were placed under house arrest, and the King himself was taken to a small pavilion. \n\nRabat's main radio station was taken over by the rebels and broadcast propaganda stating that the King had been murdered and a republic founded. The coup ended the same day when royalist troops took over the palace in combat against the rebels. It was subsequently claimed by the Moroccan authorities that that the young cadets had been mislead by senior officers into thinking that they were acting to protect the king. \n\nOn 16 August 1972, during a second attempt, four F-5 military jets from the Royal Moroccan Air Force fired upon the King's Boeing 727 while he was traveling back to Rabat from France, many bullets hit the fuselage but they failed to bring the plane down. Eight people were killed when the jets strafed the awaiting reception dignitaries. General Mohamed Oufkir, Morocco's defense minister, was the man behind the coup and was officially declared to have committed suicide after the attack. His body, however, was found with several bullet wounds. \n\nIn the Cold War era, Hassan II allied Morocco with the West generally, and with the United States in particular. There were close and continuing ties between Hassan II's government and the CIA, who helped to reorganize Morocco's security forces in 1960. Hassan served as a back channel between the Arab world and Israel, facilitating early negotiations between them. This was made possible due to the presence in Israel of a large Moroccan Jewish community.\n\nDuring his reign, Morocco recovered the Spanish-controlled area of Ifni in 1969, and militarily seized two thirds of Spanish Sahara through the \"Green March\" in 1975. The latter issue continues to dominate Moroccan foreign policy to this day. Relations with Algeria have deteriorated sharply due to the Western Sahara affair, as well as due to Moroccan claims on Algerian territory (Tindouf and Bechar), which unleashed the brief 1963 Sand War. Relations with Mauritania were tense too, as Morocco only recognized it as a sovereign country in 1969, nearly a decade after Mauritania's independence, because of Moroccan claims on the country (see Great Morocco).\n\nEconomically, Hassan II adopted a market-based economy, where agriculture, tourism, and phosphates mining industries played a major role.\n\nThe period from the 1960s to the late 1980s was labelled as the \"years of lead\" and saw thousands of dissidents jailed, killed, exiled or forcibly disappeared.\n\nKing Hassan II had extended many parliamentary functions by the early 1990s and released hundreds of political prisoners in 1991, and allowed the Alternance, where the opposition assumed power, for the first time in the Arab World. He set up a Royal Council for Human Rights to look into allegations of abuse by the State.\n\nDeath\n\nHassan died of natural causes; he was in his birth town at the age of 70 on 23 July 1999. A national funeral service was held for him in at Rabat, Morocco, with over 40 heads of state in attendance. He was buried in the Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Rabat. The coffin of King Hassan II, carried by King Mohamed VI, his brother Prince Moulay Rachid and his cousin Moulay Hicham, was covered with a green fabric, in which the first prayer of Islam, \"There is no god but Allah\", is inscribed in golden letters. \n\nFamily\n\nKing Hassan II had five children with his wife Lalla Latifa Hammou, a member of the Zayane tribe, whom he married in 1961:\n\n* Princess Lalla Meryem (born on 26 August 1962 in Rome).\n* King Mohammed VI (born 21 August 1963 in Rabat).\n* Princess Lalla Asma (born on 29 September 1965 in Rabat).\n* Princess Lalla Hasna (born on 19 November 1967 in Rabat).\n* Prince Moulay Rachid (born on 20 June 1970 in Rabat).\n\nThe king had one other wife, Lalla Fatima bint Qaid Ould Hassan Amhourak (cousin of Latifa Hammou), whom he also married in 1961. They had no children.\n\nThe father of Hassan II was Mohammed V of Morocco and his mother was Lalla Abla bint Tahar.\nHe had five sisters and one brother:\n* Lalla Fatima Zohra, born on 29 June 1929 in Rabat, died on 10 August 2014 in Cabo Negro (from the first marriage of Mohammed V of Morocco).\n* Lalla Aicha, born on 17 June 1930 in Rabat, died on 4 September 2011 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V, with Lalla Abla).\n* Lalla Malika, born on 14 March 1933 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).\n* Moulay Abdallah, born on 30 July 1935 in Rabat, died on 20 December 1983 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).\n* Lalla Nuzha, born on 29 October 1940 in Rabat, died on 2 September 1977 in a car crash near Tétouan (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).\n* Lalla Amina, born on 8 April 1954 in Antsirabe , died on 16 August 2012 in Rabat (from the third marriage of Mohammed V of Morocco, with Lalla Bahia, died on 3 September 2008 in Rabat)."
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Which British general was killed at Khartoum in 1885?
|
tc_224
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
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"Khartoum ( ) is the capital and second largest city of Sudan and Khartoum state. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as \"al-Mogran\" , meaning the confluence. The main Nile continues to flow north towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nDivided by the Niles, Khartoum is a tripartite metropolis with an estimated overall population of over five million people, consisting of Khartoum proper, and linked by bridges to Khartoum North ( ') and Omdurman ( ') to the west.\n\nHistory\n\nEtymology\n\nThe origin of the word Khartoum is uncertain. One theory argues that khartoum is derived from Arabic kharṭūm meaning 'trunk' or 'hose', probably referring to the narrow strip of land extending between the Blue and White Niles. Captain J. A. Grant, who reached Khartoum in 1863 with Captain Speke's expedition, thought that the name was most probably from the Arabic qurtum, safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), which was cultivated extensively in Egypt for its oil to be used as fuel. Some scholars speculate that the word derives from Agartum in the Nubian language, which stands for \"the abode of Atum\"; the Nubian and Egyptian god of creation. Other Beja scholars suggest Khartoum is derived from \"Hartooma\" which means meeting in the Beja Language. \n\nFounding (1821–1899)\n\nKhartoum was established 15 mi north of the ancient city of Soba in 1821 by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Egypt's ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, who had just incorporated Sudan into his realm. Originally, Khartoum served as an outpost for the Egyptian Army, but the settlement quickly grew into a regional centre of trade. It also became a focal point for the slave trade. Later, it became the administrative center of Sudan and official capital.\n\nTroops loyal to the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad started a siege of Khartoum on 13 March 1884, against defenders led by British General Charles George Gordon. The siege ended in a massacre of the Anglo-Egyptian garrison. The heavily damaged city fell to the Mahdists on 26 January 1885 and all its inhabitants were put to death. \n\nOmdurman was the scene of the bloody Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898, during which British forces under Herbert Kitchener defeated the Mahdist forces defending the city.\n\nModern history (20th–21st centuries)\n\nIn 1973, the city was the site of an anomalous hostage crisis in which members of Black September held ten hostages at the Saudi Arabian embassy, five of whom were diplomats. The US ambassador, the US deputy ambassador, and the Belgian chargé d'affaires were murdered. The remaining hostages were released. A 1973 United States Department of State document, declassified in 2006, concluded \"The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasser Arafat.\" \n\nThe first oil pipeline between Khartoum and the Port of Sudan was completed in 1977.\n\nThroughout the 1970s and 1980s, Khartoum was the destination for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in neighboring nations such as Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda. Many Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees assimilated into society, while others settled in large slums at the outskirts of the city. Since the mid-1980s, large numbers of refugees from South Sudan and Darfur fleeing the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War and Darfur conflict have settled around Khartoum.\n\nIn 1991, Osama bin Laden purchased a house in the affluent al-Riyadh neighborhood of the city and another in Soba. He lived there until 1996 when he was banished from the country. Following the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the United States accused bin Laden's al-Qaeda group and launched cruise missile attacks (20 August) on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in northern Khartoum. The destruction of the factory produced diplomatic tension between the U.S. and Sudan. The ruins of the factory are now a tourist attraction.\n\nAfter the sudden death of SPLA head and vice-president of Sudan, John Garang, at the end of July 2005, there were three days of violent riots in the capital. The riots finally died down after Southern Sudanese politicians and tribal leaders sent strong messages to the rioters. The situation could have been much more dire; even so, the death toll was at least 24, as youths from southern Sudan attacked northern Sudanese and clashed with security forces. \n\nThe Organisation of African Unity summit of 18–22 July 1978 was held in Khartoum, during which Sudan was awarded the OAU presidency.\nThe African Union summit of 16–24 January 2006 was held in Khartoum.\n\nThe Arab League summit of 28–29 March 2006 was held in Khartoum, during which the Arab League awarded Sudan the Arab League presidency.\n\nOn 10 May 2008 the Darfur rebel group of the Justice and Equality Movement moved into the city where they engaged in heavy fighting with Sudanese government forces. Their soldiers included minors and their goal was the toppling of Omar al-Bashir's government, though the Sudanese government succeeded in beating back the assault. \n\nOn 23 October 2012 an explosion at the Yarmouk munitions factory killed two people and injured another person. The Sudanese government has claimed that the explosion was the result of an Israeli airstrike. \n\nGeography \n\nLocation \n\nSudan, in northeast Africa, measures about one-fourth the size of the United States. Its neighbors are Chad and the Central African Republic on the west, Egypt and Libya on the north, Ethiopia and Eritrea on the east, and South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of the Congo on the south. The Red Sea washes about 500 mi of the eastern coast. It is traversed from north to south by the Nile, all of whose great tributaries are partly or entirely within its borders.\n\nKhartoum is located in the middle of the populated areas in Sudan almost northeast center of the country between 16 degrees latitude north and 15 degrees latitude south and longitude 21 degrees west and 24 degrees longitude east, and expands an area amounting to 20,736 km (12884 Mile) square between the West Bank of the River Nile, from North Khartoum Bahri, Shendi, River Nile State, from both the East Kassala, Kassala State, Port Sudan, Red Sea State and North East Blue Nile, from the West White Nile, Omdurman, North Kordofan and Northwest Omdurman, Northern State, from South Wad Madani, Al Jazirah (state) and Southwest Ed Dueim, White Nile State.\n\n \n\nClimate\n\nKhartoum features a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWhw) with a dry season occurring during \"wintertime\", typical of the Saharo-Sahelian zone which marks the progressive passage between the Sahara Desert, vast arid areas and the Sahel, vast semi-arid areas. The climate is extremely arid for most of the year with about nine months where average rainfall is lower than 5 mm. The very long dry season is itself divided into a hot, very dry season between November and March as well as a very hot, dry season between April and June. During this part of the year, hot, dry continental trade winds from deserts sweep over the region such as the harmattan (a northerly or northeasterly wind): the sky is perfectly clear, the weather is stable, very dry and the rainfall inhibition is total. The very irregular, very brief, rainy season lasts about 1 month as the maximum rainfall is recorded in August with about 75 mm. The rainy season is characterized by a seasonal reverse of wind regimes, when the Intertropical Convergence Zone goes northerly. Average annual rainfall is very low, with only of precipitation. Khartoum records on average six days with 10 mm or more and 19 days with 1 mm or more of rainfall. The highest temperatures occur during two periods in the year: the first at the late dry season, when average high temperatures consistently exceed 40 C from April to June, and the second at the early dry season, when average high temperatures exceed 39 C in September and October months. Khartoum is one of the hottest major cities on Earth, with annual mean temperatures hovering around 30 C. The city has also truly hot \"winters\" for a such dry climate. In no month does the average monthly high temperature fall below 30 C. This is something not seen in other major cities with hot desert climates such as Riyadh, Baghdad and Phoenix. Temperatures cool off enough during the night, with Khartoum's lowest average low temperature of the year just above 15 C. Khartoum is also one of the sunniest major cities in the world, with an annual sunshine duration around 3,700 hours.\n\nDemographics\n\nEconomy\n\nAfter the signing of the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLA), the Government of Sudan has begun a massive development project. In 2007, the biggest projects in Khartoum were the Al-Mogran Development Project, two five-star hotels, a new airport, Mac Nimir Bridge (finished in October 2007) and the Tuti Bridge that links Khartoum to Tuti Island.\n\nIn the 21st century, Khartoum has developed based on Sudan's oil wealth. The center of the city has tree-lined streets. Khartoum has the highest concentration of economic activity in the country. This has changed as major economic developments take place in other parts of the country, like oil exploration in the South, the Giad Industrial Complex in Al Jazirah state and White Nile Sugar Project in Central Sudan, and the Merowe Dam in the North.\n\nAmong the city's industries are printing, glass manufacturing, food processing, and textiles. Petroleum products are now produced in the far north of Khartoum state, providing fuel and jobs for the city. One of Sudan's largest refineries is located in northern Khartoum.\n\nRetailing\n\nThe Souq Al Arabi is Khartoum's largest open air market. The \"souq\" is spread over several blocks in the center of Khartoum proper just south of the Great Mosque (Mesjid al-Kabir) and the minibus station. It is divided into separate sections, including one focused entirely on gold.\n\nAl Qasr Street and Al Jamhoriyah Street are considered the most famous high streets in Khartoum State.\n\nAfra Mall is located in the southern suburb Arkeweet. The Afra Mall has a supermarket, retail outlets, coffee shops, a bowling alley, movie theaters, and a children's playground.\n\nIn 2011, Sudan opened the Hotel Section and part of the food court of the new, Cornithia hotel Tower. The Mall/Shopping section is still under construction.\n\nEducation\n\nKhartoum is the main location for most of Sudan's top educational bodies.In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, there are four main levels of education.\nFirst: kindergarten and day-care. It begins in the age of 3-4, consists of 1-2 grades, (depending on the parents).\nSecond: elementary school. the first grade pupils enter at the age of 6-7 .and It consists of 8 grades, each year there is more academic efforts and main subjects added plus more school methods improvements. By the 8th grade a student is 13–14 years old ready to take the certificate exams and entering high school.\nThird: upper second school and high school. At this level the school methods add some main academic subjects such as chemistry, biology, physics, geography, etc...\nthere are three grades in this level. The students ages are about 14-15 to 17-18.\nHigher Education: there are many universities in Sudan such as the university of Khartoum, even foreigners attend universities here, because the reputation of the universities are very good and the living expenses are low compared to other countries.\nAfter all, the education system in Sudan went through many changes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. \n\nHigh schools\n\n* Khartoum Old High Secondary School for Boys\n* Khartoum Old High Secondary School for Girls\n* The British Educational Schools (BES) \n* Khartoum American School, KAS, established in 1957.\n* Khartoum International Community School, KICS, established in 2004.\n* Unity High School. \n* Suliman Hussein Academy\n* Comboni and St. Francis, khartoum new high secondary school for boys\n* Khartoum International preparatory school (KIPS)|Khartoum International preparatory school, established in 1928.\n* Qabbas Private International Schools\n* Riad English School, established 1987\n\nThe higher institutes in Khartoum \n\nTransportation\n\nAir\n\nKhartoum is home to the largest airport in Sudan, Khartoum International Airport. It is the main hub for Sudan Airways, Sudan's main carrier. The airport was built at the southern edge of the city; but with Khartoum's rapid growth and consequent urban sprawl, the airport is now located in the heart of the city.\nA new international airport is currently being built about 40 km south of the city center. There have been delays to start construction because lack of funding of the project but it is known that the airport will be completed sometime in 2017. It will replace the current airport in Khartoum as Sudan's main airport.\n\nBridges\n\nRail\n\nKhartoum has rail lines from Wadi Halfa, Port Sudan on the Red Sea, and El Obeid. All are operated by Sudan Railways. Some lines also extended to some parts of south Sudan\n\nArchitecture \n\nArchitecture of Khartoum cannot be identified by one style or even two styles; it is as diverse as its culture, where 597 different cultural groups meet. In this article are 10 buildings of Khartoum to showcase this diversity in buildings’ shapes, materials, treatments. Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, simultaneously evolved systems of Pharaonic kingship by 3300 BC.\n\nIn response to the worldwide deterioration of the environment and the increase in pollution levels, there has been a strong movement towards sustainable architecture across the globe. This movement has received attention and concern from governments as well as private sectors. In the past decades, Sudan has seen a huge surge in infrastructure and technology, which has led to many new and innovative building concepts, ideas and construction techniques. There is now a constant flow of new projects arising, thus leading to a new, transformed, modernised form of architecture.\n \n\n* Squares and public gardens\n\nMasjids and Places of worship\n\nJami el kebir,Khartum.jpg|The Great Masjid\nالخرطوم-جزيرة توتي.jpg|Masjid Shahid\nFaruq Mosque,Khartum.jpg|Faruq Mosque,Khartum\nSiadah Sanhory mosque in Manshiya.JPG|thumb|Siadah Sanhory mosque in Manshiya\nShahid mosque Algomah prayers in Ramadan2.JPG|thumb|Shahid mosque Algomah prayers in Ramadan\n\n \n\nCulture\n\nMuseums\n\nThe largest museum in all of Sudan is the National Museum of Sudan. Founded in 1971, it contains works from different epochs of Sudanese history. Among the exhibits are two Egyptian temples of Buhen and Semna which were originally built by Queen Hatshepsut and Pharaoh Tuthmosis III respectively but relocated to Khartoum upon the flooding of Lake Nasser.\n\nThe Republican Palace Museum opened in 2000 is located in the former Anglican All Saints' cathedral on Sharia al-Jama'a, next to the historical Presidential Palace.\n\nThe Ethnographic Museum is located on Sharia al-Jama'a, close to the Mac Nimir Bridge.\n\nBotanical gardens\n\nKhartoum is home to a small botanical garden, in the Mogran district of the city.\n\nClubs\n\nKhartoum is home to several clubs such as the Blue Nile Sailing Club, the German Club, the Greek Hotel, the Coptic Club, the Syrian Club and the International Club.\nThere is also a football club situated in Khartoum – Al Khartoum\n\nPhoto Gallery \n\nSoba University Hospital (Khartoum) 005.jpg|Soba Hospital\nKoptskaCrkvauKartumu.jpg|Coptic church\nColonial house in Khartoum 001.jpg|Traces of an old Fashion house from the colonial \nHajja Soad mosque.jpg| Masjid Alhaja Suad\nKhartoum Teaching Hospital 003.jpg|Khartoum University Teaching Hospital\nEmergency salam-centre-sudan.jpg|Peace Center for Heart Surgery\nUniversity of Khartoum 001.JPG|University of Khartoum\nSunset Khartoum.jpg|Sunset in Khartoum\nOpen University of Sudan headquarter.jpg|Open University of Sudan\n\nTwin cities\n\n*Istanbul, Turkey \n*Ankara, Turkey \n*Brasília, Brazil\n*Djibouti City, Djibouti"
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On the border of which two countries is Victoria Falls?
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http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"Victoria Falls, or Mosi-oa-Tunya (Tokaleya Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders), is a waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.\n\nNaming\n\nDavid Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, is believed to have been the first European to view Victoria Falls on 16 November 1855 from what is now known as Livingstone Island, one of two land masses in the middle of the river, immediately upstream from the falls on the Zambian side. Livingstone named his discovery in honour of Queen Victoria of Britain, but the indigenous name, Mosi-oa-Tunya—\"the smoke that thunders\"—continues in common usage as well. The nearby national park in Zambia is named Mosi-oa-Tunya,National Parks and Nature Reserves of Zambia, [http://www.nationalparks-worldwide.info/zambia.htm World Institute for Conservation and Environment]. whereas the national park and town on the Zimbabwean shore are both named Victoria Falls.National Parks and Nature Reserves of Zimbabwe, [http://www.nationalparks-worldwide.info/zimbabwe.htm World Institute for Conservation and Environment]. The World Heritage List officially recognizes both names.\n\nIn 2013, the government of Zimbabwe declared its intention to officially rename the falls \"Mosi-oa-Tunya\", citing continuity with other renamings such as Harare (from Salisbury), and Zimbabwe (from Rhodesia).\n\nSize\n\nWhile it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is classified as the largest, based on its combined width of and height of 108 m, resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of North America's Niagara Falls and well over twice the width of its Horseshoe Falls. In height and width Victoria Falls is rivalled only by Argentina and Brazil's Iguazu Falls. See table for comparisons. \n\nFor a considerable distance upstream from the falls the Zambezi flows over a level sheet of basalt, in a shallow valley, bounded by low and distant sandstone hills. The river's course is dotted with numerous tree-covered islands, which increase in number as the river approaches the falls. There are no mountains, escarpments, or deep valleys; only a flat plateau extending hundreds of kilometres in all directions.\n\nThe falls are formed as the full width of the river plummets in a single vertical drop into a transverse chasm 1708 metres (5604 ft) wide, carved by its waters along a fracture zone in the basalt plateau. The depth of the chasm, called the First Gorge, varies from 80 m at its western end to 108 m in the centre. The only outlet to the First Gorge is a 110 m wide gap about two-thirds of the way across the width of the falls from the western end, through which the whole volume of the river pours into the Victoria Falls gorges.\n\nThere are two islands on the crest of the falls that are large enough to divide the curtain of water even at full flood: Boaruka Island (or Cataract Island) near the western bank, and Livingstone Island near the middle—the point from which Livingstone first viewed the falls. At less than full flood, additional islets divide the curtain of water into separate parallel streams. The main streams are named, in order from Zimbabwe (west) to Zambia (east): Devil's Cataract (called Leaping Water by some), Main Falls, Rainbow Falls (the highest) and the Eastern Cataract.\n\nThe Zambezi river, upstream from the falls, experiences a rainy season from late November to early April, and a dry season the rest of the year. The river's annual flood season is February to May with a peak in April,[http://www.dams.org/docs/kbase/studies/cszzanx.pdf World Commission on Dams website:] \"Case Study — Kariba Dam-Zambezi River Basin\" Annex 13 & 14 Victoria Falls Mean Monthly Flows. Website accessed 1 March 2007. This website gives mean monthly flow rates in cubic metres per second (i.e., the total volume of water passing in each calendar month divided by the number of seconds in the month), the standard measure used in hydrology to indicate seasonal variation in flow. A figure of around 9,000 m3/s (318,000 cu ft) is quoted by many websites for Victoria Falls but this is the mean maximum instantaneous rate, which is only achieved for a little amount of days per year. The figure of 536 million m3/minute (18.9 billion cu ft/min) on some websites (e.g. ZNTB) is an error for 536 million litres/minute (equivalent to 9100 m3/s or 142 million U.S. gallons/min). The '10-year maximum' is the mean of the maximum monthly rate returned in a ten-year period. The spray from the falls typically rises to a height of over 400 metres (1,300 ft), and sometimes even twice as high, and is visible from up to 48 km away. At full moon, a \"moonbow\" can be seen in the spray instead of the usual daylight rainbow. During the flood season, however, it is impossible to see the foot of the falls and most of its face, and the walks along the cliff opposite it are in a constant shower and shrouded in mist. Close to the edge of the cliff, spray shoots upward like inverted rain, especially at Zambia's Knife-Edge Bridge. \n\nAs the dry season takes effect, the islets on the crest become wider and more numerous, and in September to January up to half of the rocky face of the falls may become dry and the bottom of the First Gorge can be seen along most of its length. At this time it becomes possible (though not necessarily safe) to walk across some stretches of the river at the crest. It is also possible to walk to the bottom of the First Gorge at the Zimbabwean side. The minimum flow, which occurs in November, is around a tenth of the April figure; this variation in flow is greater than that of other major falls, and causes Victoria Falls' annual average flow rate to be lower than might be expected based on the maximum flow.\n\nGorges\n\nThe entire volume of the Zambezi River pours through the First Gorge's 110-meter-wide (360 ft) exit for a distance of about 150 meters (500 ft), then enters a zigzagging series of gorges designated by the order in which the river reaches them. Water entering the Second Gorge makes a sharp right turn and has carved out a deep pool there called the Boiling Pot. Reached via a steep footpath from the Zambian side, it is about 150 metres (500 ft) across. Its surface is smooth at low water, but at high water is marked by enormous, slow swirls and heavy boiling turbulence. Objects—and humans—that are swept over the falls, including the occasional hippopotamus or crocodile, are frequently found swirling about here or washed up at the north-east end of the Second Gorge. This is where the bodies of Mrs Moss and Mr Orchard, mutilated by crocodiles, were found in 1910 after two canoes were capsized by a hippo at Long Island above the falls. \nThe principal gorges are (see reference for note about these measurements): \n* First Gorge: the one the river falls into at Victoria Falls\n* Second Gorge: (spanned by the Victoria Falls Bridge), 250 m south of falls, 2.15 km long (270 yd south, 2350 yd long)\n* Third Gorge: 600 m south, 1.95 km long (650 yd south, 2100 yd long), containing the Victoria Falls Power Station.\n* Fourth Gorge: 1.15 km south, 2.25 km long (1256 yd south, 2460 yd long)\n* Fifth Gorge: 2.55 km south, 3.2 km long (1.5 mi south, 2 mi long)\n* Songwe Gorge: 5.3 km south, 3.3 km long, (3.3 mi south, 2 mi long) named after the small Songwe River coming from the north-east, and the deepest at 140 m (460 ft), the level of the river in them varies by up to 20 meters (65 ft) between wet and dry seasons.\n\nFormation\n\nThe recent geological history of Victoria Falls can be seen in the form of the gorges below the falls. The basalt plateau over which the Upper Zambezi flows has many large cracks filled with weaker sandstone. In the area of the current falls the largest cracks run roughly east to west (some run nearly north-east to south-west), with smaller north-south cracks connecting them.\n\nOver at least 100,000 years, the falls have been receding upstream through the Batoka Gorges, eroding the sandstone-filled cracks to form the gorges. The river's course in the current vicinity of the falls is north to south, so it opens up the large east-west cracks across its full width, then it cuts back through a short north-south crack to the next east-west one. The river has fallen in different eras into different chasms which now form a series of sharply zig-zagging gorges downstream from the falls.\n\nApart from some dry sections, the Second to Fifth and the Songwe Gorges each represents a past site of the falls at a time when they fell into one long straight chasm as they do now. Their sizes indicate that we are not living in the age of the widest-ever falls.\n\nThe falls have already started cutting back the next major gorge, at the dip in one side of the \"Devil's Cataract\" (also known as \"Leaping Waters\") section of the falls. This is not actually a north-south crack, but a large east-northeast line of weakness across the river, where the next full-width falls will eventually form.\n\nFurther geological history of the course of the Zambezi River is in the article of that name.\n\nPre-colonial history\n\nArchaeological sites around the falls have yielded Homo habilis stone artifacts from 3 million years ago, 50,000-year-old Middle Stone Age tools and Late Stone Age (10,000 and 2,000 years ago) weapons, adornments and digging tools. Iron-using Khoisan hunter-gatherers displaced these Stone Age people and in turn were displaced by Bantu tribes such as the southern Tonga people known as the Batoka/Tokalea, who called the falls Shungu na mutitima. The Matabele, later arrivals, named them aManz' aThunqayo, and the Batswana and Makololo (whose language is used by the Lozi people) call them Mosi-o-Tunya. All these names mean essentially \"the smoke that thunders\". \n\nA map from c. 1750 drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin for Abbé Antoine François Prevost d'Exiles marks the falls as \"cataractes\" and notes a settlement to the north of the Zambezi as being friendly with the Portuguese at the time. Earlier still Nicolas de Fer's 1715 map of southern Africa has the fall clearly marked in the correct position. It also has dotted lines denoting trade routes that David Livingstone followed 140 years later.\n\nThe first European to see the falls was David Livingstone on 17 November 1855, during his 1852–56 journey from the upper Zambezi to the mouth of the river. The falls were well known to local tribes, and Voortrekker hunters may have known of them, as may the Arabs under a name equivalent to \"the end of the world\". Europeans were sceptical of their reports, perhaps thinking that the lack of mountains and valleys on the plateau made a large falls unlikely. \n\nLivingstone had been told about the falls before he reached them from upriver and was paddled across to a small island that now bears the name Livingstone Island in Zambia. Livingstone had previously been impressed by the Ngonye Falls further upstream, but found the new falls much more impressive, and gave them their English name in honour of Queen Victoria. He wrote of the falls, \"No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.\"\n\nIn 1860, Livingstone returned to the area and made a detailed study of the falls with John Kirk. Other early European visitors included Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto, Czech explorer Emil Holub, who made the first detailed plan of the falls and its surroundings in 1875 (published in 1880), and British artist Thomas Baines, who executed some of the earliest paintings of the falls. Until the area was opened up by the building of the railway in 1905, though, the falls were seldom visited by other Europeans. Some writers believe that the Portuguese priest Gonçalo da Silveira was the first European to catch sight of the falls back in the sixteenth century. \n\nHistory since 1900\n\nVictoria Falls Bridge initiates tourism\n\nEuropean settlement of the Victoria Falls area started around 1900 in response to the desire of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company for mineral rights and imperial rule north of the Zambezi, and the exploitation of other natural resources such as timber forests north-east of the falls, and ivory and animal skins. Before 1905, the river was crossed above the falls at the Old Drift, by dugout canoe or a barge towed across with a steel cable. Rhodes' vision of a Cape-Cairo railway drove plans for the first bridge across the Zambezi and he insisted it be built where the spray from the falls would fall on passing trains, so the site at the Second Gorge was chosen. See the main article Victoria Falls Bridge for details. From 1905 the railway offered accessible travel to whites from as far as the Cape in the south and from 1909, as far as the Belgian Congo in the north. In 1904 the Victoria Falls Hotel was opened to accommodate visitors arriving on the new railway. The falls became an increasingly popular attraction during British colonial rule of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), with the town of Victoria Falls becoming the main tourist centre.\n\nZambia's independence and Rhodesia's UDI\n\nIn 1964, Northern Rhodesia became the independent state of Zambia. The following year, Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence. This was not recognized by Zambia, the United Kingdom nor the vast majority of states and led to United Nations-mandated sanctions. In response to the emerging crisis, in 1966 Zambia restricted or stopped border crossings; it did not re-open the border completely until 1980. Guerilla warfare arose on the southern side of the Zambezi from 1972: the Rhodesian Bush War. Visitor numbers began to drop, particularly on the Rhodesian side. The war affected Zambia through military incursions, causing the latter to impose security measures including the stationing of soldiers to restrict access to the gorges and some parts of the falls.\n\nZimbabwe's internationally recognised independence in 1980 brought comparative peace, and the 1980s witnessed renewed levels of tourism and the development of the region as a centre for adventure sports. Activities that gained popularity in the area include whitewater rafting in the gorges, bungee jumping from the bridge, game fishing, horse riding, kayaking, and flights over the falls.\n\nTourism in recent years\n\nBy the end of the 1990s almost 400,000 people were visiting the falls annually, and this was expected to rise to over a million in the next decade. Unlike the game parks, Victoria Falls has more Zimbabwean and Zambian visitors than international tourists; the attraction is accessible by bus and train, and is therefore comparatively inexpensive to reach.\n\nThe two countries permit tourists to make day trips from each side and visas can be obtained at both border posts. Costs vary from US$45-US$80 (). Visitors with single entry visas are required to purchase a visa each time they cross the border. Frequent changes in visa regulations mean visitors should check the rules before crossing the border.\n\nA famous feature is the naturally formed \"Armchair\" (now sometimes called \"Devil's Pool\"), near the edge of the falls on Livingstone Island on the Zambian side. When the river flow is at a certain level, usually between September and December, a rock barrier forms an eddy with minimal current, allowing adventurous swimmers to splash around in relative safety a few feet from the point where the water cascades over the falls. Occasional deaths have been reported when people have slipped over the rock barrier. \n\nThe numbers of visitors to the Zimbabwean side of the falls has historically been much higher than the number visiting the Zambia side, due to the greater development of the visitor facilities there. However, the number of tourists visiting Zimbabwe began to decline in the early 2000s as political tensions between supporters and opponents of president Robert Mugabe increased. In 2006, hotel occupancy on the Zimbabwean side hovered at around 30%, while the Zambian side was at near-capacity, with rates in top hotels reaching US$630 per night. The rapid development has prompted the United Nations to consider revoking the Falls' status as a World Heritage Site. In addition, problems of waste disposal and a lack of effective management of the falls' environment are a concern.\n\nNatural environment\n\nNational parks\n\nThe two national parks at the falls are relatively small—Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is 66 km2 and Victoria Falls National Park is 23 km2. However, next to the latter on the southern bank is the Zambezi National Park, extending 40 km west along the river. Animals can move between the two Zimbabwean parks and can also reach Matetsi Safari Area, Kazuma Pan National Park and Hwange National Park to the south.\n\nOn the Zambian side, fences and the outskirts of Livingstone tend to confine most animals to the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. In addition fences put up by lodges in response to crime restrict animal movement. \n\nIn 2004 a separate group of police called the Tourism Police was started. They are commonly seen around the main tourist areas, and can be identified by their uniforms with yellow reflective bibs. \n\nVegetation\n\nMopane woodland savannah predominates in the area, with smaller areas of miombo and Rhodesian teak woodland and scrubland savannah. Riverine forest with palm trees lines the banks and islands above the falls. The most notable aspect of the area's vegetation though is the rainforest nurtured by the spray from the falls, containing plants rare for the area such as pod mahogany, ebony, ivory palm, wild date palm and a number of creepers and lianas. Vegetation has suffered in recent droughts, and so have the animals that depend on it, particularly antelope.\n\nWildlife\n\nThe national parks contain abundant wildlife including sizable populations of elephant, buffalo, giraffe, Grant's zebra, and a variety of antelope. Katanga lions, African leopards and South African cheetahs are only occasionally seen. Vervet monkeys and baboons are common. The river above the falls contains large populations of hippopotamus and crocodile. African bush elephants cross the river in the dry season at particular crossing points.\n\nKlipspringers, honey badgers, lizards and clawless otters can be glimpsed in the gorges, but they are mainly known for 35 species of raptors. The Taita falcon, black eagle, peregrine falcon and augur buzzard breed there. Above the falls, herons, fish eagles and numerous kinds of waterfowl are common.\n\nFish\n\nThe river is home to 39 species of fish below the falls and 89 species above it. This illustrates the effectiveness of the falls as a dividing barrier between the upper and lower Zambezi.\n\nStatistics\n\nMedia"
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What is the name of the volcanic valley that runs from the Sinai peninsula to central Mozambique?
|
tc_227
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
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"filename": [
"Great_Rift_Valley.txt"
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"The Great Rift Valley is a name given to the continuous geographic trench, approximately 6000 km in length, that runs from Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Asia to Mozambique in South Eastern Africa. The name continues in some usages, although it is today considered geologically imprecise as it combines features that are today regarded as separate, although related, rift and fault systems.\n\nToday, the term is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar Triple Junction southward across eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new separate plates. Geologists generally refer to these incipient plates as the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.\n\nTheoretical extent\n\nThe Great Rift Valley as originally described was thought to extend from Lebanon in the north to Mozambique in the south, where it constitutes one of two distinct physiographic provinces of the East African mountains. It included what we would call today the Lebanese section of the Dead Sea Transform, the Jordan Rift Valley, Red Sea Rift and the East African Rift. \n\nToday these rifts and faults are seen as distinct, although connected. These were only formed 35 million years ago.\n\nAsia\n\nThe northernmost part of the Rift corresponds to the central section of what is called today the Dead Sea Transform (DST) or Rift. This midsection of the DST forms the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, separating the Lebanon from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Further south it is known as the Hula Valley separating the Galilee mountains and the Golan Heights. \n\nThe River Jordan begins here and flows southward through Lake Hula into the Sea of Galilee in Israel. It then continues south through the Jordan Rift Valley into the Dead Sea on the Israeli-Jordanian border. From the Dead Sea southwards, the Rift is occupied by the Wadi Arabah, then the Gulf of Aqaba, and then the Red Sea.\n\nOff the southern tip of Sinai in the Red Sea, the Dead Sea Transform meets the Red Sea Rift which runs the length of the Red Sea. The Red Sea Rift comes ashore to meet the East African Rift and the Aden Ridge in the Afar Depression of East Africa. The junction of these three rifts is called the Afar Triple Junction.\n\nAfrica\n\n The East African rift has two branches, the Western Rift Valley and the Eastern Rift Valley.\n\nThe Western Rift, also called the Albertine Rift, is bordered by some of the highest mountains in Africa, including the Virunga Mountains, Mitumba Mountains, and Ruwenzori Range. It contains the Rift Valley lakes, which include some of the deepest lakes in the world (up to 1470 m deep at Lake Tanganyika).\n\nMuch of this area lies within the boundaries of national parks such as Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwenzori National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, and Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. Lake Victoria is considered to be part of the rift valley system although it actually lies between the two branches. All of the African Great Lakes were formed as the result of the rift, and most lie within its rift valley.\n\nIn Kenya, the valley is deepest to the north of Nairobi. As the lakes in the Eastern Rift have no outlet to the sea and tend to be shallow, they have a high mineral content as the evaporation of water leaves the salts behind. For example, Lake Magadi has high concentrations of soda (sodium carbonate) and Lake Elmenteita, Lake Bogoria, and Lake Nakuru are all strongly alkaline, while the freshwater springs supplying Lake Naivasha are essential to support its current biological variety.\n\nThe southern section of the Rift Valley includes Lake Malawi, the third deepest freshwater body in the world, reaching 706 m in depth and separating the Nyassa plateau of Northern Mozambique from Malawi; it ends in the Zambesi valley."
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Which actor won an Academy Award for his performance in The African Queen?
|
tc_228
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"The African Queen is a 1951 adventure film adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester. The film was directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel and John Woolf. The screenplay was adapted by James Agee, John Huston, John Collier and Peter Viertel. It was photographed in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff and had a music score by Allan Gray. The film stars Humphrey Bogart (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor – his only Oscar), and Katharine Hepburn with Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Walter Gotell, Richard Marner and Theodore Bikel. \n\nThe African Queen was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1994, with the Library of Congress deeming it \"culturally, historically or aesthetically significant\". The film currently holds a 100% \"Fresh\" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 reviews. \n\nPlot\n\nSamuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his sister Rose (Katharine Hepburn) are British Methodist missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa at the beginning of World War I in August/September 1914. Their mail and supplies are delivered by a small tramp steamer named the African Queen, helmed by the rough-and-ready Canadian boat captain Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), whose coarse behavior they tolerate in a rather stiff manner.\n\nWhen Charlie warns them that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, the Sayers choose to stay on, only to witness the Germans burn down the mission village and herd the villagers away. When Samuel protests, he is beaten by a German soldier. After the Germans leave, Samuel becomes delirious with fever and soon dies. Charlie returns shortly afterward. He helps Rose bury her brother, and they set off in the African Queen.\n\nCharlie mentions to Rose that the Germans have a gunboat, the Königin Luise (German for \"Queen Louisa\"), which patrols a large lake downriver, effectively blocking any British attacks. Rose comes up with a plan to convert the African Queen into a torpedo boat and sink the Königin Luise. Charlie points out that navigating the Ulanga River to get to the lake would be suicidal: to reach the lake they would have to pass a German fort and negotiate several dangerous rapids. But Rose is insistent and eventually persuades him to go along with the plan.\n\nDuring their journey down the river, Charlie, Rose and the African Queen encounter many obstacles, including the German fort and three sets of rapids. The first set of rapids is rather easy; they get through with minimal flooding in the boat. But when they pass the fortress and the soldiers begin shooting at them, the bullets pierce the top of the boiler and cause one of the steam pressure hoses to disconnect from the boiler. This causes the boat's engine to stop. Luckily, Charlie manages to reattach the hose to the boiler just as they are about to enter the second set of rapids. The boat rolls and pitches crazily as it goes down the rapids, leading to more severe flooding in the boat. However, they make it through.\n\nWhile celebrating their success, the two find themselves in an embrace. Embarrassed, they break off, but eventually succumb and strike up a relationship. The third set of rapids comes up. This time, there is a loud metallic clattering noise as the boat goes over the falls. They dock on the river bank to check for damage. When Charlie dives under the boat, he finds the propeller shaft bent sideways and a blade missing from the propeller. Luckily, with some expert skills and using suggestions from Rose, Charlie manages to straighten the shaft and weld a new blade on to the propeller, and they are off again.\n\nAll appears lost when Charlie and Rose \"lose the channel\" and the boat becomes mired in the mud amid dense reeds near the mouth of the river. First, they try to tow the boat through the muck, only to have Charlie come out of the water covered with leeches. All their efforts to free the African Queen fail. With no supplies left and short of potable water, Rose and a feverish Charlie turn in, convinced they have no hope of survival. Before going to sleep Rose prays that she and Charlie be admitted into Heaven. As they sleep, exhausted and beaten, heavy rains raise the river's level and float the African Queen off of the mud and into the lake which, it turns out, is just a short distance from their location. Once on the lake, they narrowly avoid being spotted by the Königin Luise. The Königin Luise departs, but Charlie believes that she will return as she makes her normal rounds of the lake.\n\nOver the next two days, Charlie and Rose convert some oxygen cylinders into torpedoes using gelatin explosives and improvised detonators that use nails as the firing pins for rifle cartridges. They then push the torpedoes through holes cut in the bow of the African Queen as improvised spar torpedoes. The Königin Luise returns as Charlie predicted, and Charlie and Rose steam the African Queen out onto the lake in darkness, intending to set her on a collision course with the Königin Luise before diving overboard and making their way to safety to the Belgian Congo on the west side of the lake. A strong storm strikes as they head toward the Königin Luise. Unfortunately, the torpedo holes they cut are not sealed, which allows water to pour into the African Queen, causing her to sink lower and lower. Eventually the African Queen capsizes, throwing them both into the water. Charlie loses sight of Rose in the storm.\n\nCharlie is captured and taken aboard the Königin Luise, where he is questioned by the captain. Believing Rose to have drowned, he makes no attempt to defend himself against accusations of spying, and the German captain sentences him to death by hanging. However, Rose is captured and brought to the Königin Luise just after Charlie's sentence is handed down. Charlie hollers her name, then tries to protect her by pretending not to know her. The captain questions her, and Rose confesses the whole plot proudly, deciding they have nothing to lose anyway. The captain sentences her to be executed as a spy, too. Charlie asks the German captain to marry them before executing them. After a brief marriage ceremony, the Germans prepare to hang them, but there is a sudden explosion and the Königin Luise quickly capsizes and sinks. The Königin Luise has struck the overturned hull of the African Queen and detonated the torpedoes. Rose's plan has worked after all, if a little belatedly, and the newly married couple happily swims to safety on the west shore of the lake.\n\nCast\n\n* Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut\n* Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer\n* Robert Morley as Rev. Samuel Sayer\n* Peter Bull as Captain of Louisa\n* Theodore Bikel as the First Officer\n* Walter Gotell as the Second Officer\n* Peter Swanwick as the First Officer of Shona\n* Richard Marner as the Second Officer of Shona\n\nProduction\n\nProduction censors objected to several aspects of the original script, which included the two characters cohabiting without the formality of marriage (as in the book). Some changes were made before the film was completed. Another change followed the casting of Bogart; his character's lines in the original screenplay were rendered with a thick Cockney dialect but the script had to be completely rewritten because the actor was unable to reproduce it. The rewrite made the character Canadian.\n\nThe film was partially financed by John and James Woolf of Romulus Films, a British company. The Woolf brothers provided £250,000 and were so pleased with the completed movie that they talked John Huston into directing their next picture, Moulin Rouge (1952).\n\nMuch of the film was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo in Africa. This was rather novel for the time, especially for a Technicolor picture which utilized large unwieldy cameras. The cast and crew endured sickness, and spartan living conditions during their time on location. In one scene, Hepburn was playing an organ but had a bucket nearby because she was often sick between takes. Bogart later bragged that he was the only one to escape illness, which he credited to not drinking any water on location, but instead fortifying himself from the large supply of Gordon's gin he had brought along with him. \n\nAbout half of the film was shot in Britain. For instance, the scenes in which Bogart and Hepburn are seen in the water were all shot in studio tanks at Isleworth Studios, Middlesex. These scenes were considered too dangerous to shoot in Africa. All of the foreground plates for the process shots were also done in studio. \n\nA myth has grown that the scenes in the reed-filled riverbank were filmed in Dalyan, Turkey. But Katharine Hepburn's published book (p. 118) on the filming states 'We were about to head... back to Entebbe, but John [Huston] wanted to get shots of Bogie and me in the miles of high reeds before we come out into the lake...\". The reeds sequence was thus shot on location in Africa (Uganda and Congo) and London studios.\n\nMost of the action takes place aboard a boat – the African Queen of the title – and scenes on board the boat were filmed using a large raft with a mockup of the boat on top. Sections of the boat set could be removed to make room for the large Technicolor camera. This proved hazardous on one occasion when the boat's boiler – a heavy copper replica – almost fell on Hepburn. It was not bolted down because it also had to be moved to accommodate the camera. The small steam-boat used in the film to depict the African Queen was built in 1912, in Britain, for service in Africa. At one time it was owned by actor Fess Parker. \nIn December 2011, plans were announced to restore the boat. \nRestoration was completed by the following April and the African Queen is now on display as a tourist attraction at Key Largo, Florida.\n\nBecause of the dangers involved with shooting the rapid scenes, a small-scale model was used in the studio tank in London.\n\nThe vessel used to portray the German gunboat Königin Luise in the film was the steam tug Buganda, owned and operated on Lake Victoria by the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation. Although fictional, the Königin Luise was inspired by the German First World War vessel Graf Goetzen (also known as Graf von Goetzen), which operated on Lake Tanganyika until she was scuttled in 1916 during the Battle for Lake Tanganyika. The British refloated the Graf Goetzen in 1924 and placed her in service on Lake Tanganyika in 1927 as the passenger ferry MV Liemba, and she remains in active service there as of 2015.\n\nThe name 'SS Königin Luise was taken from a German steam ferry which operated from Hamburg, before being taken over by the Kaiserliche Marine on the outbreak of the First World War. She was used as an auxiliary minelayer off Harwich before being sunk on 5 August 1914, in the first naval action of the Great War. \n\nA persistent rumour regarding London's population of feral Ring Necked Parakeets is that they originated from birds escaped or released from the filming of this movie, however this claim is considered dubious. \n\nPremiere\n\nThe African Queen opened on December 23, 1951 in Los Angeles, in order to qualify for the 1951 Oscars, and on February 20, 1952 at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.\n\nThe film earned an estimated £256,267 at UK cinemas in 1952, making it the 11th most popular movie of the year. It earned an estimated $4 million at the US and Canadian box office. \n\nAwards and honours\n\nAcademy Awards\n\nOthers\n\nAmerican Film Institute recognition\n* 1998 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies – #17\n* 2002 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions – #14\n* 2006 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers – #48\n* 2007 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #65\n\nAFI has also honored both Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn as the greatest American screen legends.\n\nSubsequent releases\n\nThe film has been released on Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom, Germany and Scandinavia.\n\nThe British DVD includes a theatrical trailer and an audio commentary by cinematographer Cardiff in which he details many of the hardships and challenges involved in filming in Africa.\n\nPrior to 2010, the film had been released in the United States on VHS video, laserdisc and as a region 1 DVD. Region 1 and Region All DVDs are available and distributed by The Castaways Pictures, and have English and Chinese subtitles available with no other features. It is not clear if these are authorized or not.\n\n2009 digital restoration\n\nIn 2009, Paramount Pictures (the current owner of the US rights) completed restoration work for region 1 and a 4K digitally restored version was issued on DVD and Blu-ray March 23, 2010. The film was restored in its original mono soundtrack from original UK film elements under the sole supervision of Paramount, and had as an extra a documentary on the film's production, Embracing Chaos: The Making of The African Queen. According to Ron Smith, vice president of restoration for Paramount Pictures, the major factor that led to the holdup were difficulties locating the original negative. Romulus Films and international rights holder ITV Global Entertainment were acknowledged in the restoration credits.\n\nITV released the restoration in Region 2 on June 14, 2010.\n\nAdaptations to other media\n\nThe African Queen was adapted as a one-hour radio play on the December 15, 1952 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater with Humphrey Bogart reprising his film role and joined by Greer Garson. This broadcast is included as a bonus CD in the Commemorative Box Set version of the Paramount DVD.\n\nA one-hour television pilot for a proposed series was broadcast on March 18, 1977 on CBS. Starring Warren Oates, Mariette Hartley and Johnny Sekka, the pilot was not picked up for further development. \n\nAn elliptic commentary on the making of The African Queen can be found in the 1990 film White Hunter Black Heart, directed by Clint Eastwood.\n\nThe 1989 song \"Afro Dizzi Act\" by Cry Cisco uses samples from the movie."
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Who wrote the novel Cry, the Beloved Country about South Africa?
|
tc_229
|
http://www.triviacountry.com/
|
{
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"TagMe"
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"Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by Alan Paton. It was first published in 1948.\nThe American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there had been \"only three novels published since the first of the year that were worth reading.... Cry, The Beloved Country, The Ides of March, and The Naked and the Dead.\" \n\nTwo cinema adaptations of the book have been made, the first in 1951 and the second in 1995. The novel was also adapted as a musical called Lost in the Stars (1949), with a book by the American writer Maxwell Anderson and music composed by the German emigre Kurt Weill.\n\nPlot summary\n\nIn the remote village of Ndotsheni, in the Natal province of eastern South Africa, the Reverend Stephen Kumalo receives a letter from a fellow minister summoning him to Johannesburg. He is needed there, the letter says, to help his sister, Gertrude, who the letter says has fallen ill. Kumalo undertakes the difficult and expensive journey to the city in the hopes of aiding Gertrude and of finding his son, Absalom, who traveled to Johannesburg from Ndotsheni and never returned. In Johannesburg, Kumalo is warmly welcomed by Msimangu, the priest who sent him the letter, and given comfortable lodging by Mrs. Lithebe, a Christian woman who feels that helping others is her duty.\n\nKumalo visits Gertrude, who is now a prostitute and liquor seller, and persuades her to come back to Ndotsheni with her young son.\n\nA more difficult quest follows, when Kumalo and Msimangu begin searching the labyrinthine metropolis of Johannesburg for Absalom. They visit Kumalo's brother, John, who has become a successful businessman and politician, and he directs them to the factory where his son and Absalom once worked together.\n\nOne clue leads to another, and as Kumalo travels from place to place, he begins to see the gaping racial and economic divisions that are threatening to split his country. Eventually, Kumalo discovers that his son has spent time in a reformatory and that he has gotten a girl pregnant.\n\nMeanwhile, the newspapers announce that Arthur Jarvis, a prominent white crusader for racial justice, has been murdered in his home by a gang of burglars. Kumalo and Msimangu learn that the police are looking for Absalom, and Kumalo's worst suspicions are confirmed when Absalom is arrested for the murder. Absalom confesses to the crime but claims that two others, including John's son, Matthew, aided him and that he did not intend to murder Jarvis.\n\nWith the help of friends, Kumalo obtains a lawyer for Absalom and attempts to understand what his son has become. John, however, makes arrangements for his own son's defense, even though this split will worsen Absalom’s case. When Kumalo tells Absalom's pregnant girlfriend what has happened, she is saddened by the news, but she joyfully agrees to his proposal that she marry his son and return to Ndotsheni as Kumalo's daughter-in-law.\n\nMeanwhile, in the hills above Ndotsheni, Arthur Jarvis' father, James Jarvis, tends his bountiful land and hopes for rain. The local police bring him news of his son's death, and he leaves immediately for Johannesburg with his wife. In an attempt to come to terms with what has happened, Jarvis reads his son's articles and speeches on social inequality and begins a radical reconsideration of his own prejudices.\n\nHe and Kumalo meet for the first time by accident, and after Kumalo has recovered from his shock, he expresses sadness and regret for Jarvis' loss. Both men attend Absalom’s trial, a fairly straightforward process that ends with the death penalty for Absalom and an acquittal for his co-conspirators. Kumalo arranges for Absalom to marry the girl who bears his child, and they bid farewell. The morning of his departure, Kumalo rouses his new family to bring them back to Ndotsheni, only to find that Gertrude has disappeared.\n\nKumalo is now deeply aware of how his people have lost the tribal structure that once held them together,and returns to his village troubled by the situation. It turns out that James Jarvis has been having similar thoughts. Arthur Jarvis' young son befriends Kumalo. As the young boy and the old man become acquainted, James Jarvis becomes increasingly involved with helping the struggling village. He donates milk at first and then makes plans for a dam and hires an agricultural expert to demonstrate newer, less devastating farming techniques.\n\nWhen Jarvis’ wife dies, Kumalo and his congregation send a wreath to express their sympathy. Just as the bishop is on the verge of transferring Kumalo, Jarvis sends a note of thanks for the wreath and offers to build the congregation a new church, and Kumalo is permitted to stay in his parish.\n\nOn the evening before his son's execution, Kumalo goes into the mountains to await the appointed time in solitude. On the way, he encounters Jarvis, and the two men speak of the village, of lost sons, and of Jarvis' bright young grandson, whose innocence and honesty have impressed both men. When Kumalo is alone, he weeps for his son’s death and clasps his hands in prayer as dawn breaks over the valley.\n\nCharacters\n\n*Stephen Kumalo: A 69-year-old native priest who attempts to find his family in Johannesburg, and later to reconstruct the disintegrating tribe in his village.\n*Theophilus Msimangu: A priest from Johannesburg who helps Kumalo find his son Absalom.\n*John Kumalo: Stephen's brother, who denies the tribal validity and becomes a spokesman for the new racial movement in the city; a former carpenter.\n*Absalom Kumalo: Stephen's son who left home to look for Stephen's sister Gertrude, and who murders Arthur Jarvis.\n*Gertrude Kumalo: The young sister of Stephen who becomes a prostitute in Johannesburg and leads a dissolute life.\n*James Jarvis: A wealthy landowner whose son, Arthur, is murdered. He comes to the realization of the guilt of white residents in such crimes and forgives the Kumalos.\n*Arthur Jarvis: Murdered by Absalom Kumalo, he is the son of James Jarvis. He does not appear in the novel, but his liberal racial views are highly significant and influential.\n*Dubula: A big man who was the \"heart\" of anything and everything Arthur Jarvis did, including wanting peace between the races.\n*Mr. Carmichael: Absalom's lawyer; he takes his case pro deo (for God) in this case meaning for free.\n*Father Vincent: A priest from England who helps Stephen in his troubles.\n*Mrs. Lithebe: A native housewife in whose house Stephen stays while in Johannesburg.\n*The Harrisons: A father and son who represent two opposing views concerning the racial problem. The father, who is Arthur's father-in-law, represents the traditional view, while the son represents the more liberal view.\n*The Girl [Absalom's wife]: A teenage girl, approximately 16 years old, impregnated by Absalom, whom she later marries. She tells Kumalo that Absalom will be her third husband and that her father had abandoned her family when she was quite young. Given her young age it is unclear if any of these marriages were wholly consensual.\n\nMain themes\n\nCry, the Beloved Country is a social protest against the structures of the society that would later give rise to apartheid. Paton attempts to create an unbiased and objective view of the dichotomies it entails: he depicts whites as affected by 'native crime' while blacks suffer from social instability and moral issues due to the breakdown of the tribal system. It shows many of the problems with South Africa such as the degrading of the land reserved for the natives, which is sometimes considered to be the main theme, the disintegration of the tribal community, native crime, and the flight to urban areas.\n\nAnother prevalent theme in Cry, the Beloved Country is the detrimental effects of fear on the characters and society of South Africa as indicated in the following quotation from the narrator in Chapter 12:\n\nPaton makes frequent use of literary and linguistic devices such as microcosms, intercalary chapters and dashes instead of quotation marks for dialogue to indicate the start of speech acts to portray the devastating conditions in South Africa.\n\nBackground\n\nCry, the Beloved Country was written before passage of a new law institutionalizing the apartheid political system in South Africa. The novel was published in 1948; apartheid became law later that same year.\n\nThe book enjoyed critical success around the world. It sold over 15 million copies before Paton's death.\n\nThe book is studied currently by many schools internationally. The style of writing echoes the rhythms and tone of the King James Bible. Paton was a devout Christian.\n\nPaton combined actual locales, such as Ixopo and Johannesburg, with fictional towns. The suburb in which Jarvis lived in Johannesburg, Parkwold, is fictional but its ambiance is typical of the Johannesburg suburbs of Parktown and of Saxonwold. In the author's preface, Paton took pains to note that, apart from passing references to Jan Smuts and Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, all his characters were fictional.\n\nAllusions/references to other works\n\nThe novel is filled with Biblical references and allusions. The most evident are the names Paton gives to the characters. Absalom, the son of Stephen Kumalo, is named for the son of King David, who rose against his father in rebellion. Also, in the New Testament Book of Acts, Saint Stephen was a martyr who died rather than give up his beliefs. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are written to Theophilus, which is Greek for \"friend of God\".\n\nIn the novel, Absalom requests that his son be named Peter, the name of one of Jesus's disciples. Among Peter's better-known traits is a certain impulsiveness; also, after Christ's arrest, he denied knowing Jesus three times, and later wept in grief over this. After the resurrection, Peter renewed his commitment to Christ and to spreading the Gospel. All that suggests Absalom's final repentance and his commitment to the faith of his father.\n\nIn another allusion, Arthur Jarvis is described as having a large collection of books on Abraham Lincoln, and the writings of Lincoln are featured several times in the novel.\n\nPaton describes Arthur's son as having characteristics similar to his when he was a child, which may allude to the resurrection of Christ.\n\nFilm, television and theatrical adaptations\n\nIn 1951, the novel was adapted into a motion picture of the same name, directed by Zoltan Korda. Paton wrote the screenplay with John Howard Lawson, who was left out of the original credits because he was blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing to give information to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Kumalo was played by Canada Lee, Jarvis by Charles Carson, and Msimangu by Sidney Poitier.\n\nIn 1983, a historic stage adaptation was performed by the Capital Players theatre group at the Moth Hall in Gaborone, Botswana. The country was at that time one of the leading \"frontline states\" to apartheid South Africa and a centre for artistic activity that often stood in quiet opposition to the racist regime just across the border. The premiere was attended by Paton himself, who had travelled from Natal, as well as Botswana's then-President Quett Masire (with political acumen, the director had arranged for the first performance to take place on the President's birthday). School students from across the country were bussed to the capital to see the production. \n\nAnother film version was released in 1995, directed by Darrell Roodt. James Earl Jones played the Reverend Kumalo and Richard Harris filled the role of Jarvis.\n\nA stage version by the South African playwright Roy Sargeant was developed in early 2003; it was first staged at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape on 27 June 2003 and at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town on 8 July 2003. The director was Heinrich Reisenhofer. The script, together with notes and activities for school use, was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press Southern Africa.\n\nIn 1949, the composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with the American writer Maxwell Anderson (book and lyrics), composed a musical based on the book called Lost in the Stars. The original Broadway production opened on 30 October 1949 at the Music Box Theatre and starred Todd Duncan and Inez Matthews. It ran for 273 performances before closing on 1 July 1950. It was made into a movie, starring Brock Peters and Melba Moore, released in 1974.\n\nLost in the Stars is the last work Weill completed before his death in 1950. Although he was influenced by spirituals, jazz and blues, Weill's distinctive and original style shines throughout the score.\n\nIsraeli contratenor David D'Or performed in a stage version at the Israeli National Theater (\"Habima Theater\") in 2004. Maariv in its review wrote: \"D'or's outstanding voice is meant for great parts. His voice and presence embraces the audience, who showed their appreciation by a lengthy standing ovation.\"\n\nIn August 2012, the Glimmerglass Opera of New York produced the work, in conjunction with Cape Town Opera, directed by Tazewell Thompson. \n\nRelease details\n\n*1948, USA, Charles Scribner's Sons ?, Pub date ? December 1948, hardback\n*1949, UK, Jonathan Cape ISBN 0-224-60578-X, Pub date September 1948, hardback\n*1970, UK Penguin Modern Classics ISBN 0-14-001274-5, Pub date 28 May 1970, paperback\n*2000, UK Penguin Modern Classics ISBN 0-14-118312-8, Pub date 27 April 2000, paperback\n*2003, USA, Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-7432-6217-4, Charles Scribner's Sons, Pub date ? November 2003, paperback",
"South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost sovereign state in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometres of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east and northeast by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. It is the only country that borders both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. \n\nSouth Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.\n\nThe country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular elections have been held for almost a century. However, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a large role in the country's recent history and politics. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalizing previous racial segregation. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists both inside and outside the country, discriminatory laws began to be repealed or abolished from 1990 onwards.\n\nAbout 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, nine of which have official status. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European (white), Asian (Indian), and multiracial (coloured) ancestry. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have had political representation in the country's democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the \"Rainbow Nation\" to describe the country's newly developing multicultural diversity in the wake of segregationist apartheid ideology. \n\nUntil late 2015, the World Bank classified South Africa as an upper-middle-income economy. South Africa today is a developed country and a newly industrialized country. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world. In terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day. Nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. \n\nName\n\nThe name \"South Africa\" is derived from the country's geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, reflecting its origin from the unification of four formerly separate British colonies. Since 1961 the long form name in English has been the \"Republic of South Africa\". In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika. Since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages.\n\nMzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning \"south\", is a colloquial name for South Africa. \n\nHistory\n\nPrehistoric finds\n\nSouth Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world. Extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been termed the Cradle of Humankind. The sites include Sterkfontein, which is one of the richest hominin fossil sites in the world. Other sites include Swartkrans, Gondolin Cave Kromdraai, Coopers Cave and Malapa. The first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, the Taung Child was found near Taung in 1924. Further hominin remains have been recovered from the sites of Makapansgat in Limpopo, Cornelia and Florisbad in the Free State, Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, Klasies River Mouth in eastern Cape and Pinnacle Point, Elandsfontein and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape.\nThese sites suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago starting with Australopithecus africanus. These were succeeded by various species, including Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei, Homo naledi and modern humans, Homo sapiens. Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years.\n\nWithin the Vaal River valley, pebble tools have been located.\n\nBantu expansion\n\nSettlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were already present south of the Limpopo River (now the northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe) by the 4th or 5th century CE. (See Bantu expansion.) They displaced, conquered and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers, the Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu slowly moved south. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan people. The Xhosa reached the Great Fish River, in today's Eastern Cape Province. As they migrated, these larger Iron Age populations displaced or assimilated earlier peoples.\nIn Mpumalanga, several stone circles have been found along with the stone arrangement that has been named Adam's Calendar.\n\nPortuguese contacts\n\nAt the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic group were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. The two major historic groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples.\n\nIn 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa. On 4 December, he landed at Walfisch Bay (now known as Walvis Bay in present-day Namibia). This was south of the furthest point reached in 1485 by his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão (Cape Cross, north of the bay). Dias continued down the western coast of southern Africa. After 8 January 1488, prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast, he sailed out of sight of land and passed the southernmost point of Africa without seeing it. He reached as far up the eastern coast of Africa as, what he called, Rio do Infante, probably the present-day Groot River, in May 1488, but on his return he saw the Cape, which he first named Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms). His King, John II, renamed the point Cabo da Boa Esperança, or Cape of Good Hope, as it led to the riches of the East Indies. Dias' feat of navigation was later immortalised in Luís de Camões' Portuguese epic poem, The Lusiads (1572).\n\nEuropean colonisation\n\nBy the early 17th century, Portugal's maritime power was starting to decline, and English and Dutch merchants competed to oust Lisbon from its lucrative monopoly on the spice trade. Representatives of the British East India Company did call sporadically at the Cape in search of provisions as early as 1601, but later came to favour Ascension Island and St. Helena as alternative ports of refuge. Dutch interest was aroused after 1647, when two employees of the Dutch East India Company were shipwrecked there for several months. The sailors were able to survive by obtaining fresh water and meat from the natives. They also sowed vegetables in the fertile soil. Upon their return to Holland they reported favourably on the Cape's potential as a \"warehouse and garden\" for provisions to stock passing ships for long voyages.\n\nIn 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch transported slaves from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India as labour for the colonists in Cape Town. As they expanded east, the Dutch settlers met the southwesterly migrating Xhosa people in the region of the Fish River. A series of wars, called the Cape Frontier Wars, were fought over conflicting land and livestock interests.\n\nGreat Britain took over the Cape of Good Hope area in 1795, to prevent it from falling under control of the French First Republic, which had invaded the Dutch Republic. Given its standing interests in Australia and India, Great Britain wanted to use Cape Town as an interim port for its merchants' long voyages. The British returned Cape Town to the Dutch Batavian Republic in 1803, the Dutch East India Company having effectively gone bankrupt by 1795.\n\nThe British annexed the Cape Colony in 1806, and continued the frontier wars against the Xhosa; the British pushed the eastern frontier through a line of forts established along the Fish River and they consolidated the territory by encouraging British settlement. During the 1820s both the Boers (original Dutch, Flemish, German, and French settlers) and the British 1820 Settlers claimed land in the north and east of the country. Conflicts arose among the Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho and Boer groups who competed to expand their territories.\n\nIn the first two decades of the 19th century, the Zulu people grew in power and expanded their territory under their leader, Shaka. Shaka's warfare led indirectly to the Mfecane (\"crushing\") that devastated and depopulated the inland plateau in the early 1820s. An offshoot of the Zulu, the Matabele people created a larger empire that included large parts of the highveld under their king Mzilikazi.\n\nDuring the early 1800s, many Dutch settlers departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control. They migrated to the future Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer Republics: the South African Republic (now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West provinces) and the Orange Free State (Free State).\n\nThe discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the Mineral Revolution and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified the European-South African efforts to gain control over the indigenous peoples. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British. \n\nThe Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand and its army. The Zulu nation spectacularly defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. Eventually though the war was lost resulting in the end of the Zulu nation's independence.\n\nThe Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; nonetheless, they were ultimately successful.\n\nWithin the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Power was held by the ethnic European colonists.\n\nEight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after four years of negotiation, an act of the British Parliament (South Africa Act 1909) granted nominal independence, while creating the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The Union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape and Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal. \n\nThe Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage natives controlled only 7% of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased. \n\nIn 1931 the union was fully sovereign from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, which abolished the last powers of the British Government on the country. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking \"Whites\". In 1939 the party split over the entry of the Union into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.\n\nIn 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. The Nationalist Government classified all peoples into three races and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority (less than 20% ) controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalised segregation became known as apartheid. While whites enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy. The Freedom Charter, adopted in 1955 by the Congress Alliance, demanded a non-racial society and an end to discrimination.\n\nRepublic\n\nOn 31 May 1961, the country became a republic following a referendum in which white voters narrowly voted in favour thereof (the British-dominated Natal province rallied against the issue). Queen Elizabeth II was stripped of the title Queen of South Africa, and the last Governor-General, namely Charles Robberts Swart, became State President. As a concession to the Westminster system, the presidency remained parliamentary appointed and virtually powerless until P. W. Botha's Constitution Act of 1983, which (intact in these regards) eliminated the office of Prime Minister and instated a near-unique \"strong presidency\" responsible to parliament. Pressured by other Commonwealth of Nations countries, South Africa left the organisation in 1961 and was readmitted only in 1994.\n\nDespite opposition both within and outside the country, the government legislated for a continuation of apartheid. The security forces harshly oppressed resistance movements, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid activists using strikes, marches, protests, and sabotage by bombing and other means. The African National Congress (ANC) was a major resistance movement. Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and some Western nations and institutions began to boycott business with South Africa because of its racial policies and suppression of civil rights. International sanctions, divestment of holdings by investors accompanied growing unrest and oppression within South Africa.\n\nIn the late 1970s, South Africa initiated a programme of nuclear weapons development. In the following decade, it produced six deliverable nuclear weapons. \n\nThe Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by black and white political leaders in South Africa. Ultimately, F. W. de Klerk opened bilateral discussions with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government.\n\nIn 1990 the National Party government took the first step towards dismantling discrimination when it lifted the ban on the African National Congress and other political organisations. It released Nelson Mandela from prison after twenty-seven years' serving a sentence for sabotage. A negotiation process followed. With approval from an predominantly white referendum, the government repealed apartheid legislation. South Africa also destroyed its nuclear arsenal and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. The country rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations and became a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).\n\nIn post-apartheid South Africa, unemployment has been extremely high as the country has struggled with many changes. While many blacks have risen to middle or upper classes, the overall unemployment rate of blacks worsened between 1994 and 2003. Poverty among whites, previously rare, increased. In addition, the current government has struggled to achieve the monetary and fiscal discipline to ensure both redistribution of wealth and economic growth. Since the ANC-led government took power, the United Nations Human Development Index of South Africa has fallen, while it was steadily rising until the mid-1990s. Some may be attributed to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the failure of the government to take steps to address it in the early years. \n\nIn May 2008, riots left over sixty people dead. The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates over 100,000 people were driven from their homes. The targets were mainly migrants and refugees seeking asylum, but a third of the victims were South African citizens. In a 2006 survey, the South African Migration Project concluded that South Africans are more opposed to immigration than anywhere else in the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2008 reported over 200,000 refugees applied for asylum in South Africa, almost four times as many as the year before. These people were mainly from Zimbabwe, though many also come from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Competition over jobs, business opportunities, public services and housing has led to tension between refugees and host communities. While xenophobia is still a problem, recent violence has not been as widespread as initially feared.\n\nGeography\n\n \n\nSouth Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At , South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world and is comparable in size to Colombia. Mafadi in the Drakensberg at is the highest peak in South Africa. Excluding the Prince Edward Islands, the country lies between latitudes 22° and 35°S, and longitudes 16° and 33°E.\n\nThe interior of South Africa consists of a vast, in most places almost flat, plateau with an altitude of between and , highest in the east and sloping gently downwards towards the west and north, and slightly less so to the south and south-west. This plateau is surrounded by the Great Escarpment whose eastern, and highest, stretch is known as the Drakensberg. \n\nThe south and south-western parts of the plateau (at approximately 11001800m above sea level), and the adjoining plain below (at approximately 700800m above sea levelsee map on the right) is known as the Great Karoo, which consists of sparsely populated scrubland. To the north the Great Karoo fades into the even drier and more arid Bushmanland, which eventually becomes the Kalahari desert in the very north-west of the country. The mid-eastern, and highest part of the plateau is known as the Highveld. This relatively well-watered area is home to a great proportion of the country’s commercial farmlands, and contains its largest conurbation (Gauteng Province). To the north of Highveld, from about the 25°30'S line of latitude, the plateau slopes downwards into the Bushveld, which ultimately gives way to the Limpopo lowlands or Lowveld.\n\nThe coastal belt, below the Great Escarpment, moving clockwise from the northeast, consists of the Limpopo Lowveld, which merges into the Mpumalanga Lowveld, below the Mpumalanga Drakensberg (the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment). This is hotter, drier and less intensely cultivated than the Highveld above the escarpment. The Kruger National Park, located in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, occupies a large portion of the Lowveld covering 19,633 square kilometres (7,580 sq mi.) South of the Lowveld the annual rainfall increases as one enters KwaZulu-Natal Province, which, especially near the coast, is subtropically hot and humid. The KwaZulu-NatalLesotho international border is formed by the highest portion of the Great Escarpment, or Drakensberg, which reaches an altitude of over . The climate at the foot of this part of the Drakensberg is temperate.\n\nThe coastal belt below the south and south-western stretches of the Great Escarpment contains several ranges of Cape Fold Mountains which run parallel to the coast, separating the Great Escarpment from the ocean. (These parallel ranges of fold mountains are shown on the map, above left. Note the course of the Great Escarpment to the north of these mountain ranges.) The land (at approximately 400500m above sea level) between two of these ranges of fold mountains in the south (i.e. between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges to the south and the Swartberg range to the north) is known as the Little Karoo, which consists of semi-desert scrubland similar to that of the Great Karoo, except that its northern strip along the foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, has a somewhat higher rainfall and is therefore more cultivated than the Great Karoo. The Little Karoo is historically, and still, famous for its ostrich farming around the town of Oudtshoorn. The lowland area (700800m above sea level) to the north of the Swartberg mountain range up to the Great Escarpment is the lowland part of the Great Karoo (see map at top right), which is climatically and botanically almost indistinguishable from the Karoo above the Great Escarpment. The narrow coastal strip between the most seaward Cape Fold Mountain range (i.e., the LangebergOuteniqua mountains) and the ocean has a moderately high year-round rainfall, especially in the George-Knysna-Plettenberg Bay region, which is known as the Garden Route. It is famous for the most extensive areas of indigenous forests in South Africa (a generally forest-poor country).\n\nIn the south-west corner of the country the Cape Peninsula forms the southernmost tip of the coastal strip which borders the Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately terminates at the country’s border with Namibia at the Orange River. The Cape Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate, making it and its immediate surrounds the only portion of Africa south of the Sahara which receives most of its rainfall in winter. Atlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 19. Readers Digest Association, Cape Town\n\nThe greater Cape Town metropolitan area is situated on the Cape Peninsula and is home to 3.7million people according to the 2011 population census. It is the country's legislative capital.\n\nThe coastal belt to the north of the Cape Peninsula is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and the first row of north-south running Cape Fold Mountains to the east. The Cape Fold Mountains peter out at about the 32°S line of latitude, after which the coastal plain is bounded by the Great Escarpment itself. The most southerly portion of this coastal belt is known as the Swartland and Malmesbury Plain, which is an important wheat growing region, relying on winter rains. The region further north is known as Namaqualand, which becomes more and more arid as one approaches the Orange River. The little rain that falls, tends to fall in winter, which results in one of the world’s most spectacular displays of flowers carpeting huge stretches of veld in spring (AugustSeptember).\n\nSouth Africa also has one possession, the small sub-Antarctic archipelago of the Prince Edward Islands, consisting of Marion Island () and Prince Edward Island () (not to be confused with the Canadian province of the same name).\n\nClimate\n\nSouth Africa has a generally temperate climate, due in part to being surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on three sides, by its location in the climatically milder Southern Hemisphere and due to the average elevation rising steadily towards the north (towards the equator) and further inland. Due to this varied topography and oceanic influence, a great variety of climatic zones exist. The climatic zones range from the extreme desert of the southern Namib in the farthest northwest to the lush subtropical climate in the east along the Mozambique border and the Indian Ocean. Winters in South Africa occur between June and August.\n\nThe extreme southwest has a climate remarkably similar to that of the Mediterranean with wet winters and hot, dry summers, hosting the famous fynbos biome of shrubland and thicket. This area also produces much of the wine in South Africa. This region is also particularly known for its wind, which blows intermittently almost all year. The severity of this wind made passing around the Cape of Good Hope particularly treacherous for sailors, causing many shipwrecks. Further east on the south coast, rainfall is distributed more evenly throughout the year, producing a green landscape. This area is popularly known as the Garden Route.\n\nThe Free State is particularly flat because it lies centrally on the high plateau. North of the Vaal River, the Highveld becomes better watered and does not experience subtropical extremes of heat. Johannesburg, in the centre of the Highveld, is at and receives an annual rainfall of . Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare.\n\nThe high Drakensberg mountains, which form the south-eastern escarpment of the Highveld, offer limited skiing opportunities in winter. The coldest place on mainland South Africa is Sutherland in the western Roggeveld Mountains, where midwinter temperatures can reach as low as . The Prince Edward Islands have colder average annual temperatures, but Sutherland has colder extremes. The deep interior of mainland South Africa has the hottest temperatures: a temperature of was recorded in 1948 in the Northern Cape Kalahari near Upington, but this temperature is unofficial and was not recorded with standard equipment, the official highest temperature is at Vioolsdrif in January 1993. \n\nBiodiversity\n\nSouth Africa signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 4 June 1994, and became a party to the convention on 2 November 1995. It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 7 June 2006. The country is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries. \n\nAnimals\n\nNumerous mammals are found in the bushveld including Transvaal lions, African leopards, South African cheetahs, southern white rhinos, blue wildebeest, kudus, impalas, hyenas, hippopotami and South African giraffes. A significant extent of the bushveld exists in the north-east including Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, as well as in the far north in the Waterberg Biosphere. South Africa houses many endemic species, among them the critically endangered riverine rabbit (Bunolagus monticullaris) in the Karoo.\n\nFungi\n\nUp to 1945, more than 4900 species of fungi (including lichen-forming species) had been recorded. In 2006, the total number of fungi which occur in South Africa was conservatively estimated at about 200,000 species, but that did not take into account fungi associated with insects. If correct, then the number of South African fungi dwarfs that of its plants. In at least some major South African ecosystems, an exceptionally high percentage of fungi are highly specific in terms of the plants with which they occur. The country's biodiversity strategy and action plan does not mention fungi (including lichen-forming fungi).\n\nPlants\n\nWith more than 20,000 different plants, or about 10% of all the known species of plants on Earth, South Africa is particularly rich in plant diversity. The most prevalent biome in South Africa is the grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia trees, mainly camel-thorn and whitethorn. Vegetation becomes even more sparse towards the northwest due to low rainfall. There are several species of water-storing succulents like aloes and euphorbias in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area. The grass and thorn savannah turns slowly into a bush savannah towards the north-east of the country, with denser growth. There are significant numbers of baobab trees in this area, near the northern end of Kruger National Park. \n\nThe fynbos biome, which makes up the majority of the area and plant life in the Cape floristic region, one of the six floral kingdoms, is located in a small region of the Western Cape and contains more than 9,000 of those species, making it among the richest regions on earth in terms of plant diversity. Most of the plants are evergreen hard-leaf plants with fine, needle-like leaves, such as the sclerophyllous plants. Another uniquely South African flowering plant group is the genus Protea. There are around 130 different species of Protea in South Africa.\n\nWhile South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, only 1% of South Africa is forest, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain of KwaZulu-Natal, where there are also areas of Southern Africa mangroves in river mouths. There are even smaller reserves of forests that are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. Plantations of imported tree species are predominant, particularly the non-native eucalyptus and pine.\n\nConservation issues\n\nSouth Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the 19th century. South Africa is one of the worst affected countries in the world when it comes to invasion by alien species with many (e.g. black wattle, Port Jackson willow, Hakea, Lantana and Jacaranda) posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity and the already scarce water resources. The original temperate forest found by the first European settlers was exploited ruthlessly until only small patches remained. Currently, South African hardwood trees like real yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius), stinkwood (Ocotea bullata), and South African black ironwood (Olea laurifolia) are under government protection. Statistics from the South African Environmental Affairs department show a record 1215 rhinos have been killed in 2014. \n\nClimate change is expected to bring considerable warming and drying to much of this already semi-arid region, with greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding and drought. According to computer generated climate modelling produced by the South African National Biodiversity Institute parts of southern Africa will see an increase in temperature by about one degree Celsius along the coast to more than four degrees Celsius in the already hot hinterland such as the Northern Cape in late spring and summertime by 2050. The Cape Floral Kingdom, been identified as one of the global biodiversity hotspots, it will be hit very hard by climate change. Drought, increased intensity and frequency of fire and climbing temperatures are expected to push many rare species towards extinction.\n\nPolitics\n\nSouth Africa is a parliamentary republic, although unlike most such republics the President is both head of state and head of government, and depends for his tenure on the confidence of Parliament. The executive, legislature and judiciary are all subject to the supremacy of the Constitution, and the superior courts have the power to strike down executive actions and acts of Parliament if they are unconstitutional.\n\nThe National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, consists of 400 members and is elected every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation. The National Council of Provinces, the upper house, consists of ninety members, with each of the nine provincial legislatures electing ten members.\n\nAfter each parliamentary election, the National Assembly elects one of its members as President; hence the President serves a term of office the same as that of the Assembly, normally five years. No President may serve more than two terms in office. The President appoints a Deputy President and Ministers, who form the Cabinet which consists of Departments and Ministries. The President and the Cabinet may be removed by the National Assembly by a motion of no confidence.\n\nIn the most recent election, held on 7 May 2014, the African National Congress (ANC) won 62.2% of the vote and 249 seats, while the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) won 22.2% of the vote and 89 seats. The Economic Freedom Fighters, founded by Julius Malema, the former President of the ANC's Youth Wing who was later expelled from the ANC, won 6.4% of the vote and 25 seats. The ANC has been the governing political party in South Africa since the end of apartheid.\n\nSouth Africa has no legally defined capital city. The fourth chapter of the Constitution of South Africa, states that \"The seat of Parliament is Cape Town, but an Act of Parliament enacted in accordance with section 76(1) and (5) may determine that the seat of Parliament is elsewhere.\" The country's three branches of government are split over different cities. Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital, while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg. Most foreign embassies are located in Pretoria.\n\nSince 2004, South Africa has had many thousands of popular protests, some violent, making it, according to one academic, the \"most protest-rich country in the world\". There have been a number of incidents of political repression as well as threats of future repression in violation of this constitution leading some analysts and civil society organisations to conclude that there is or could be a new climate of political repression, or a decline in political tolerance. \n\nIn 2008, South Africa placed 5th out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. South Africa scored well in the categories of Rule of Law, Transparency & Corruption and Participation & Human Rights, but was let down by its relatively poor performance in Safety & Security. In November 2006, South Africa became the first African country to legalise same-sex marriage. \n\nLaw\n\nThe Constitution of South Africa is the supreme rule of law in the country. The primary sources of South African law are Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal law with English Common law, as imports of Dutch settlements and British colonialism. The first European based law in South Africa was brought by the Dutch East India Company and is called Roman-Dutch law. It was imported before the codification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. This was followed in the 19th century by English law, both common and statutory. Starting in 1910 with unification, South Africa had its own parliament which passed laws specific for South Africa, building on those previously passed for the individual member colonies.\n\nThe judicial system consists of the magistrates' courts, which hear lesser criminal cases and smaller civil cases; the High Courts, which are courts of general jurisdiction for specific areas; the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is the highest court in all but constitutional matters; and the Constitutional Court, which hears only constitutional matters.\n\nNearly 50 murders are committed each day in South Africa. In the year ended March 2014 there were 17,068 murders and the murder rate was 32.2 per 100,000 - about five times higher than the global average of 6 per 100,000. Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities. The private security industry in South Africa is the largest in the world, with nearly 9,000 registered companies and 400,000 registered active private security guards, more than the South African police and army combined. Many emigrants from South Africa also state that crime was a big motivator for them to leave. Crime against the farming community has continued to be a major problem. \n\nIt is estimated that 500,000 women are raped in South Africa every year with the average woman more likely to be raped than complete secondary school. A 2009 survey found one in four South African men admitted to raping someone and another survey found one in three women out of 4000 surveyed women said they had been raped in the past year.\nRapes are also perpetrated by children (some as young as ten). Child and baby rape incidences are some of the highest in the world, largely as a result of the virgin cleansing myth, and a number of high-profile cases (sometimes as young as eight months) have outraged the nation.\n\nForeign relations\n\nAs the Union of South Africa, the country was a founding member of the United Nations. The then Prime Minister Jan Smuts wrote the preamble to the United Nations Charter. South Africa is one of the founding members of the African Union (AU), and has the second largest economy of all the members. It is also a founding member of the AU's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).\n\nSouth Africa has played a key role as a mediator in African conflicts over the last decade, such as in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Comoros, and Zimbabwe. After apartheid ended, South Africa was readmitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. The country is a member of the Group of 77 and chaired the organisation in 2006. South Africa is also a member of the Southern African Development Community, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, Southern African Customs Union, Antarctic Treaty System, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, G20 and G8+5.\n\nSouth African President Jacob Zuma and Chinese President Hu Jintao upgraded bilateral ties between the two countries on 24 August 2010, when they signed the Beijing Agreement, which elevated South Africa's earlier \"strategic partnership\" with China to the higher level of \"comprehensive strategic partnership\" in both economic and political affairs, including the strengthening of exchanges between their respective ruling parties and legislatures. In April 2011, South Africa formally joined the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRICS) grouping of countries, identified by President Zuma as the country's largest trading partners, and also the largest trading partners with Africa as a whole. Zuma asserted that BRICS member countries would also work with each other through the UN, the Group of Twenty (G20) and the India, Brazil South Africa (IBSA) forum. \n\nMilitary\n\nThe South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994, as an all volunteer force composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (Umkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces. The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service. In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa, and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi, amongst others. It has also served in multi-national UN peacekeeping forces such as the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade for example.\n\nSouth Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991. South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s According to former state president FW de Klerk, the decision to build a \"nuclear deterrent\" was taken \"as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat.\" South Africa is alleged to have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979, although this is officially denied. Former president FW de Klerk having confirmed that South Africa had \"never conducted a clandestine nuclear test.\" Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990, but all were dismantled before South Africa signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.\n\nAdministrative divisions \n\nEach of the nine provinces is governed by a unicameral legislature, which is elected every five years by party-list proportional representation. The legislature elects a Premier as head of government, and the Premier appoints an Executive Council as a provincial cabinet. The powers of provincial governments are limited to topics listed in the Constitution; these topics include such fields as health, education, public housing and transport.\n\nThe provinces are in turn divided into 52 districts: 8 metropolitan and 44 district municipalities. The district municipalities are further subdivided into 226 local municipalities. The metropolitan municipalities, which govern the largest urban agglomerations, perform the functions of both district and local municipalities.\n\nEconomy\n\nSouth Africa has a mixed economy, the second largest in Africa after Nigeria. It also has a relatively high GDP per capita compared to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa ($11,750 at PPP as of 2012). Despite this, South Africa is still burdened by a relatively high rate of poverty and unemployment, and is also ranked in the top 10 countries in the world for income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient.\n\nUnlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy. Only 15% of South African jobs are in the informal sector, compared with around half in Brazil and India and nearly three-quarters in Indonesia. The OECD attributes this difference to South Africa's widespread welfare system. World Bank research shows that South Africa has one of the widest gaps between per capita GNP versus its Human Development Index ranking, with only Botswana showing a larger gap. \n\nAfter 1994 government policy brought down inflation, stabilised public finances, and some foreign capital was attracted, however growth was still subpar. From 2004 onward economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased. During the presidency of Jacob Zuma, the government has begun to increase the role of state-owned enterprises. Some of the biggest state-owned companies are Eskom, the electric power monopoly, South African Airways (SAA), and Transnet, the railroad and ports monopoly. Some of these state-owned companies have not been profitable, such as SAA, which has required bailouts totaling 30 billion rand ($2.3 billion) over 20 years. \n\nSouth Africa is a popular tourist destination, and a substantial amount of revenue comes from tourism. Illegal immigrants are involved in informal trading. Many immigrants to South Africa continue to live in poor conditions, and the immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive since 1994. \n\nPrincipal international trading partners of South Africa—besides other African countries—include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain.\n\nThe South African agricultural industry contributes around 10% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa, as well as providing work for casual labourers and contributing around 2.6% of GDP for the nation. Due to the aridity of the land, only 13.5% can be used for crop production, and only 3% is considered high potential land. \n\nIn August 2013, South Africa was ranked as the top African Country of the Future by FDi magazine based on the country's economic potential, labour environment, cost-effectiveness, infrastructure, business friendliness, and Foreign direct investment Strategy. \n\nThe FSI ranks South Africa as the 36th safest tax haven in the world, ahead of the Philippines but behind the Bahamas.\n\nLabour market\n\nDuring 1995–2003, the number of formal jobs decreased and informal jobs increased; overall unemployment worsened. \n\nThe government's Black Economic Empowerment policies have drawn criticism from Neva Makgetla, lead economist for research and information at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, for focusing \"almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people (which) does little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse.\" Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class. Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas. Restrictive labour regulations have contributed to the unemployment malaise.\n\nAlong with many African nations, South Africa has been experiencing a \"brain drain\" in the past 20 years. This is believed to be potentially damaging for the regional economy, and is almost certainly detrimental for the well-being of those reliant on the healthcare infrastructure. The skills drain in South Africa tends to demonstrate racial contours given the skills distribution legacy of South Africa and has thus resulted in large white South African communities abroad. However, the statistics which purport to show a brain drain are disputed and also do not account for repatriation and expiry of foreign work contracts. According to several surveys there has been a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and expiration of foreign work contracts. In the first quarter of 2011, confidence levels for graduate professionals were recorded at a level of 84% in a PPS survey. \n\nScience and technology\n\nSeveral important scientific and technological developments have originated in South Africa. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967, Max Theiler developed a vaccine against yellow fever, Allan McLeod Cormack pioneered x-ray computed tomography, and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. With the exception of that of Barnard, all of these advancements were recognised with Nobel Prizes. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology.\n\nMark Shuttleworth founded an early Internet security company Thawte, that was subsequently bought out by world-leader VeriSign. Despite government efforts to encourage entrepreneurship in biotechnology, IT and other high technology fields, no other notable groundbreaking companies have been founded in South Africa. It is the expressed objective of the government to transition the economy to be more reliant on high technology, based on the realisation that South Africa cannot compete with Far Eastern economies in manufacturing, nor can the republic rely on its mineral wealth in perpetuity.\n\nSouth Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the €1.5 billion Square Kilometer Array project. On 25 May 2012 it was announced that hosting of the Square Kilometer Array Telescope will be split over both the South African and the Australia/New Zealand sites.\n\nWater supply and sanitation \n\nAfter the end of Apartheid South Africa's newly elected government struggled with the then growing service and backlogs with respect to access to Water supply and Sanitation developed. The government thus made a strong commitment to high service\nstandards and to high levels of investment subsidies to achieve those \nstandards. Since then, the country has made some progress with regard to\nimproving access to water supply: It reached universal access to an improved water source in urban areas, and in rural areas the share of those with access increased from 66% to 79% from 1990 to 2010. \n\nSouth Africa also has a strong water industry with a track \nrecord in innovation. However, much less progress has been achieved on \nsanitation: Access increased only from 71% to 79% during the same \nperiod.\nSignificant problems remain concerning the financial sustainability of \nservice providers, leading to a lack of attention to maintenance. The \nuncertainty about the government's ability to sustain funding levels in \nthe sector is also a concern. Two distinctive features of the South African water sector are the policy of free basic water and the \nexistence of water boards, which are bulk water supply agencies that \noperate pipelines and sell water from reservoirs to municipalities.\n\nIn May 2014 it was announced that Durban's Water and Sanitation Department won the Stockholm Industry Water Award \"for its transformative and inclusive approach\", calling it \"one of the\nmost progressive utilities in the world\". The city has connected 1.3 \nmillion additional people to piped water and provided 700,000 with access to toilets in 14 years. It also was South Africa's first \nmunicipality to put free basic water for the poor into practice. Furthermore, it has promoted Rainwater harvesting and mini hydropower. \n\nDemographics\n\nSouth Africa is a nation of about 55 million (2016) people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The last census was held in 2011. South Africa is home to an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants, including some 3 million Zimbabweans. A series of anti-immigrant riots occurred in South Africa beginning on 11 May 2008. \n\nStatistics South Africa asks people to describe themselves in the census in terms of five racial population groups. The 2011 census figures for these groups were Black African at 79.2%, White at 8.9%, Coloured at 8.9%, Asian at 2.5%, and Other/Unspecified at 0.5%. The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population; it declined to 16% in 1980. \n\nSouth Africa hosts a sizeable refugee and asylum seeker population. According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, this population numbered approximately 144,700 in 2007. Groups of refugees and asylum seekers numbering over 10,000 included people from Zimbabwe (48,400), The Democratic Republic of the Congo (24,800), and Somalia (12,900). These populations mainly lived in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth. Many refugees have now also started to work and live in rural areas in provinces such as Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.\n\nLanguages\n\nSouth Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. In this regard it is third only to Bolivia and India in number. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2011 census, the three most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16.0%), and Afrikaans (13.5%). Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it ranked fourth, and was listed as the first language of only 9.6% of South Africans in 2011 but remains the de facto lingua franca of the nation.\n\nThe country also recognises several unofficial languages, including Fanagalo, Khoe, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, and South African Sign Language. These unofficial languages may be used in certain official uses in limited areas where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. Nevertheless, their populations are not such that they require nationwide recognition.\n\nMany of the unofficial languages of the San and Khoikhoi people contain regional dialects stretching northwards into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. These people, who are a physically distinct population from other Africans, have their own cultural identity based on their hunter-gatherer societies. They have been marginalised to a great extent, and the remainder of their languages are in danger of becoming extinct.\n\nMany white South Africans also speak European languages, including Portuguese (also spoken by black Angolans and Mozambicans), German, and Greek, while some Asians in South Africa speak Asian languages, such as Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. French is spoken in South Africa by migrants from Francophone Africa.\n\nUrban centres \n\nReligion\n\nAccording to the 2001 census, Christians accounted for 79.8% of the population, with a majority of them being members of various Protestant denominations (broadly defined to include syncretic African initiated churches) and a minority of Roman Catholics and other Christians. Christian category includes Zion Christian (11.1%), Pentecostal (Charismatic) (8.2%), Roman Catholic (7.1%), Methodist (6.8%), Dutch Reformed (; 6.7%), Anglican (3.8%). Members of remaining Christian churches accounted for another 36% of the population. Muslims accounted for 1.5% of the population, Hindus 1.2%, traditional African religion 0.3% and Judaism 0.2%. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 0.6% were other and 1.4% were unspecified. \n\nAfrican initiated churches formed the largest of the Christian groups. It was believed that many of the persons who claimed no affiliation with any organised religion adhered to traditional African religion. There are an estimated 200,000 indigenous traditional healers in South Africa, and up to 60% of South Africans consult these healers, generally called sangomas or inyangas. These healers use a combination of ancestral spiritual beliefs and a belief in the spiritual and medicinal properties of local fauna and flora, commonly known as muti, to facilitate healing in clients. Many peoples have syncretic religious practices combining Christian and indigenous influences. \n\nSouth African Muslims comprise mainly those who are described as Coloureds and those who are described as Indians. They have been joined by black or white South African converts as well as others from other parts of Africa. South African Muslims claim that their faith is the fastest-growing religion of conversion in the country, with the number of black Muslims growing sixfold, from 12,000 in 1991 to 74,700 in 2004. \n\nSouth Africa is also home to a substantial Jewish population, descended from European Jews who arrived as a minority among other European settlers. This population peaked in the 1970s at 120,000, though only around 67,000 remain today, the rest having emigrated. Even so, these numbers make the Jewish community in South Africa the twelfth largest in the world. \n\nEthnic Indian Hindus form another significant portion of the population.\n\nCulture\n\nThe South African black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among these people that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and Westernised, aspects of traditional culture have declined. Members of the middle class, who are predominantly white but whose ranks include growing numbers of black, coloured and Indian people, have lifestyles similar in many respects to that of people found in Western Europe, North America and Australasia.\n\nThe South African Scout Association was one of the first youth organisations to open its doors to youth and adults of all races in South Africa. This happened on 2 July 1977 at a conference known as Quo Vadis. \n\nArts\n\nSouth African art includes the oldest art objects in the world, which were discovered in a South African cave, and dated from 75,000 years ago. \nThe scattered tribes of Khoisan peoples moving into South Africa from around 10000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings. They were superseded by Bantu/Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes. The Dutch-influenced folk art of the Afrikaner Trekboers and the urban white artists earnestly following changing European traditions from the 1850s onwards also contributed to this eclectic mix, which continues to evolve today.\n\nSouth African literature emerged from a unique social and political history. One of the first well known novels written by a black author in an African language was Solomon Thekiso Plaatje's Mhudi, written in 1930. During the 1950s, Drum magazine became a hotbed of political satire, fiction, and essays, giving a voice to urban black culture.\n\nNotable white South African authors include Alan Paton, who published the acclaimed novel Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948. Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Her most famous novel, July's People, was released in 1981. J.M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2003. When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee \"in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider\". \n\nThe plays of Athol Fugard have been regularly premiered in fringe theatres in South Africa, London (The Royal Court Theatre) and New York. Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) was a revelation in Victorian literature: it is heralded by many as introducing feminism into the novel form.\n\nBreyten Breytenbach was jailed for his involvement with the guerrilla movement against apartheid. Andre Brink was the first Afrikaner writer to be banned by the government after he released the novel A Dry White Season.\n\nPopular culture\n\nThe South African media sector is large, and South Africa is one of Africa's major media centres. While South Africa's many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language is English. However, all ten other official languages are represented to some extent or another.\n\nThere is great diversity in South African music. Black musicians have developed a unique style called Kwaito. Kwaito is said to have taken over radio, television, and magazines. Of note is Brenda Fassie, who launched to fame with her song \"Weekend Special\", which was sung in English. More famous traditional musicians include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while the Soweto String Quartet performs classic music with an African flavour. South Africa has produced world-famous jazz musicians, notably Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Jonathan Butler, Chris McGregor, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. Afrikaans music covers multiple genres, such as the contemporary Steve Hofmeyr, the punk rock band Fokofpolisiekar and the singer-songwriter Jeremy Loops.\n\nAlthough few South African film productions are known outside South Africa itself, many foreign films have been produced about South Africa. Arguably, the most high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was District 9. Other notable exceptions are the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 as well as U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, which won the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. In 2015, Oliver Hermanus film The Endless River became the first South African film selected for the Venice Film Festival.\n\nCuisine\n\nSouth African culture is diverse; foods from many cultures are enjoyed by all and especially marketed to tourists who wish to sample the large variety of South African cuisine. In addition to food, music and dance feature prominently.\n\nSouth African cuisine is heavily meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as a braai, or barbecue. South Africa has also developed into a major wine producer, with some of the best vineyards lying in valleys around Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and Barrydale. \n\nSports\n\nSouth Africa's most popular sports are soccer, rugby and cricket. Other sports with significant support are swimming, athletics, golf, boxing, tennis, ringball, and netball. Although soccer commands the greatest following among the youth, other sports like basketball, surfing and skateboarding are increasingly popular.\n\nSoccer players who have played for major foreign clubs include Steven Pienaar, Lucas Radebe and Philemon Masinga, Benni McCarthy, Aaron Mokoena, and Delron Buckley. South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter awarded South Africa a grade 9 out of 10 for successfully hosting the event. \n\nFamous boxing personalities include Baby Jake Jacob Matlala, Vuyani Bungu, Welcome Ncita, Dingaan Thobela, Gerrie Coetzee and Brian Mitchell. Durban Surfer Jordy Smith won the 2010 Billabong J-Bay competition making him the no 1 ranked surfer in the world. South Africa produced Formula One motor racing's 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter. Famous current cricket players include AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Faf du Plessis etc. Most of them also participate in the Indian Premier League.\n\nSouth Africa has also produced numerous world class rugby players, including Francois Pienaar, Joost van der Westhuizen, Danie Craven, Frik du Preez, Naas Botha and Bryan Habana. South Africa hosted and won the 1995 Rugby World Cup and won the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. It followed the 1995 Rugby World Cup by hosting the 1996 African Cup of Nations, with the national team going on to win the tournament. It also hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the 2007 World Twenty20 Championship.\n\nIn 2004, the swimming team of Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Athens, simultaneously breaking the world record in the 4x100 freestyle relay. Penny Heyns won Olympic Gold in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In 2012 Oscar Pistorius became the first double amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympic Games in London. In golf, Gary Player is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time, having won the Career Grand Slam, one of five golfers to have done so. Other South African golfers to have won major tournaments include Bobby Locke, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Tim Clark, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.\n\nEducation\n\nThe adult literacy rate in 2007 was 88.7%. South Africa has a 3 tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by high school and tertiary education in the form of (academic) universities and universities of technology. Learners have twelve years of formal schooling, from grade 1 to 12. Grade R is a pre-primary foundation year.\n\nPrimary schools span the first seven years of schooling. High School education spans a further five years. The Senior Certificate examination takes place at the end of grade 12 and is necessary for tertiary studies at a South African university.\n\nPublic universities in South Africa are divided into three types: traditional universities, which offer theoretically oriented university degrees; universities of technology (\"Technikons\"), which offer vocational oriented diplomas and degrees; and comprehensive universities, which offer both types of qualification. There are 23 public universities in South Africa: 11 traditional universities, 6 universities of technology and 6 comprehensive universities.\n\nUnder apartheid, schools for blacks were subject to discrimination through inadequate funding and a separate syllabus called Bantu Education which was only designed to give them sufficient skills to work as labourers. In 2004 South Africa started reforming its higher education system, merging and incorporating small universities into larger institutions, and renaming all higher education institutions \"university\" to redress these imbalances. By 2015, 1.4 million students in higher education have benefited from a financial aid scheme which was promulgated in 1999.\n\nPublic expenditure on education was at 5.4% of the 2002–05 GDP. \n\nHealth\n\nAccording to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the life expectancy in 2009 was 71 years for a white South African and 48 years for a black South African. The healthcare spending in the country is about 9% of GDP.\n\nOnly 16% of the population is covered by medical schemes. About 20% use private healthcare. The rest pay \"out of pocket\" or through hospital cash plans. The three dominant hospital groups, Mediclinic, Life Healthcare and Netcare, together control 75% of the market. About 84% of the population depend on the public healthcare system, which is beset with chronic human resource shortages and limited resources.\n\nSouth Africa is home of the third largest hospital in the world, the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.\n\nHIV/AIDS\n\nAccording to the 2013 UNAIDS Report, South Africa has an estimated 6.3 million people living with HIV – more than any other country in the world. A 2008 study revealed that HIV/AIDS infection in South Africa is distinctly divided along racial lines: 13.6% of blacks are HIV-positive, whereas only 0.3% of whites have the disease. Most deaths are experienced by economically active individuals, resulting in many AIDS orphans who in many cases depend on the state for care and financial support. It is estimated that there are 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa.\n\nThe link between HIV, a virus spread primarily by sexual contact, and AIDS was long denied by prior president Thabo Mbeki and then health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who insisted that the many deaths in the country are due to malnutrition, and hence poverty, and not HIV. In 2007, in response to international pressure, the government made efforts to fight AIDS. After the 2009 General Elections, President Jacob Zuma appointed Dr Aaron Motsoaledi as the new minister and committed his government to increasing funding for and widening the scope of AIDS treatment."
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